Premier’s choices creating bad gas for B.C.

COMMENT: What do you think of the government's coal-fired generation plans? Let Premier Campbell know (premier@gov.bc.ca). Let your MLA know; in Maroc's readership that's John Horgan, the NDP's Energy Critic, john.horgan.mla@leg.bc.ca, and Doug Routley, douglas.routley.mla@leg.bc.ca, or check the government's MLA Finder, http://www.leg.bc.ca/mla/3-1-1.htm. Let Maroc's editor know, editor@cowichannewsleader.com.

If these two coal-fired generation projects are to be stopped, it will only happen if enough British Columbians tell the government to stop them. If they are to proceed, it should only be with full carbon capture.

And while you're at it, tell the government to set CO2 emission reduction targets in its new energy plan. It's likely to be released in a couple of weeks.

Premier’s choices creating bad gas for B.C.

Premier Gordon Campbell wants more electricity generated to supply our growing population and booming economy (and to sell into the U.S. market).

Besides shattering BC Hydro into four or five pieces, Campbell’s solution has us building two or three coal-fired generating plants. At this point B.C. still has no coal-burning plants producing massive pollution, nor any nuclear power plants with their radioactive pollution.

We appear to be just beginning to understand the problems we’re facing. Pretty well everyone (except maybe Exxon-Mobil) now realizes Earth’s supply of oil and natural gas is finite. Our market system dictates that as supply becomes less, the price increases.

Our response is not that we will use less energy. Our solution is to find new ways to produce the same amount of energy we now use. We’ve gone over the edge building plants to produce ethanol to burn in our vehicles, in spite of the fact we use darn near as much energy fermenting corn into ethanol as we get burning the ethanol in our cars.

Blessed with massive amounts of hydro-electric power, the cleanest — least polluting source there is — not depending on “nukes” like Ontario, not relying on coal as Alberta and the U.S. do, with more and more people everyday screaming to stop the greenhouse gas emissions, Premier Campbell decides to throw thousand of tons of nitrogen oxide, sulfur dioxide, mercury, and particulate matter into the atmosphere by burning coal.

Alberta is proof being rich doesn’t make you smart. Most of Alberta’s electricity comes from dirty coal-burning plants. Instead of burning their large supply of relatively clean natural gas to produce electric power, they burn it converting grimy tar sands into usable oil. If we could get Alberta to pull out of Canada, instead of Quebec, we would meet our Kyoto emissions targets immediately.

As Premier Campbell positions us to release more and more climate-changing chemicals into the air, he is also spending money that could otherwise be used to develop non-polluting power sources like wind, solar, tidal, and geothermal.

You would think Campbell and his Liberal braintrust could have picked the least polluting coal technology — but, of course, they didn’t.

Aside from shoveling big chunks of coal into the burner of a steam boiler, there are three basic ways we burn coal. There is pulverized coal combustion where they grind the coal into fine powder and blow it into the boiler. Or the fluidized bed combustion method, where the fine powder is mixed with lime and suspended or “fluidized” in hot air before burning. And finally there is the integrated gassification combined cycle in which coal is chemically converted into a synthetic gas and burned the same as natural gas.

Gassification results in the production 73 per cent less nitrogen oxide than the fluidized bed method. After Premier Campbell vowed British Columbia would “lead the world in sustainable environmental management,” he selected the dirtier fluidized bed combustion for B.C.’s new coal burning generating plants. Way to go Gord.

Got a tip or a comment? E-mail me at maroc@islandnet.com.