Thats quite a protest.

A small body of determined spirits fired by an unquenchable faith in their mission can alter the course of history.
- Mohandas Gandhi

I agree with the ladies. Oil companies will keep drilling, pumping oil and polluting the environment until the last barrel of crude has been brought to the surface.

Only then will they admit that perhaps it wasn't such a brilliant idea after all.

Then it will be too late to undo the damage.

Generations, eh?

Fisrt Nations can stop it cold...
but will they?
they create enough noise about everything else that might harm their land, people animals and such...
but I haven't heard much about them wanting to stop this....
I guess money talks?

How can BC be a green province with our hydro and biofuels resources, and then throw that all away allowing a pipeline with serious environmental risks to cross our province to export the dirty oil of Alberta to China? Will this encourage China to invest more in clean energy or subsidize their growth of dirty fuels? Something to think about in light of the BP disaster.

"Never underestimate the power of a small group of people to change the world....indeed it is the only thing that has."

Way to go ladies! Very cool to stand up for what you believe in :) Nicely done.

got to ask...did they drive there in their cars??

with all the crying about not drilling for oil or gas,i don't see any less vehicles on the road or less trains or planes.
let's face up to it, we can't do without
either of them for a long time to come.
trucking is about the only way to get food etc, to most communities.

nice. a couple hysterical, mis-informed, raven-haired old bitties. This is news??? The Enbridge rep should have asked where they parked then opened their fuel door and pointed to the sticker that says "UNLEADED GASOLINE ONLY" See that sticker there is why we need oil. Now go drive back home and find something worthwhile to do.

Antino Mills is a prof at UNBC in the First Nations program and she lives out at West Lake. - Yeah right we do not need to have oil. What she got a 20 min drive each way, everyday to work?

To bad the common sense and logic present in Prince George (and Alberta) can't be transported to all those folks in the lower mainland. Maybe to the granola crunchers on highway 16 west as well. Thanks to gamblor, happyman22 and polar7018

When will we admit that we have to wean ourselves from dependence on fossil fuels? Will we wait until all of Alberta is a tailings pond and the last strip of coast is coated in globs and sheens of oil?
I fear that we will wait until we hit the wall with supply not meeting demand causing prices to jump suddenly, crippling the economy and sparking social disorder on a scale we have only seen in the Third World.

I am SummerSoul and this is just SummerSoul's opinion.

The Stone Age did not end because mankind ran out of rocks. It ended because mankind advanced to new technology. The same thing will happen to our Petroleum Age.

It will be a gradual transition, accelerated by the need for clean air, soil and water.

And perhaps it will become more and more difficult to find new crude oil deposits and the stuff will become way too expensive for the average consumer.

Three cheers when that happens!

just imagine your life with out oil. the world population will fall below 1 billion. Life expectancy will likely fall below 50 years.

The internal combustion engine, and the jet engines are very important to the way we have built our lives around. Our world will likely be reduced to a 10 mile radius.
Our food supply will be great reduced and will become quite local.

Forget about going to work. The very fundamentals of survival will be growing food and bartering. The distance between the haves and have nots will increase immensely.

Lets see what it will do to the social fabric. Well, the elderly will be kept alive by family members. Forget about welfare. No checks. The weak will die.

We will be living our lives like the 1860's.

The good thing about it is, no taxes.

What does Antino Mills driving her car to work here in BC have to do with a pipeline that's going to transmit oil for export to Asia, or the United States, or anywhere else?

Will any of us HERE be unable to drive our cars if it ISN'T built? Will gasoline and other petroleum products become increasingly scarce HERE? Seems to me like there's more chance of that happening if it IS built, and we export it all, than if we don't.

And if it is built, will it LOWER the price of any of these products to us, here in BC? It won't? And in fact, for various reasons they'll all go up? Then just what IS its advantage?

He spoke, of course your comment is not a serious one, it's just to stir the pot a bit!

O.k., have you heard of solar power, wind power, wave power, tidal power, geothermal power, ethanol from corn and bio-diesel?

I am sure there are other power sources which mankind can explore and use.

Crude oil will always be in demand for making plastics, medicines, clothing etc.

To burn it is the worst possible waste, once it is burned it is gone forever. It cannot be recycled like plastics.

Recently an electric car in Japan went 647 km on a single charge of its battery pack.

