Date: Tue, 2 Jan 2007 18:17:31 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [KCUTS] BC Gov't leaves us gasping coal fumes
From: meadow@netidea.com
Tuesday January 2, 2007
Black fuel not green
By BILL TIELEMAN
Coal - Environmental enemy No. 1
- The Economist magazine, July 2002
Did you enjoy getting the big lump of coal B.C. Premier Gordon Campbell
left in your Christmas stocking over the holidays?
That's right - at a time of rapid climate change, global warming and
melting Arctic
ice shelves, the B.C. Liberal government is promoting the use of coal - a
dirty fuel
that powered the Industrial Revolution in the 1800s.
BC Hydro has granted contracts to produce electricity from coal to two
corporations
which will build plants in Princeton and Tumbler Ridge by 2010.
That's despite a poll commissioned by BC Hydro in 2005 found that 74 per
cent of
British Columbians oppose coal-fired electricity.
It's part of BC Hydro's call for all-private power - another government
policy -
that resulted in 38 contracts being awarded to energy companies, with 29
hydro
projects, three wind power, two biomass and two waste heat.
But it's the two coal power plants that are the focus of environmental group
outrage. Together they could produce as much as 28 per cent of all the new
electricity contracted by BC Hydro.
So don't believe what the government and BC Hydro say about green power -
their
biggest single new source of power is coal and their hype is hot air.
The citizens of Princeton, where the new coal-fired power plant will
produce 56
megawatts of electricity by burning coal and wood waste, don't believe it.
They are
fighting back, with 1,100 letters of protest already signed.
So is the Western Canada Wilderness Committee, which says the two coal
power plants
would increase B.C.'s greenhouse gas emissions from energy sources by more
than 135
per cent - the equivalent of putting 457,000 additional cars on our roads
each year.
And the David Suzuki Foundation reports that B.C. government regulations
allow those
coal power plants to emit 300 times more sulphur dioxides per unit of
electricity
than the cancelled Sumas 2 gas-fired electricity project would have
produced in
Washington state.
Ironically, the B.C. government and Environment Minister Barry Penner were
praised
for opposing Sumas 2, and rightly so, since the American power plant would
have made
the air in the Fraser Valley even smokier.
But when it comes to coal and burning it in our own province, Campbell and
Penner
are saying bring it on and keep it coming for 30 years, because that's the
length of
each of the coal power contracts with BC Hydro.
It's a good deal for Compliance Energy Corporation, which is building the
plant in
Princeton and AESWapiti Energy Corporation in Tumbler Ridge.
For the rest of us it means increased pollution and more greenhouse gases
in "the
best place on earth" - unless the B.C. government changes its mind.
Don't hold your breath.
Hear Bill Tieleman Mondays at 10 a.m. on CKNW AM 980's Bill Good Show.
Website:
www.billtieleman.blogspot.com E-mail: weststar@telus.net
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