How can the Milburn make the statement that burning bio-mass will produce less particulate than burning natural gas? He must be the guy who commissioned the study that came back with the results 1 in 4 homes in PG are burning wood.
Time for these city hall people to can this community energy system fiasco. 10 years of on going BS is enough. Payback is in never, never land and all it will do is add staff to monitor the wood combustion units.
The citizens of PG want the roads fixed and all city hall does is buy more land downtown that no one wants, have grand schemes like boundary road, the PAC, new cop shop, waste 400 grand on a bid for the Canada winter games, and have a bunch of fairies roaming about town.
It is now time to quit ignoring the taxpayer. Next election ask the question. What do you want the city to do? Build a PAC or fix the roads. Pretty sure which option will get the most votes.

Headline:

City in Northern BC lays off 50% of its Administration and Staff, cuts Council to 2 to Advise new Mayor and hires 100 staff for its new City owned Paving Operations.

Subheadline. All city operations cease for the next 3 years as 45% of taxes diverted to repaving all City streets and laneways prior to the next elecion.

Mayor I.A.M. Resident is quoted as saying: "I will deliver what I promised."

How can he say that?

Because when one compares an old system of natural gas heated power plants used in institutional and commercial buildings with a new system of natural biomass central heating systems with the latest scrubbing technology, that can be true.

Natural gas has low particulate emissions, but it does not have none. Since natural gas is a gas, the filterable particulates are low. However, it also has condensable fractions of particulates. The worse a system is maintained, the higher the particulates produced.

Particulates from bio-mass are of the filterable type. With good quality, well maintained precipitators, the particulates can be reduced significantly. But, that is the ideal situation.

If the system is maintained as well as our roads, we should be worried .... :-)

I do believe the reporter in this case has a very good point.

Mr Rogers and his band of merry men (and women) set a horrible example for the residents of PG.

I hope Mr Rogers and his group of ferries are spending allot of time taining him for his ventures into private life again, he is in need of a career change.

Particlates from bio-mass are of the filerable type.

While this may be true for certain particulate matter it does not hold true for the VOCs created when burning wood. VOCs will require a wet precipitator. VOC's will certainly be visible at furnace startup and shutdown.
Natural gas does have particulate emissions but nowhere near that of wood. NG combustion, CH4 + O2......CO2 + 2H2O + Heat.
Secondly if the city does install a bio-mass plant it will probably only have to meet the provincial standard of the day which still makes the flue gases dirtier than the flue gases from natural gas being burned today. New low cost flame management devices that control oxygen content can go a long way to optimizing older NG burners.
If natural gas is such a dirty fuel why is clean up of the flue gases not required by the MOE?

The Community Energy System, the PAC, the Police Station. These are all project left over from the Kinsley era.

None of them I might add are worth the powder to blow them to hell. All are going to cost us Millions of dollars, and we will get absolutely no return on our money. This was the Kinsley mantra. **Build Big, Spend Big, and let the peons pick up the pieces**

We need a radical downsizing and cost reduction for the Police Station.

We need to scrap the Performing Arts Centre.

We need to scrap the Community Energy Centre. This centre is nothing more than a project dreamed up by the previous Council on the back of a napkin in a bar or restaurant over a drink, or coffee.

If it was ever costed out ;properly by someone who did not have a vested interest in it being built the whole concept would be flushed down the toilet.

If if fraught with all kinds of problems.

A. It is a polluter in the bowl area, and PACHA and the residents of the Miller addition will raise hell if they try to build it. Moving it over onto CN Property , or near Lakeland Mills is not a solution. To move it further away makes it not viable.

B. The City would have to compete with the local pulp mills and perhaps the pellet plants for the bio mass to run this plant. Over the long term the City would lose.

C. The City, along with the Province, and Feds have already spent approx $10 Million on the upgrade on River Road, ostensibily for the CN Container Terminal, however the CN Terminal has never generated enough truck traffic to replace that which was lost when Winton Global was shut down. I suspect that the road is really being upgraded as part of thier grand strategy for the Community Energy Centre. If so will they factor in a part of the $10 Million as a cost to build the plant. Highly unlikely.

D. All the streets will have to be torn up to lay the pipe to the various Government buildings and this will be a huge cost. Will the City factor this in, or will they say that the streets had to be upgraded anyway, and take the money out of the Street Paving Budget, the same way they did for the Round a Bout at the Nth end of the Cameron St., Bridge. thus having less money available for streets around the City that really need upgrading.

E. Will the City factor in the cost to install this system in all the various Government buildings? Ie; City Hall, Court House, Library, Civic Centre, Coliseum, Swimming Pool, Arts Centre, Government offices behind Ramada, etc; etc; etc; or will this cost be the responsibility of the various Government entities involved, and we will pay for it through other taxes.

F. Will the City approach Terasen gas and BC Hydro and give them an opportunity to continue to supply gas and electricity to the City and these buildings at a more competitive rate, that would make it unnecessary to build this plant,.

G. Will the City approach Canfor and look into the possibility of purchasing hot water from them and piping it to these buildings so that a Community Energy Plant wouldnt have to be built. Remember they purchased hot water and piped it a few miles down the road and poured it into the Nechako River to melt ice, so we know that it could be piped to the East end of the Bowl.

H. Has the City added in the cost of borrowing money for this project and extrapolated this cost over the repayment term.?

I. Has the City looked at the Transportation Costs of the Biomass keeping in mind that the origins will vary over time, and costs will rise. As fibre becomes scarce the costs will increase.

J. Last but not least the cost of employees and benefits.

These are just some of the obvious costs that the City should be looking at, and if they did it diligently, this project would be scrapped.

Most City projects are planned using the **Best case scenario** and **Wishful thinking** concept, and are so far removed from reality that they would make a serious business man cry.

Great post Palopu.

The city certainly does not entertain the same payback hurdles as private industry or projects like the community energy system would be long forgotten and money would not continue to be wasted on this money losing dream.