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LETTER: East Coast vs. West Coast energy plans

LNG seems to be a doubtful sustainable energy strategy, Tanya Coad writes.
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In his report for Boston Globe last November, Jay Fitzgerald wrote about Denmark’s DONG Energy A/S wanting to build a massive wind farm off the coast of Cape Cod, Massachusetts. The project would cost billions of dollars. Apparently the project is moving forward.

Meanwhile, proponents of Pacific NorthWest LNG are hoping to get permission to build an $11 billion LNG terminal on Lelu Island for the purpose of exporting LNG to Asia.

Given the current market for LNG, the cost of building a supporting infrastructure from fracking sites to pipe lines plus the $11 billion for an export terminal all for a fossil fuel that is helping to accelerate climate change it seems to be a doubtful sustainable energy strategy.

The Massachusetts project has the potential of producing 1,000 megawatts of energy that would be used within the region or added to the national grid. The LNG project, by contrast, offers short term job prospects, justification for continued fracking, some profits perhaps for the proponents and possibly some tax revenue for the province of British Columbia. There will be no additional energy available for BC or for the national grid. There will be ongoing problems related to fracking, pipe line construction and trans-shipping of hydrocarbons.

These news items from opposite edges of our continent offer a strong metaphor for different government approaches to energy requirements, sustainability and the need to mitigate the self-imposed impact of climate change.

Tanya Coad, Nelson