Truck Rallies To Push for Yes on LNG
Prince George, B.C.- Three communities across Northern B.C. will see truck rallies today as supporters push to have LNG projects given approval.
Terrace, Ft. St. John and Fort Nelson will be the scenes for the noon hour rallies which are meant to send a message to the Federal Minister of the Environment that the Pacific Northwest LNG project should be approved.
The idea for the rally was spurred on by the Independent Contractors and Businesses Association of B.C.. ICBA’s Senior Vice President, Gord Stewart says his organization provided support to organizers in Terrace following a series of television ads the ICBA has been running to help get projects to ‘yes” “Those (ads) started a lot of discussion on social media and elsewhere and a number of people started to call us from the northwest in particular.” He says the idea of a community rally in support of the projects came out of meetings with residents in Smithers and Terrace.
Stewart says once word got out about the planned rally in Terrace, folks in Ft. St. John and Ft. Nelson started organizing their own.
In all three communities, there will be a truck convoy which will wind its way through the communities to the site of the rally.
Stewart says the decision on Pacific NorthWest could be the first big economic decision by the Trudeau government ” It’s going to have huge economic consequences, and he’s got some parts of the environmental movement pushing him to say no, we’re just hoping to show Northern B.C. has a real face, it’s real people who are concerned about their communities and their future and we hope they consider that.” Stewart says he realizes the environmental assessment itself will be based on environmental impact, “But at the end of the day, it’s politicians who are going to decide to give it a thumbs up or a thumbs down and we want them to know that we want a thumbs up.”
There are expected to be between 50 and 60 trucks in the convoy in Terrace, while more than a hundred are expected to take part in Ft. St. John and Ft. Nelson.
It has been estimated the Pacific NorthWest LNG project could create up to 4,500 jobs during its construction, a further 330 long term operational jobs and about 300 spin off jobs.
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“China’s biggest energy company joined India in seeking to renegotiate long-term liquefied natural gas supply contracts amid a global glut that’s driving spot prices to the lowest in more than five years.”
China Joins India Seeking Better LNG Contracts for Buyers
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-03-11/china-joins-india-seeking-better-lng-terms-as-contracts-weaken
That’s all well and good, but who are we going to sell the LNG to if this goes ahead?
The Jordan Cove project in Oregon was recently scrapped, mostly because they couldn’t sign anybody to buy their product. Also as much as half of US LNG export capacity is at risk of being shut between 2017 and 2020, because of a glut of LNG on the marketplace.
I think the horse may have left the barn on this.
yep Crusty Clarke, is not pumping LNG as much as before.
Everyone in the world is producing more than we are consuming, Oil, gas, household items, electronics, appliances, everything.
Should be interesting future.
Yes, and still we push for even MORE ‘production’, believing insanely that somehow this will enable fuller ‘consumption’. We seem to be locked in a time warp ~ one which realises, correctly, that “unit cost is a function of volume”. But still can’t get it straight that there’s really only an actual reduction of ‘cost’ if ALL the ‘units’ can be sold. For it’s the TOTAL costs that have to still be fully liquidated through prices. And if we have to reduce price BELOW cost to sell ALL the product we’re just working our way into bankruptcy.
So far as natural gas is concerned, where is the real advantage to us in exporting this product for less than it costs to produce it trying to win some global market, only to find that the same product then has to be sold to us here at a higher price to try to make up the difference? How many more of our commodities can we do this with, and who is really gaining any advantage from it? And if we can subsidise sales abroad to have ‘jobs’, (whose incomes still won’t be enough to give most of us a good living), why can’t we subsidise sales here at home and have more ‘leisure’? Isn’t it the same thing, or is there some moral hang-up that we should be working our way into bankruptcy? Lets look at the REAL issue here ~ the way the ‘money’ system actually functions. Or increasingly doesn’t.
PETRONAS has given the Federal Government an ultimatum. Approve the environmental impact on this project by the end of March, or they are out of the game.
