Here it comes ...... people in the Millar subdivision and anyone living and working in the immediate downtown area should be ecstatic.

Hopefully there will be proper disclosure and public processes surrounding this proposal which will deal with air quality.

Greenhouse gases are in many ways a separate issue from those emissions which cause air quality to decline. Air quality concerns the availability of breathable air. Greenhouse gases concern the impact of global warming. Considerable money is available to reduce the latter, while very little is available to protect human health.

Another election issue?????

This photo is a perfect candidate for a caption contest.

It should be understood by now that this community will face a crisis when the pine is gone. Even more layoffs and closures. I commend the people whom have put this project together. Forget the rhetoric and look at the project itself. Does it support the local economy? Yes. Is it good for the community? Yes. Is it harmful to the environment? No. I think we should all thank those people that have made this possible!

Okay, now explain to me how you save the environment by reducing green house gases as a result of burning less natural gas, and burning bio mass instead. Isn't 'biomass' fancy phraseology for waste wood products? What we used to call 'hog fuel'? Are you not still burning a carbon based material? releasing the carbon to the atmosphere by burning "biomass" instead of "hog" what is the bleedin' difference??? And with PGPulp already burning wood waste to generate steam to generate electricity and sawmills shutting down due to poor lumber markets, isn't this really just somebody's pet project? I mean you cannot get any cleaner energy creation than hydro-electric, once it is built of course. It seems to me that there are plenty of initiatives (I hate that word) out there to deal with wood waste (PG PULP, NORTHWOOD PULP, I don't know about INTERCON, pellets, MDF board, ad nauseum, why do we need this? And I do not believe for a minute that they can operate this for only 305k per year.
metalman.

Am I to assume that wood burning is now acceptable in the PG airshed? I can now feel free to have weinee roasts in my back yard or is this still a major cause of air polution? I think that I too shall go green with the "biomass" stratagy. Shut down the furnace that burns gas or oil and heat with wood instead thus allowing more of the green stuff to stay in my pocket.

Old Hippy:"Shut down the furnace that burns gas or oil and heat with wood instead thus allowing more of the green stuff to stay in my pocket."

Some city residents have been doing that for years already.

I have lived in the Hart Highlands for many years. A few years ago many of my neighbours starting burning wood to heat their homes from September to April.

Every one of these residences is on hydro and natural gas for a primary heat source yet air advisories are totally ignored (!)and the air (especially in the morning) is thick enough to cut with a knife.

If it is o.k. to pollute the air in a residential area far from the city bowl then it will probably be just as o.k. to emit cancer causing wood smoke 24/7 into the already compromised air in the downtown area.

The deciders in the above picture have determined that the wood burning project is improving the quality of the downtown air - although to me (and what do I know?) it is a complete mystery as to how that could be happening.

I realize that the burning of a fossil fuel (natural gas, oil, coal) is replaced by the burning of wood waste which is not classified as a greenhouse gas producing fuel.

That may be true, but the burning of wood stinks and pollutes more than the burning of natural gas.

That wood burning power plant should be located out of the bowl area and the energy it produces piped or transmitted to where it is needed.

As usual these yahoo's are out of control. We presently have buildings heated by Natural Gas or Electricity, and we are now going to burn wood, to heat water, to heat these buildings. So we are into transportation of hog fuel (pollution) underground piping (stupid) piping into the buildings , heaters, etc; (stupid again) and last but not least burning wood below a long time residential area with a predominate South wind. (Stupid again)

Do these politicians ever think about what they are doing or are they really that naieve. Good God we have to get rid of them. We would be far better off being represented by monkeys. At least they would do us no harm, and we could feed them peanuts.

This whole **BS** venture is to give the impression that the different levels of Government are doing something about the pine beetle problem. The $8.3 Million would pay the heating charges on these buildings for the next 20 years.

If this is really a sensible project, then we should purchase the excessive steam from Prince George Pulp and Intercon Pulp and pipe it accross the river to heat these buildings. That way we would get the benefits without the pollution. That would be a common sense solution. However the real solution would be to do nothing.

This may be the project thats gets these less than desireable politicians on the run.

I tend to agree with you and metalman diplomat...
I fail to see how substituting wood/hog fuel for clean natural gas/hydro is better for the enviroment or peoples lungs?
We already know how it hangs in the bowl area!
Maybe I am just missing something here?
(and I also question an annual budget of $305 thousand dollars a year).
I live in a cancer causing smoke cloud all winter from the surrounding wood stoves in my neighbourhood and it's not pleasant,but I understand it, for the sake of peoples wallets.
Maybe this project was presented wrong, and we need more details,but I still think this defeats the purpose.
And one thing we should never forget,when the pine beetle is done devastating our forest industry,this kind of a project is going help very few of those who lost their jobs!
How many people will it employ?
Talk to me about something along the lines of mining,pellet plants,OSB,or whatever,but only outside the bowl area. Then I start to get the picture.
It is not my intention to be negative about the project in general,and perhaps we just need more information,a lot more!

