Is that the same Dave Zirnhelt that was forest minister when Carrier Lumber was granted a license to log the original pine beetle epidemic only to also work for the local indian band at the same time as a 'consultant' which saw the indians recieve title to the land and subsiquently refuse Carriers right to log the infestation? Thus costing the province $150 million in the Carrier law suit and billions in the eventual and future cost of the pine bettle epidemic killing our forests?

If so we shouldn't trust him as far as we can throw the liability he already saddled this region with.

My understanding of coal gasification is that it salinates the surrounding soil and kills all plant life for miles around any and every such development that has ever been built. They always say its safe, and then they don't understand after they have ruined the land for any other value and move on leaving the land owners with land they can not grow on.

I would be very suspect of this so called 'development'.

This coal gasification process is known as the Fischer-Tropps process, extensively used in South Africa for many decades to produce diesel fuel, naphta and other volatiles.

I am surprised that anyone remembers that it was during the NDP years that the first big pine beetle infestation was allowed to escape from the park due to the refusal of the powers to be to permit any logging in any park.

Of course, the rest is history.

A formal petition is a good idea. And if that doesnt work, then we should be looking at recall for one or two MLA's to show that we will no longer be pushed around by Big Companys,
or Big Government. There comes a time to draw a line in the sand. If we continue to let Politicians do whatever they chose, then we are responsible for the results.

The world is not knocking on our door for anything. This coal mine will make Diesel,Naptha, and generate electricity from a liquid petroleum power plant. In other words more power to be sold to BC Hydro to go to Powerex to be sold to the USA. To suggest that this power is needed by BC Industry would be foolish . This Province has all the power it will ever need. All power generated in the last 10 years has been done to maintain and increase sales to the USA. BC Hydro and the BC Government make piles of money on this. They have little or no concern for a few thousand acres South of Quesnel. Dont forget that Alcan was prepared to dry up the Nechako River to generate more power to sell to Hydro/USA., and is still selling surplus Power to Hydro while it lays off people who should be working in the Aluminum plant making ingots as per the original agreements (1951) The city of Kitimat I beleive is sueing Alcan to make them conform to the original agreements.

Its all about power sales to the USA and money for Hydro and the BC Government nothing more.

During the ten years of NDP government in B.C. Alcan was already cutting back its workforce in Kitimat and B.C. Hydro (which is owned by us, the citizens) was selling huge amounts of power to the USA, for of which B.C. Hydro didn't even get paid for.

The Soderberg smelting process for which the smelter in Kitimat was built has been superceded by a way more energy efficient method which is used in Alcan's new 2 billion dollar smelter in Quebec. Alcan has joined with one of the largest aluminum producers in the world, a French company. After this merger Kitimat represents less than 10% of Alcan's total smelting capacity, so it has become less important than it was before.

It may not be in Alcan's best interest to run this smelter forever if it can't sell some surplus power to offset the disadvantage of not having the latest technology.

The power that is produced in Kemano is clean power - perhaps B.C. Hydro should look into acquiring an interest in it with a long range plan of taking Kemano over.

Aluminum smelting causes a lot of air pollution. Just look at the forests between Kitimat and Terrace - those trees starting dying off already in the sixties!

>the USA, for of which B.C. Hydro didn't even get paid for.<

Correction: ...for some of which B.C. Hydro didn't even get paid for.

Diplomat, Alcan built its smelter in Quebec because Quebecs crown corp Quebec Hydro gave them a long term agreement on a subsidized hydro rate to run their smelter plants in Quebec.

In BC rather than give them a subsidized rate on hydro to create jobs we gave them our second largest watershed so they could make billions selling our water resource in the form of hydro power to the American's knowing full well they could shut down their smelter here and replace it with subsidized hydro from Quebec in which they do not control and can not sell for billions to the Americans.

This is a violation of this province and should be stopped immediately. The only solution is a nationalization of Kemano under BC Hydro and legislation to ensure any future hydro projects in BC are 100% controlled and owned by the crown corp of BC Hydro. Period. IMO not negotiable.

When I get involved in politics this will be a priority.

Chad, actually I agree with you as far as Kemano is concerned.

B.C. Hydro claims to be a net importer of electricity as during peak periods we must rely on getting quite a bit of power back from the States.

Alcan's advantage in Quebec may be due in part to the ability to get power at a special rate but the reduction process that is used in modern smelters uses a lot less power per pound of aluminum.

One would think that Alcan would convert the Kitimat smelter to the new technology, but it may be prohibitively expensive.

Alcan has about 40 years left in the 99 year agreement it signed with the province.

Alcan wouldn't give that up without a huge carrot and a lot of diplomacy.

"Admin" is the real guru when it comes to Alcan, Kemano, the Kenney Dam and the Nechako River.

Lefty: "Dino you make about a smuch sense as the last Amway pitch I heard. "

I looked at previous posts and can't find any "Dino."

Just in case you meant me: Not much makes sense anymore to many people! For instance, on page 6 of today's Citizen I read that Jack Layton went to have a hernia operation at a PRIVATE CLINIC!!!!!

Wow!

Perhaps Mr. Layton should run for President of Amway! He has all the necessary talents!

The Fischer-Tropp process of getting carbon distillates from coal appears to be a viable economic alternative at today’s oil prices. It is 80 years old and Sasol, from South Africa probably has a pretty good handle on the modern technology which allows some of the byproducts to be removed from the environment. I say some, by no means all.

It suffers from major CO2 emission problems under today’s Kyoto protocol environment. They have recently converted a plant in Sasolburg http://www.sasolburg.net to natural gas and have had a considerable reduction in pollution as a result. http://sasol.com

“Global acceptance of the Kyoto Protocol could have a significant effect on Sasol’s gas-to-liquids (GTL) and coal-to-liquids (CTL) operations. Sasol’s CTL operation in Secunda is a large man-made single point source of CO2.”

Bottom left: http://sasol.quickreport.co.za/sasol_sr_2005

For new plants proposed in China and other countries, they are working on carbon sequestering processes. So, I am wondering why, when Canada is self sufficient in oil, one has to remove coal from the ground at this stage, to gasify or liquefy it. If South Africa, which has become a leader in the technology due to its historic fate, is converting the process from coal to natural gas, should we not be waiting a bit longer for improved technology? The coal is not going anywhere. Besides, we might want to use it for something really unique – to fire up our own manufacturing industry rather than giving others the energy to expand it or even keep it going. Let’s get some added value from this stuff, even if it becomes part of the negotiation with the USA to get direct access to a portion of the energy.