Goals are attainable: Hawes

By Tom Fletcher
Black Press
Feb 15 2007

Conventional coal-fired power plants won’t be permitted, as part of a B.C. government push to eliminate one third of the province’s greenhouse gas emissions by 2020.

“All new and existing electricity produced in B.C. will be required to have net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2016,” says the government’s speech from the throne, read Tuesday by B.C. Lieutenant-Governor Iona Campagnolo.

That’s also the year chosen as the deadline for B.C. to become self-sufficient in energy, making up the 14 per cent of power currently imported to meet the province’s needs.

“Effective immediately, British Columbia will be the first jurisdiction in North America, if not the world, to require 100 per cent carbon sequestration for any coal-fired project,” the speech says.

Energy Minister Richard Neufeld said the plant proposed for Princeton, which was planning to use a 50-50 fuel stock of coal and wood, is now looking at using all wood and taking advantage of supplies from beetle-killed pine trees. Biological fuel sources would meet the government’s new restrictions.

Neufeld said the coal-only plant proposed for Tumbler Ridge allowed in its design for carbon capture technology in the future.

“They’re reviewing their plan,” Neufeld said. “I’ve had discussions with them to see if they can actually meet that goal.”

Maple Ridge-Mission MLA Randy Hawes said Tuesday’s speech isn’t revealing a “completely new direction” for the party.

The speech reflects a “higher intensity program,” that Hawes fully believes is attainable within the timelines set out.

The new target would reduce B.C.’s greenhouse gas emissions to 10 per cent below 1990 levels by 2020. That compares with Canada’s Kyoto treaty commitment, which calls for emissions to be reduced to six per cent less than 1990 levels by 2012.

Environmental measures outlined in the throne speech include:

• using beetle-killed trees, wood chips and other wood waste to generate electricity, and eliminating B.C.’s remaining beehive burners

• a federal-provincial partnership to build hydrogen fueling stations and the world’s first fleet of 20 fuel cell buses, the start of a proposed “hydrogen highway” extending from San Diego to Whistler by 2010

• new tailpipe emission standards for all new vehicles phased in from 2009 to 2016

• unspecified incentives to retrofit existing homes and buildings to make them more energy efficient

• required reduction of greenhouse gas emissions from the oil and gas industry to 2000 levels by 2016, including a ban on flaring at wells and production facilities

• a new $25 million Innovative Clean Energy Fund to encourage the commercialization of alternative energy sources including geothermal, tidal, run-of-river, solar and wind power

The government hasn’t added to the current $2,000 sales tax break for new hybrid vehicles, saying only that “it will look for new ways to encourage overall tax savings through shifts in behaviour that reduce carbon consumption.”

The speech pitches B.C.’s Gateway project for the Lower Mainland as a climate-friendly effort, rather than one that will allow more vehicles on the roads. It emphasizes the new transit options opened up by twinning the Port Mann bridge and building North Fraser and South Fraser perimeter routes.

The speech promises changes to existing funding to municipalities to ensure regional transportation and housing planning.

“Working with the Union of B.C. Municipalities and the private sector the government will develop new incentives to encourage small lot sizes and smaller, more energy efficient homes that use less land, less energy, less water and are less expensive to own.”

© Copyright 2007 Mission City Record