Andyfreeze. This project is the brain child of the Mayor and his co=horts. Need I say more?

One might feel a little more confident about this project if the picture had 5 entrepreneurs around the map and not 5 politicians. The economics - revenue of $685K and costs (if thats what is meant by "budget")of $305K which yields a margin of 55% - would have most investors drooling.

But then this is not about business, its about politics and while there may be 3 levels of government involved here, there is only one tax payer.

metalman:

To answer your question earlier:

The difference between burning wood and burning natural gas is that during the wood's lifetime it consumed CO2, and that same CO2 is being release when it is burned. It is a carbon neutral process. The natural gas was deposited into the ground thousands (?) of years ago, so when we burn it, it is adding CO2 to the atmosphere that has not been around for thousands of years, so we see an increase in CO2 in our lifetime.

However, as far as air quality (not global warming) is concerned, it seems to me that burning wood would be much worse than natural gas.

Also, I agree that the plant should be built away from bowl. They should generate electricity and use electric heaters in the businesses that want to join the plan. It may be less efficient, but it seems to make more sense than burning biomass in the middle of downtown. It also requires much less infrastructure to add new customers to the system, because everyone already has power cables installed in their buildings.

metalman:

To answer your question earlier:

The difference between burning wood and burning natural gas is that during the wood's lifetime it consumed CO2, and that same CO2 is being release when it is burned. It is a carbon neutral process. The natural gas was deposited into the ground thousands (?) of years ago, so when we burn it, it is adding CO2 to the atmosphere that has not been around for thousands of years, so we see an increase in CO2 in our lifetime.

However, as far as air quality (not global warming) is concerned, it seems to me that burning wood would be much worse than natural gas.

Also, I agree that the plant should be built away from bowl. They should generate electricity and use electric heaters in the businesses that want to join the plan. It may be less efficient, but it seems to make more sense than burning biomass in the middle of downtown. It also requires much less infrastructure to add new customers to the system, because everyone already has power cables installed in their buildings.

Palopu...'nuff said!
I did some reading up on this idea over the afternoon and not suprisingly,as far as I can tell,the wood smoke issue beats the hell out of any benefits!
At the very least,it defeats the purpose,so whats up?
As Alice in Wonderland said...this gets curiouser and curiouser!
And then... I looked at the picture.....
:-)

There are several greenhouse gases. CO2 is only one of them, apparently accounting for 80% of greenhouse gases. It is the key one when it comes to burning of carbon based products such as wood and fossil fuels.

So, dealing only with CO2 in this case, what we are being told is that the amount of CO2 which we are pumping into the atmosphere has increase considerably since the time of the industrial revolution. In fact, based on recent scientific information, the rate of increase is increasing considerably.

http://www.csiro.au/news/ps2im.html

The fallacy that is being sold to us by people around the world is that it is better to burn biomass that exists above the earth’s surface in the form of living organisms that have sequestered carbon rather than biomass that exists below the surface and has carbon sequestered in the form of coal, oil, etc.

As I have been known to say, mother nature does not know the difference between a CO2 molecule from coal versus a CO2 molecule from a piece of pine. By burning a piece of pine, we are simply instituting the short-circuit part of the carbon cycle. We are not putting less carbon into the air. Far from it, we bcome complacent and get into a feel good mood, and watch the CO2 meter of PPM keep on climbing while fields of corn are sold for biomass and our food source becomes more expensive.

The only way we are going to reduce the amount of CO2 going into the air is to reduce our dependence of energy derived from carbon based materials, or figure out a way to remove much or all of the carbon in the process of combustion.

So, hydro, wind, geothermal, tide action, etc. are some of the viable alternatives depending on the region one lives in. Even atomic is still out there and having some renewed interest.

Reduce and replace would seem to be the options. In addition, we have the carbon removal option.

Locally we have one firm working on the removal of some of the carbon during the combustion process of converting the energy derived from burning wood so that not all the carbon is consumed in the process. That carbon can then be used in other industrial processes which do not create CO2 or it can remain unused and sequestered. I understand that the process not only puts less CO2 into the air, but also less PM. With high end scrubber technology, the process is likely relatively “clean” from an air quality point of view.

http://www.alternaenergy.ca

Finally, there is the matter of CO2 plus PM emission in the transportation process. Using normal trucking is dirty all around compared to piping in natural gas.

So, I need to see what the City has planned. It is probably quite possible to have this thing be RELATIVELY clean. But, we need a non nonsense, no BS report from this City on how they are planning to do this.

In other words, where are the experts coming from in this case? Is Heidi going to have to get busy with google again?

