BCH doesn't allow anybody in the province to generate large amounts of power and just dump it into the local power grid. It has to be added at a substation. The idea that the city has would require significant protection and control adjustments to how the electrical system operates in a way that has not be proven to be effective or stable for the power system. In this case I agree with BCH.

Plus we don't need another major source of pollution in the downtown core. Burn whatever you want to burn, outside of the bowl, and tap into the electrical system, say out by the airport where the major substation is. Course that defeats the purpose of using the lower temp water to heat the buildings but I believe the city's plans are flawed, given the air problems we have especially in the bowl.

This method of heating is widely popular in several Scandinavian countries and has been used for many decades now. I'm not sure how close the generating source needs to be for it to maintain full efficiency. Pollution can be minimized by scrubbers, although that removes particulate, CO and CO2 are unscrubbable products of combustion. Now Gordo wants to eliminate the C, so how does this factor in to this project. The green C initiative will kill this concept. Yet all the vehicles driven around are the major cause of pollution, not the 4 sawmills and 5 pulp mills. U get the point i hope. BCH will take any power, provided its enough MW for them to bother. So lets see here, no wind power, no nuke, no C producers. I think Gordo wants to hydro dam and flood PG. How long before BC gov, Hydro and Alcan start talking Kemano completion again. Canada is decades behind Scandinavia in environmental awareness, maybe our polits should spend a couple of our million and have a retreat there and find out how to do it. I don't know PG all that well, is the downtown core or any area utilizing hot water heating already, if not u have to put the structure in place. Who's gonna pay for that?

I don't live in the bowl, so I have no issues with using the bowl for hydro power production. Certainly gets the street people flushed out and cleaned up. It is a sacrifice city council should be will to make to improve the place for everyone.

Why not build a co-gen plant up by the airport and use the heat to keep the runway ice-free in the winter time so we can kick some Anchorage business over our way when weather permits. Seems now would have been the time to do that, but I suspect the downtown people wouldn't support that because they like the air pollution.

I notice Vanderhoof and Houston also cancelled their co-gen plans and the bee-hive burners in those towns are doing double overtime wasting split off resources that could power 60,000 homes, but instead the burners contribute to our greenhouse gas emissions and reduced employment opportunities. Between the dozen bee-hive burners currently going full speed in the PG region we could power the entire regional district of Prince George without ever touching the beetle kill wood.

Current policy looks like either resource management at its finest, or some kind of stick in the spokes some where along the line....

IMO Canfor is not interested in the cost of facilitating a workable system to capture the waste hog for transport because a burner is convenient and allows for little interruption in their primary business of 2x4's. If Canfor could be convinced to run a co-gen plant in those towns with burners going they may be interested in utilizing the resource, but otherwise, its all about maximizing invested dollars for their hedge fund owners.

Chadermando, excellent post. A+

Well said, Chad! Above all, no CO2/CO etc emitting powerplant should be on the agenda for the bowl area/airshed of Prince George!

Who in his/her right mind would even entertain the idea of building something like that?

"Who in his/her right mind would even entertain the idea of building something like that?"

I suppose it is obvious then that the people who are entertaining the idea are not of right mind.

;-)

With the CO2 emissions from wood burning, one has to keep in mind that some others not quite in their right mind have decided that CO2 from wood burning is green energy while from coal or oil, it is dirty energy.

Reason ... with wood, we are burning a product which would have given off CO2 and methane in it decomposition anyway. A smaller amount is returned to the soil, and a small fraction of that may eventually end up being oil or coal in the next few million years.

So, we are removing CO2 contributing materials (oil, coal, gas)that have been sequestered for a long period of time while letting the current crop of wood decay on the forest floor to create GHG in its decaying process. Thus, we could be producing more CO2 than we have to.

The notion is controversial and the main one so far invovled in carbon trading as stated in the following: "I create more carbon than I should ... but will pay to have more trees planted next season." The jury is out on that concept, but people are going ahead with it anyway because it makes everyone feel good. :-)

Maybe the city should install heat sucking devices on top the asphalt of most major drive-thrus in this town. The heat from the exhaust and cat converters from these autos and SUVs can be used to offset carbon emissions from other sources. Thirteen vehicles at one drive- thru ( I counted 'em.), oughta generate a lot of heat.

Only 13 Vehicles. Must have been a slow day.

The idea to burn woodwaste to generate heated water to heat downtown buildings was and is, as far as I know the brainchild of the Mayor at least thats where I heard it first.

All these building are presently being heated by Hydro or Gas, so there is no need for a third option. This is all about getting and spending Provincial Money. Much like the Undrgound tunnel on Highway 16 etc;

The question has already been asked. However here it is again. Who will pay for the infrasructure to the streets and buildings to support this idiotic idea?