Not sure where all these jobs are going to come from. I can see the trucking industry being in favour because it is good business for them, however there are considerations in regards to the fish habitat.
Furthermore they will probably build most of this plant overseas and float it to Lelu Island.
I still say we should build two gas generating plants in BC. This would use up some of the surplus gas, would cost $3 Billion less than Site C generate 600 jobs over 3 years, plus 120 full time jobs, supply all our power needs for the next 20/30 years, and basically get this show on the road. We would have access to cheap power, that should drive some new industry into North Central BC.
The BC Government does not have any customers for the additional electricity from Site C. Especially now that Alberta has told them they don’t want any of their power, and the PETRONAS project will use very little as they would generate their own electricity.
As stated by Brother Gecko. I think the LNG dream balloon has popped. It never was a viable proposition in the first place, and was basically put out there to get the Liberals elected in the last election. They are now scrambling to come up with something that will get them elected the next time around.
PS: Having a few trucks driving around in three different cities blowing their horns is not exactly showing a lot of support for this project. Perhaps they should hold a rally in Vancouver and invite all those in favour of the project and see how many people attend.
The problem with running a LNG for electrical power vs Hydro. is the running cost. A lot more maintenance goes into LNG than a hydro plant.
When WAC Bennett Dam was built. it was overproducing consumption, but the province needed this to move forward. its capacity was used, 2nd dam was built as well. followed with MICA.
Just look around your house, and see how much power it uses, most new houses have 200 amp services now. 50 years ago it was 60 amp service.
We will need to sell our power, which is not a bad thing. The Americans will buy it. This time, we sell at a discount, take payment upfront, than deliver the power.
A LNG for power may be a choice, but it also could be done with private enterprise. The power lines belong to everyone. So you build a 400MW plant in the Peace, you can use BC Hydro lines to deliver to the US border. BC hydro has to charge a fee. So that option is still available in the future.
We don’t use LNG to generate power, we would use NG, close to the source. The liquification of NG into LNG is energy intensive. I have no problem with LNG, if the dollars and cents added up. Fine to sell it, it’s another thing to give it away. Expect very little revenue, and a small amount of jobs. Natural Gas is a low energy density fuel, best utilized close to the source. Our Government doesn’t want us generating with gas, but we’ll spend billions setting up a system to liquefy and export it to markets that will pay very little for it and will ultimately burn it anyways. But hey, those massively inflated numbers sure help garner votes at election time.
He spoke.. There is not a lot more maintenance between a damn and using a gas turbine.. You may see more cost if you use the NG to make steam then use a steam turbine. But both would be extremely cheaper to build than a damn.
I agree with Palopu. But they’ll never do that. No matter how much more sense it makes. Financially, we currently NEED to export, (even to another Province, like Alberta, but preferably to another country, to get enough ‘money’ to continue to make the present set-up look like it’s functioning. But when we look a little deeper, it’s pretty obvious it is not only NOT functioning properly, we’re going into the debt hole deeper and deeper, and it’s becoming ever harder for more and more of us to ever get out of it. So what do we end up with? A growing ‘financial’ poverty in the midst of a ‘physical’ plenty. And a fertile field for the demagogues, of both the ‘left’ and the ‘right’. One who will curry favour by promising to re-distribute an insufficiency, which will only reduce everyone to a permanent financial poverty and an economy that can never produce to its full potential to relieve it. And another that preaches everyone must work harder, produce more, and consume less. As if all this additional production should remain permanently unavailable, because if people actually were able to get what they want they just might stop working longer and harder. Mindless.
We should keep in mind that the LNG plant at Lelu Island would consume a lot of natural gas to reduce the temperature of the gas so it can be shipped. This of course causes a lot of pollution, just to get this gas out of the Country. If we are going to burn the gas, we might as well burn it for producing electricity in BC, rather than in Korea.