;-)

---------------------------------
carbon sequestering project in Saskatchewan – bringing CO2 form the USA into Canada in order to sequester it underground and assist with recovering oil out of the ground.
http://www.basinelectric.com/EnergyResources/Gas/CO2_pipeline.html

Well at least now I know why the pipe is soooooo important---nothing to do with flooding, just icing on the cake! Unbelievable! The poor air quality has little to do with wood stoves and hot water heat anyways. Diesel fumes, car exhaust, and industrial emissions are the primary sources, but it is so much simpler to point the finger at the little guys right? We should all get pellet stoves! Lots of manure around here to burn too! Imagine the savings.... :)

OK, thanks for the explanation jarodl, and owl, as usual, your replies are concise and apparently well researched. So my aim is a bit off, targeting "greenhouse gas reduction as B*##$!&!" but just how far off? Carbon is carbon, boys and girls, sequestered or not and we are proposing to burn it. Now, I am definitely in the group that believes we CAN burn cleanly, of course it can be done, it is just very expensive to put into place, and maintain.
As owl says, trucking the wood waste to this fantasy will create a lot of pollution too (or will biodiesel save the day? it too is carbon based)Like palopu says,
if PG Pulp has excess steam to 'give' away for the purpose of heating water to boil a few fish, and it is winter, then they should really have a lot of excess steam in the summer when they aren't using a lot of it for heating the plant, why not keep their boilers running at peak efficiency all year round and make even more electricity?
metalman.

Is Prince George thinking outside of the box? Wow it is about time they started new business and forms of alternate energy. Keep up the thinking........Good job Colin.

Burning wood for energy? New business?

We have been doing it for thousands of years. The poorest countries in the world are doing it. They have denuded the land of forests in doing so.

At our rate of energy need, we will be the quickest ever to denude the land of forests if we are going to replace oil and gas in that fashion. Getting rid of oak trees and forests in England to build ships for their navy a few hundred years ago will pale in comparison.

The article is refering to wood waste...so really, when all is said and done, it isn't a bad idea. And hot water heating is still one of the better solutions. Technology on wood burning stoves has advanced to produce a cleaner burn. If you maintain your chimneys and burn properly seasoned wood, not green wood and no garbage, (which I suspect the majority aren't doing) then the traditional stoves/fireplaces are clean burning too. The reality is we can't escape needing to heat our homes and run our computers! We can not just focus on one action, but a series of actions to reduce our imprint on the planet. IMO, we are on the right road. I wish this project, complete success!

I don't know about spending so much money to heat 8 buildings. I'm just not a buyer so far.

Health Alert!! From the MOE, with strong support from the Sturgeon General. Humans are the major contributors to global warming resulting from exhalation of hot CO2. New local bylaws are effective as of 7:00 AM PST, persons residing in even numbered houses must hold their breath every 3rd minute for 1 minute, starting from the top of the hour. Persons residing at odd numbered houses are to do the same starting 1 minute from the top of the hour.
If you do not comply, you will be sedated or TAZERED. Persons using medical support oxygen are currently exempt with proper documentation and permits. Cannabis users holding their tokes for a minute are in compliance with the bylaw, provided they are on the correct interval. For more info www.MOE.ca or www.passingout.ca

Then again, CO2 only makes up 3% of the atmosphere. It's water vapour that is the big deal as far as greenhouse gasses go. And the vast majority of CO2 is from naturally occurring sources (less than 4% is man-made).

But people aren't good at math, so they tend to ignore it, and thus ignore the reality humans have very little impact on C02 levels one way or another.

Sorry to give the bandwagon a flat tire.

(I wish I could find my more authoritative source, but here the numbers are simmilar:
http://mysite.verizon.net/mhieb/WVFossils/greenhouse_data.html)

I'm much more interested in what a project like this does to our ability to breath.

Excellent article, very interesting Bohemian. Albeit I was inferring that global warming is just "hot air", your article states just that. We can't alter the natural course of mother nature. So I conclude, as feared, scientists with the assistance of their respective governments are misleading the public. Why? Long story, most people wouldn't agree with my theory so I'll short version it. We need to create new manufacturing opportunities to replace dwindling interest of other manufactured products. Secondly we can tax everyone for a problem that mother nature has bestowed on us. I do my best to be Eco-Friendly and so do millions of other people world wide. The North American society is by far, one of the worst polluter culprits of the first world countries and has been for decades. Canada has paid Finland millions over this period to purchase their pollution credits. Who else did they pay? We are terribly slow at adapting to green choices, ie wind power and hydrogen vehicles. Why? Money, there is more money in oil and carbon taxes than any available alternative. Notice the ECO- FRIENDLY products you purchase cost twice as much yet the are cheaper to manufacture.
Isn't amazing how much plastic and styrofoam one consumer sends to a landfill every week. Yet we have no plans to abolish these polluters. Money and big business rule here. So while we spend another 50 years trying to find a way thats economically sensible to get out of this mess, lets just tax are way around it. ECO-FEE everything, but lower my freakin income tax!!

Generalizing Goin Green= You Pay More!!