As soon as reasonable range electric cars will be available at a reasonable price people will buy them everywhere.

The two ladies would have come to protest driving non-polluting cars that don't run on hydrocarbons.

He spoke and others ....

Do you really place so little faith in humans not coming up with the technology to move a one ton machine at 200+ km per hour along a German Autobahn using a fuel other than that which comes from oil?

You really do not understand the ingenuity of humans, do you? The continung reliance on oil is mainly due to the other characteristic of humans, their tendency to be lazy. So, we send more time to look for ways to extend the life of oil by transporting it to parts of the workd that have none rather than creating new technology to use a fuel that is found equally in all or most parts of the world.

Ingenuity and stupidity all in one species ...... :-)

"...coming up with the technology to move a one ton machine at 200+ km per hour along ..."

Not a problem at all: Hydrogen and ethanol.

BMW has a hydrogen powered family car which weighs more than twice as much and it goes faster than 200 clicks.

Brazil just recently found some oil reserves. The majority of Brazil's cars have been running purely on ethanol made from sugar cane for decades!

Brazilis the world leader in that non-fossil fuel technology.

We are the world leaders in driving heavy gasoline guzzling pickup trucks which most of the time are used for the transport of just one person: the driver!

Usually the cargo box in the back is empty.

Go figure.

alternative technologies are not ready. and when they are, great. Until then, its oil and we need this pipeline. Hydrogen and ethanol take more energy to produce than they yield - now that is waste. If the Enbridge pipeline gets quashed, Kinder Morgan will build a similar project through similar terrain to ship petroleum off our coasts to China. only difference is the central interior misses out completely. These products WILL move, question is do we get the jobs or not?

Selling to China is not as bad as you'd think. Its an enviable position to be able to sell to the good guys (US) and the bad guys (China) its why our economy is doing so well. But someone without any business acumen just won't understand that.

go ahead PrinceGeorge, you obviously need a lesson in hydrogen economics. Put your money where your mouth is - go buy a hydrogen car. They cost more because you are buying an experimental car and hydrogen storage is problematic, but no cost is too great for the environment, right? There is a hydrogen plant in PG, but you won't like the price. (hydrogen is very expensive to make and its made from natural gas which comes from an oil company, just so you know.) When you do all that, go pester the big dirty oil companies and show off your car and look down your nose at us polluters. Don't forget to share the costs of going $$$green$$$.

gamblor, you obviously need a lesson in today's reality.

a) The FMC plant in PG makes hydrogen peroxide from natural gas and from hydrogen gas which is piped to it from the Chemtrade plant. It does not make liquid hydrogen which is used in hydrogen powered vehicles. I Chemtrade had enough hydrogen gas FMC wouldn't have to use any natural gas at all.

b) There are no liquid hydrogen filling stations anywhere north of Vancouver/Whistler. Where would I fill up the hydrogen tank in my hydrogen powered car? Any ideas?

c) hydrogen powered vehicles are still too expensive and the price will only come down when they go into mass production, which has not happened yet.

d) hydrogen gas can be produced by electrolysis which requires electricity.

e) electricity for producing hydrogen from water can readily be produced by hydro dams, wind turbines, tidal power, wave power, solar power, geo-thermal power, etc.

f) Brazil has made ethanol from sugar cane for decades. It is a renewable green resource and it works extremely well.

g) If I had any shares in BP or other crude oil based companies I would sell them as soon as possible.

h) As soon as a viable purely electric car is available at a competitive price (sooner than you think) I will own one and I will thumb my nose at the petroleum barons.

Why do "we" need this pipeline if the product it transports is not destined for us, Gamblor?

True enough, we get some construction jobs out of it while it's being built. But because those construction jobs involve the distribution of wages for producing something WE don't consume ourselves, (the pipeline itself), all they'll do is RAISE the prices of all the things already on the market that we DO consume ourselves.

Businesses will temporarally profit from such a raise, but any benefits to them will be short lived. As there'll then be a push for higher wages to meet those raised prices. And when granted, business costs will then rise negating their increased profits.

Or prices will have to be raised again, trying to sustain them. Either way, all we're really doing is working with larger figures. No one is really any better off.

When the construction jobs are over we'll have a higher cost/price structure in our whole economy to contend with, and it'll be that much more difficult to market our other exports competitively.