As far as maintenance goes, this can be offset by the huge dollars that would have been spent had we built Site C. $9 Billion and climbing, plus the pollution from Site C. plus the farmland that is flooded, and people relocated. There is also a 7% loss in power in transmitting from Site C to the lower mainland. This would be reduced considerably if we built a plant in Prince George, and perhaps one in Cache Creek, Hope, or some other area of the Province who certainly could use some industry.
Setting this all up and selling it to foreign interests, so that they can do what we will not do, doesn’t make sense. Seems to me LNG exports and Site C are short term solutions to long term problems.
The problem is producing meaningful jobs, that contribute to the economy . This is where the time and effort should be spent.
The Liberals are taking the quick and easy route, for short term jobs, and doing a sales job on us, thinking we are too stupid to figure out what is going on.
If anyone watched the press conference from the rose garden at the white house recently, they might also wonder how you can have alot of fossil fuel jobs while fixing the “climate change” impending disaster. It would appear to be a very warm and fuzzy pipe dream at its best.
You are all making one fundamental false assumption. That the government – NDP, Liberal, Conservative – doesn’t matter which – can do long term planning. They have one objective – get reelected. And this is partly our fault, because when you do get that rare politician who tells us the hard truth, we vote them out.
Time to move onto the next big thing. The market is flooded with cheap natural gas from all over the world. No doubt building the plants will boast the economy for the next 10 years. But after that it’s a crapshoot.
Palopu hydro electric is cheaper than gas that is a fact. Where ever hydro electric is the predominate energy source electrical rates are the lowest.
What will gas prices be in the future?
If site c is so expensive then all the past major generation was expensive to build but somehow we have about the lowest rates in the world. Now how can that be? Once built operating costs for a hydro electric plant is dirt cheap.
Pollution from site c, please supply more information.
Losses may be reduced a little bit if gas generation is built near load centers but then the more expensive operation will more than exceed those losses.
You seem to think construction is short term jobs, well construction seems to continue in one form or another. The economy affects the up and downs of construction. I have friends who have always worked in construction and have never been out of a job, move from one project to another. By your reasoning wouldn’t the construction of a gas plant be short term construction jobs, a lot shorter than the dam.
Farm land very little productive farm land will be flooded. Want to worry about farm land look at how the Fraser valley and Okanagan are being covered.
how is the building and operating of site c not producing meaningful jobs and contributing to the economy?
If the government is interested in creating jobs then they should start with infrastructure and updating our highways. This would create more employment for a greater number of people in this province than Site C ever will. If site c goes ahead you will find that most of the employment will go to some other country or province.
Why not in PG ? Sitting in their rigs rolling coal through our communities ? What an idiotic thing to do . The only benefit from this will be Christy and Rich Coalmans laughter . A convoy of useful idiots .
Ataloss, a convoy of useful idiots?
Right now, according to numbers that I see coming out of Fort St. John, there is a convoy approximately 580 vehicles, the breakdown being 240 big rigs/semis and 340 trucks/other.
I dare you, nope I double dare you to go to Fort St. John and refer to those people as useful idiots!
I dare you!
580 people out of 21,000 people doing this useless exercise . Why didn’t they just have their fossil fuel burn up in a gravel pit . There by not plug up the streets and the rest of our lungs while sitting on their butts behind air filters . What a waste .
Ataloss, you’re still here? You did see my earlier post on another thread regarding hypocrites using electricity and energy industry derived products, didn’t you?
Is it better to be a hypocrite than a useful idiot?
The premise of your argument on hipocracy is childishly black and white as are almost all of them . Double daring ? Really ? Infantile I’d say . The world is changing faster than most understand . I’d say it’s better to understand that those throwing this public tantrum are a very small part of even the trucking industry . One picks one battles . I’ve not eaten pork or beef in going on two decades . Match that .
No pork or beef in going on two decades? Not sure how this ties into this truck rally post but thanks for leaving more for the rest of us!
Speaking of trucks though, are your veggies, chicken and fish processed sustainably? Sure hope that none of your food is transported or delivered by truck!
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