The Details of 'Going Green'

Tuesday, January 22, 2008 07:43 AM

The corner of Scotia and 5th Avenue will be home to the community energy plant

Prince George, B.C. - Laying the groundwork for the just-announced Community Energy Plant (CEP) began four years ago, and there are still some details to be hashed out...

Director of Development Services, Bob Radloff, says city staff made an application for the initial feasibility study to the Federation of Canadian Municipalities back in 2004. Yesterday, the $8.3-million dollar Phase One of the project was announced. (click here, for previous story)

The initial phase will offer a hot water heating system to a network of buildings in the downtown core, with the possibility of expanding that system in the future. It was announced that six city buildings and two private ones will be connected when the plant begins operations in 2009. However, the costs for the private businesses to connect to the system, and just which businesses will sign on, have not yet been determined. The City's Utilities Division Manager, Marco Fornari, says "Right now, we’re only looking at potential other buildings. We still have to finalize agreements and have some further discussions with them."

"So it’s (the cost) unknown, a lot of it depends on the building, but that’s still to be determined."

The CEP is not expected to create many jobs, at least not during this first phase. Fornari says, "The staffing is just basically to look at the boiler system inside, it’s not a large staffing demand once it is up and running."

The plant will be built with expansion potential that could one day include power-generation.

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Posted on Tuesday, January 22, 2008 07:43 AM in News by Michelle Cyr-Whiting

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Comments

Posted by: Bridge on January 22 2008 10:44 AM

This is unbelievable that our tax dollars are used for such a stupid project. November can't come soon enough so that we can have our say and be herd by these fools.

Cheers

Posted by: giterdun on January 22 2008 11:04 AM

CITY LEADERS ARE OFF TRACK AND WAY OUT OF TOUCH WITH REALITY.

Posted by: giterdun on January 22 2008 11:08 AM

IF THIS PLAN WENT TO A REFERENDUM,MY GUESS IS THAT IT WOULD GO DOWN WITH A RESOUNDING "NO". WHY ISN'T THE ELECTORATE AT LEAST POLLED BEFORE DECISIONS LIKE THIS ARE MADE. OPINION 250 COULD CONDUCT SUCH A POLE VERY EASILY AND QUICKLY. LETS HERE YOUR COMMENTS BEN?

Posted by: Harbinger on January 22 2008 11:13 AM

Lets take a "POLE" and see how many people can spell.

Posted by: owl on January 22 2008 11:43 AM

sole .... soul

pole ..... poul

pole ...... poll

poll ...... soll

isn't English wonderful?????

;-)

Posted by: red2b on January 22 2008 12:06 PM

We can't have back yard fires, but lets throw a bunch of wood in a burner (in the bowl) to heat up water. Air quality should be reaaaally good once this happens.

Posted by: giterdun on January 22 2008 12:17 PM

HEY HARBINDER... WHAT'S IT LIKE TO BE PERFECT?

Posted by: giterdun on January 22 2008 3:42 PM

QUESTIONS ABOUT COMMUNITY ENERGY PLANT...

1.WHY ARE WE BUILDING IT ON A 200 YEAR FLOOD PLAIN?

2.WHAT ABOUT STEAM EMMISSION [CREATES FOG]

3.WHAT ABOUT ALL OF THE FINES [SMALL PARTICALS OF CHIPS] THAT FLY OFF WHEN TRUCKS ARE UNLOADING?

4.WHAT ABOPUT CHIP TRUCK TRAFFIC IN DOWNTOWN?

5.WHO PAYS FOR DIGGING UP AND REPAVING STREETS?

6.WHAT IF THERE IS A LEAK IN THE SYSTEM AND GLYCOL ANTIFREEZE LEACHES INTO THE GROUND AND INTO THE GROUND WATER?

HAS THE CITY LOOKED AT THESE CONCERNS AND WHAT ARE THE ANSWERS? THE PEOPLE OF P.G. SHOULD BE AWARE OF THE POTENTIAL PROBLEMS.

Posted by: Harbinger on January 22 2008 4:29 PM

Being perfect has it's downsides. Trust me. That's Harbinger with a G.

Posted by: Palopu on January 22 2008 6:48 PM

Perfect people rarely if ever ask for a second opinion. I wonder why?

Posted by: loungingntheloops on January 22 2008 9:17 PM

The current leadership is starting to remind me of a once famous fiddle playing Roman!

I include more than just the Mayor in that list as well.

Unbelievable - $8.6 million? is that the number? and it doesn't creat enough new employment to even count, doesn't generate any new economic activity and sure won't bring tourists to town.

What next?

Posted by: diplomat on January 23 2008 12:20 PM

Take the $8.6 million and instead of building a wood burning generating station downtown - build a cluster of wind turbines on a hill in the vicinity, feed the generated electrical power into the grid and convert the downtown buildings to clean electrical heating and cooling!

This scheme is one of the most hare brained ideas I have seen in a long time! Somebody had this (in my humble opinion unbelievably stupid) brain wave and simply will not back off anymore.

Let's hope that as many years will elapse as did with the Cameron Street bridge kerfuffle before this smoke and fine particulates (fly ash) spewing monster starts to deal a final death blow to the air downtown.

Why has PACHA been so silent about this?

"What next?" It's just a question of time and we will be surprised again, for sure.

Can't wait for November.

Posted by: owl on January 24 2008 1:17 PM

Halfway down the page from BC Lung Association:

http://www.bc.lung.ca/airquality/climatechange.html

Biomass burning

Biomass such as wood and other plant material is considered to be �carbon neutral� when burned as an energy source because the plant absorbs approximately as much CO2 while it grows as it releases when it is burned. However, many units that burn biomass, including even the best wood stoves, have insufficient controls to eliminate toxic air emissions. Thus policies recommending biomass burning as strategy to reduce GHGs should not be supported until technology is advanced and regulations are in place to greatly reduce the air emissions.

Couple that with the Mayor's Task Force on Air Quality report, and we get wath appears to be the need for the City to very quickly provide more details on this proposal that will assure the affected population that the City's operation will be sueaky clean and the process of public information transparent and timely.