The push to 'cut costs' to do so will lead to rising unemployment, as surviving exporters try to increase productivity through further displacing labour.

But that's only PART of the story. When we ship ever more oil to the USA and China, and run a favourable balance of trade with those countries from so doing, the value of the Canadian dollar rises in its exchange with those country's currencies. This should be a 'good' thing, for this effectively makes each Canadian dollar able to purchase, through exchange with those currencies, more American or Chinese goods.

It doesn't, however, make that same dollar purchase any more in terms of Canadian made goods, to Canadians

Nor does it distribute any dollars to Canadian consumers directly ~ they can only get them through continued employment. And if our manufactures become uncompetitive with goods imported, and jobs are lost when plants here can no longer compete ~ not because they're inefficient, or the people who work in them don't work hard enough, or are too highly paid, etc. ~ but simply because of the difference in exchange rates our oil exports have engendered, then how does that employment continue? Again, where is the overall benefit TO US?

Surely, after repetitiously making the same mistakes over and over again, anyone with a lick of 'business accumen', or even common sense, can see this so-called ticket to global prosperity is a one-way ticket to renewed inflation here. The cruelest tax of all, and one which has ruined every great civilisation all down through history, wherever it's taken root.

As usual, someone makes a statement that the crude oil from this Pipeline will be sold to China and everyone beleives it. They have also made the statement it will go to China and the USA, but people are overlooking the USA part. Why would American Oil Companies and Pipeline Companies produce and ship oil to China when it is needed in the USA????

I think the actual plan is pipe it to Kitimat and the move it by tanker to California, for processing in their refineries, and then distribution to US customers.

The shipping to China is no more than a presumption.

For all you people who are going to go out and buy electric cars, remember that you still need oil to grease the wheels, etc; Ships, Planes, Trains, Trucks, and all the Machinery in the world need oil to keep them running otherwise they will seize up. The Military of every country in the world cannot run without oil. So we wont be getting rid of oil anytime soon.

Windpower only supplies power under big gov. subsidies and where does the power come from when the wind don't blow. That is a big reason for building site C, to back up windfarms. Tidal power man oh man look at the screaming from fish farms now. Geothermal has been looked at for decades and no mass use except for areas like Iceland. Hydrogen takes more power to produce than it delivers. Ethanol, costly and decrease in power and mileage. Solar very expensive and cost will not come down anytime soon. Panels made out of very toxic ingrediants.

The only viable solution now is 4th generation nuclear power. Samll foot print, low cost.

Here is an interesting read on tanker traffic out of Vancouver-http://thetyee.ca/News/2010/06/03/VancouverOilTankers/

well, seamutt, nothing ventured, nothing gained. You set your own limitations and guess what? That is as far as you are going to go.

However:

The cost of solar has been coming down and it is still coming down. Tidal power (Bay of Fundy, for example) does not interfere with fish farms. Wave power is usually off-shore like along the coast of California...no fish farms there.

Tidal power is feasible wherever there are tides. Wave power wherever there are waves. Wind power can be a supplement to hydro power and vice versa.

Geothermal is in use even in the Greater Vancouver area where some condo developments use geothermal year round for heating and cooling, successfully.

The EU is looking at mega solar farms in the Sahara desert. They would make unbelievable amounts of electricity for Europe. Excess power can be used to pump water back up into hydro dams which can make power when it is required by releasing the water through turbines again.

Actually, thousands of engineers globally are involved in planning clean power generation for the near future and the more distant future when the world has run out of easily accessible cheap crude.

It will happen and like always necessity is the mother of invention.

Where do I even start? Hydrogen is commercially produced from natural gas and is ONLY used as a chemical feedstock, NEVER as fuel. Why throw away perfectly good natural gas or electricity to make more expensive hydrogen? Get a grip. As for ethanol, just try growing sugar cane in PG. Fail!

Who cares where the oil goes? Say you own a grocery store. Would it make sense to walk up to an oriental man and say "I'm sorry, I can't sell you groceries because you're Chinese and I don't like Chinese people." Then walk up to another till and make everybody put all their eggs back on the shelf and say "I will not sell anymore eggs because my daughter likes eggs and if I sell all the eggs, there won't be any for her to eat." Pretty dumb huh? You wouldn't be in business long. So why do you think we should do the same thing with our oil???

