District Energy System Unaffected by Lakeland Fire
Tuesday, April 24, 2012 @ 8:16 AM
Prince George, B.C. – It appears the District Energy System has been left unscathed by the massive destruction caused by last night’s explosion and fire at Lakeland Mills.
Kristy Brown, Supervisor Utilities, engineering says Prince George Fire Chief John Lane has reportedly advised that the system’s Heat Exchanger building is some distance away from the Lakeland sawmill that was leveled by the explosion and it remains intact. Brown says city Operations officials are going to use their backup boilers to provide heat to the city buildings which are online. Four sites are hooked up: City Hall, the Coliseum, Civic Centre and the Four Seasons pool. She says the city is going to “button up” its construction on First Avenue and clean up at Lakeland “whenever we can get there.” Brown adds “we were pretty much done there already. We’ll just leave that pipe alone until they determine what we’re going to do.” As well she says a larger boiler which was going to be purchased next year will now be moved up, providing enough supply to the buildings hooked up to the system.
As far as future development of the energy system goes, Brown says we’re going to go back into the streets on 7th and Dominion and we’re going to the art gallery and to the Library, then to the RCMP building after that.”
Brown says the District Energy System really hasn’t been effected by the Lakeland fire. “No it’s really just the heat source that’s been affected. It’s going to be natural gas for a while instead of green energy.” She says this type of situation is the reason why they have the backup plant at 2nd and George. “We can continue doing business as usual.”
Comments
Oh I am so happy the airy fairy expensive pet project is okay. Just wondering is there a relationship to the explosion and natural gas feed to the boilers.
What about in the longer term? Was Lakeland meant to be the primary supply of wood waste?
2nd and George is where the backup plant is so I doubt the natural gas you speak of was the cause.
Will they ever know what caused the explosion? We can only speculate. Best guess is a dust explosion in the chipper room.
If they decide to rebuild it’s going to take a long time, possibly 1-2 years. The Babine site has just been released by Work Safe BC and the explosion was 3 months ago. They can’t build sawmills in a week.
So I guess the City of PG will be burning gas for awhile, maybe indefinately.
Posted this only 6 days ago in regards to the reduced timber supply – scary
Posted by: lonesome sparrow on April 18 2012 2:13 PM
Time to start planning to modify the district energy system to burn gas. Another option is to use all the pipe laying expertise they have gathered and run a line from the Foothills landfill and burn methane:-)
What district energy system? Stack gas economiser and some pumps. The thermal oil plant at lakeland has operated since the mid 80’s and not something new. Wish the city could get it right instead of BSing the public.
All the buildings that are slated to be hooked into the Community Energy System already used gas. The rational for going to hot water heating was to eliminate the use of gas, and to reduce pollution .
So we are now back where we started. Except we are now heating the water with the Gas at 2nd and George St. rather than in the individual buildings.
Furthermore Lakeland heats the water from steam etc; that is produced by burning wood waste, so it would naturally follow that if the mill is not producing then there is no wood waste, and therefore no hot water.
The fire at Lakeland along with the reduced fibre supply in the greater Prince George area due to the beetle kill, etc; doesnt bode well for the Community Energy System over the long haul, at least not as a viable operation as originally proposed by the City Engineers.
This would be another good project for the Government appointed Municipal Auditors to look at, once they get up to speed.
All the buildings that are slated to be hooked into the Community Energy System already used gas. The rational for going to hot water heating was to eliminate the use of gas, and to reduce pollution .
So we are now back where we started. Except we are now heating the water with the Gas at 2nd and George St. rather than in the individual buildings.
Furthermore Lakeland heats the water from steam etc; that is produced by burning wood waste, so it would naturally follow that if the mill is not producing then there is no wood waste, and therefore no hot water.
The fire at Lakeland along with the reduced fibre supply in the greater Prince George area due to the beetle kill, etc; doesnt bode well for the Community Energy System over the long haul, at least not as a viable operation as originally proposed by the City Engineers.
This would be another good project for the Government appointed Municipal Auditors to look at, once they get up to speed.
Does Ms. Brown ever get a sore back from shovelling manure?
Isn’t the distribution of said manure the responsibility of the communications director?
metalman.
The rational for going to steam heat was to reduce pollution, eh? Only a day or two with “clean heat” will compensate totally for the smoke from the mill fire? Uh, er um, OK.
The best laid plans of mice and men.
Cheers
I think they should hold off connecting any more City buildings until they’ve got a wood supply again.
The district energy system does a few things poorly. It runs at high water temperatures which means that condensing boilers don’t work well. At best they can hope for 80% efficiency with the district energy system whereas a condensing boiler can operate at 98% efficiency.
If the RCMP building and others were not connected to the district energy system, they could use condensing boilers which would mean less greenhouse gas emissions and less pump energy that would be wasted moving the water through the downtown. Not to mention the savings in not having to dig up our roads…
Did you say “digging up our roads”? Ha ha ha . Think anyone would notice?
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