This pipeline is a valuable piece of infrastructure that opens up midstream processing opportunities in the central interior, nicely diversifying our economy. And The Tyee? I won't even waste my time...

Fishfarms I was trying to infer how people complain about the existance of fish farms now imagine tidal power plants with propellers carving up fish. Tidal power would be installed in inlets where the water flow is greater. I suspect there are fish offshore.

Geothermal is built with backup, that is the code, so added costs. Geothermal still requires electricity

Windpower, do not forget the efficiency of a windfarm is only 30% over a year so roughly a 400 mw windfarm could cover upto 80,000 acres. But I guess that can be built out of sight out of mind off shore. What about the birds they eat. Also anything built in a saltwater environment is very expensive to maintain.

"The EU is looking at mega solar farms in the Sahara desert" now what will that do to the ecology of the desert with solar cover, thousands of structures roads, power lines? I guess that does not matter as its only a desert.

There is no easy answer to our increasing power needs but if the goal is to keep our enviroment pristine the new generation of nukes is the way to go. France for example, 80% of its electricity is nuclear.

socredible,

by your outlandish thought process the best way to prosper is to sit at home on our ass's.

Do you really believe what you type?

Stompin, if what we're trying to do is to work at going broke, why in the world work at that? We CAN accomplish exactly the same thing sitting on our asses. We don't need to work at it.

Is it an "outlandish thought process" to ask just WHO benefits from higher prices, followed by higher costs, followed by still higher prices, followed by still higher costs, and on and on?

Certainly not anyone who is actually "working" for a living, and seeing the purchasing power of his earnings and any savings he's able to put aside constantly diminish in terms of what they'll BUY.

That's what WE will get from the pipeline's construction, Stompin. Higher prices, of all the things we need and want. Incomes will rise, too, but prices will always rise faster. And more and more will fall by the wayside, unable to afford the necessities of any kind of a decent standard of living. Suffering a purely 'financial' poverty in the midst of a 'physical' plenty. While our oil is shipped off to China, or wherever, in return for WHAT? More junk from there to clutter our already burgeoning landfills?

Will the pipeline's construction bring down the price of petroleum products to US here, Stompin? No, it'll raise them. And everything else. And for what? So we can have people like you, and that twit of a Premier tell us we have to "work harder" to be "number one" again. At what, going broke fastest?

socredible,

in your world any new jobs equal inflation. In your world that means new jobs are bad.

In the rest of the world new jobs means economic growth. Funny thing is economic growth is what is desired, because the opposite is recession and depression. Recession and depression mean more taxation for those working, more social programs to support the unemployed, spiraling debt.

Let me ask you this, when they announce the unemployment figures, why is nobody cheers when the numbers go up?

Your basic premise is very naive. In your world any new project which creates jobs should be frowned upon.

As I have said many times before, do you actually believe the crap you spew?

socred,

"About 1,150 long-term job opportunities throughout the Canadian economy, including 104 permanent operating positions created with Northern Gateway and 113 positions with the associated marine services."

http://www.northerngateway.ca/economic-opportunity

"About 62,700 person-years of employment will be created throughout the Canadian economy during the construction phase of the project, with 3,000 direct on-site workers required during the peak period of construction"

Anybody who tries to tell me that economically that this project does not makes sense for the region is an idiot in my books. There is no way to prove that this kind of economic benefit is much needed.

I will listen to the environmental argument and agree that they have some points which must be considered, but to argue that it is not good economically? That is absurd.

a correction to my above post

"There is no way to prove that this kind of economic benefit is much needed."

it should read

"This kind of economic benefit is much needed"

seamutt:"As for ethanol, just try growing sugar cane in PG. Fail!"

Go ahead, grow sugar cane in PG! It's YOUR idea, so give it a try!

However, alcohol can indeed be produced from wood waste of which we have plenty.

seamutt:"Why throw away perfectly good natural gas or electricity to make more expensive hydrogen? Get a grip."

You get a grip first! Nobody said anything about "throwing away natural gas or electricity" so read this once more:

Electricity to make hydrogen by electrolytic means is available from wind power generators, tidal power, wave power, solar power etc.

This hydrogen (which is not made from fossil fuels) can be liquified (if so desired) to potentially power vehicles which today rely on fossil fuels.

That's it.