While news of Saskatchewan’s plan for a small geothermal power plant was met with excitement by renewable energy advocates,  experts say British Columbia is far better situated to capitalize on the technology yet has failed to do so.

“It should be a little bit of a shock that a less good resource is being developed in Saskatchewan over a world-class resource in B.C.,” said Alison Thompson, chair and co-founder of the Canadian Geothermal Energy Association (CanGEA).

B.C. is located on the Pacific Ring of Fire, a geothermal hot zone. Maps produced by CanGEA found B.C. has enough geothermal potential to power the entire province.

“There are geothermal projects all up the coast but they stop at the border. There’s nothing in B.C.,” Thompson said.

“This is clearly not technical, not economic. This is policy driven.”

Northeastern B.C., a hotbed of oil and gas drilling, is home to one of the hottest recorded wells in Canada, measured at around 170 degrees Celsius. Aquifer temperatures in Saskatchewan’s Williston Basin are recorded at around 120 degrees.

“You only need about 80 degrees for power,” Thompson said.

Project developers in Saskatchewan signed the first Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) for geothermal in Canada with the province’s utility provider, SaskPower.

The same has not been possible in B.C., where a primary focus on hydro development, most pronounced in the recent decision to build the controversial $9 billion Site C dam, has taken up the lion’s share of the the provincial utility provider’s attention.

In 1983 the B.C. Utilities Commission recommended the province to explore geothermal as a potential alternative to Site C. As the Site C Joint Review Panel noted in its final report on the project, the province put virtually no effort into exploring alternatives.

“If the senior governments were doing their job, there would be no need for this recommendation” to explore alternatives, the panel wrote in its final report on Site C in 2014. “The low level of effort is surprising, especially if it results in a plan that involves large and possibly avoidable environmental and social costs.”

Critics argue Site C has actually forced out renewable energy industries like wind and solar.

“At CanGEA, we’re in our 11th year and we’ve been advocating consistently for geothermal in B.C. with no results with B.C. Hydro and the Ministry of Energy,” Thompson said.

The West Moberly First Nation, which is fighting Site C in court, has also advocated for geothermal to no avail.

“If Saskatchewan can build a geothermal plant, why the hell isn’t B.C.? Especially when they know there’s geothermal potential here. We’ve asked to partner with them on it,” Chief Roland Willson told DeSmog Canada.

B.C. Hydro’s Mandate Needs Update: Weaver

B.C. Green Party Leader Andrew Weaver told DeSmog Canada geothermal is long overdue in B.C. but that “B.C. Hydro’s mandate needs to be massaged, be changed a bit.”

“The problem with geothermal in the province is not that we can’t do it,” Weaver said. “The problem is B.C. Hydro is the only buyer of power so no one is going to invest the capital in a project if there’s no buyer for the electricity.”

He added: “We have enormous potential for geothermal — it’s stable, base power that’s renewable and it will happen in B.C. sooner than we think.”

Steve Grasby, geoscientist with Natural Resource Canada’s Geological Survey, said in the 15 years he’s been researching Canada’s geothermal potential he has seen a massive shift in public awareness and interest.

A 2013 Geological Survey of Canada report found northeast B.C. has the “highest potential for immediate development of geothermal energy” anywhere in the country.

“When we first started this most people didn’t even know the term and if they heard it they didn’t know what it meant,” Grasby told DeSmog Canada.

“There has been a huge increase in awareness on all different levels. Now we’re seeing a lot of growing industry interest with small companies and people exploring this new opportunity.”

He added test drilling has yet to be completed in Saskatchewan, so it could be some time before more detailed knowledge of that resource comes to light.

Grasby said there is “tremendous” geothermal potential across Canada but the highest temperature regions are in B.C.

“That’s where we really have the potential to consider electrical generation compared to just direct heat. There’s been a lot of interest and various projects pushing forward. It’s an exciting time.”

B.C. Policy ‘Indifference’ to Geothermal Hurt Industry

In Valemount, B.C., plans for a geothermal ecovillage are underway. If successful, the plan will not only produce electricity but also provide direct heat for the community, recreational hot springs, year round greenhouses and a first-in-Canada geothermal brewery.

It took several years for the company behind the project, Borealis Geopower, to land a drilling permit.

Thompson, who’s also a principal at Borealis, said the regulatory system is slow, full of setbacks and plagued by what she considers chronic indifference.

Policy in B.C. hasn’t kept pace with advancements in the geothermal field, she said.

“For example, B.C. Hydro only thinks about electricity and there isn’t a utility provider in B.C. that thinks about heat. Geothermal can give you electricity, it can give you heat and it can even be a source of precious minerals that don’t have to be open pit mined. It provides jobs and carbon credits.”

Borealis is now awaiting a land access permit for the drilling pad from the Ministry of Forests, Lands and Natural Resource Operations.

Thompson said the permit is stuck in suspension as B.C.’s political landscape remains uncertain.

“If this was oil and gas permitting it would be done in weeks. With geothermal, this is rolling out in the months and years,” she said.

Korie Marshall from the Valemount Geothermal Society said some of the lag time can be considered the hazards of trailblazing.

“It’s not always fun to be first. We’ve been coming up against all these roadblocks that no one understands. We want to help fix that for others coming up.”

“A big part of our goal as a society is not to just get this going in Valemount but to show the rest of Canada that we can do it.”

Geothermal Energy a Part of Community Building

Meanwhile, geothermal companies are chomping at the bit to get to work in B.C.

“At StromTech we’re actively engaged with clients in northeastern B.C., in the Peace River region, to explore geothermal. There’s lots of good opportunity up there,” said Ben Lee, engineer and geothermal consultant with StromTech Energy Services.

StromTech is in the preliminary stages of conducting a feasibility study for a community led geothermal project with the West Moberly First Nation.

Lee said smaller communities stand to benefit from local geothermal projects, especially where heat from geothermal projects can be used to prop up other industries and jobs.

“The fact that we can generate electricity and generate heat in sustainable, renewable manner — that’s sometimes overlooked or glossed over,” Lee said.

Lee said northern communities concerned about food security are especially interested in the co-generation of electricity and direct heat from geothermal.

“The ability to grow food and produce that for themselves, reduce their reliance on imported food whether that be from the Okanagan or southern B.C. or California, that’s of interest to remote communities.”

“Where I see an opportunity for government, for B.C. Hydro to make a difference is in supporting localized, distributed generation.”

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Saskatchewan has developed a bit of a negative reputation on the environmental front lately.

Guess that’s what happens when a premier threatens to sue the federal government over mandated carbon pricing and instead promotes the extremely expensive technology of carbon capture and storage.

That’s why it came as quite a surprise when provincial electricity utility SaskPower announced in mid-May that it had signed a power purchase agreement (PPA) — a contract for guaranteed sales at a fixed price — with geothermal company Deep Earth Energy Production.

The project in Williston Basin is an extremely small one: at five megawatts (MW), it will represent only 0.1 per cent of the province’s current electricity capacity. But it will be the first geothermal power project in Canada and experts say that it’s a huge step forward for geothermal, not only for Saskatchewan but the entire country.

“Saskatchewan is very quiet and all of a sudden boom, they make an announcement,” says Alison Thompson, chair and co-founder of the Canadian Geothermal Energy Association (CanGEA), in an interview with DeSmog Canada. “This is a little bit unexpected, but of course very, very positive. It has to start somewhere.”

“We don’t have any geothermal power generation in Canada yet,” adds Kirsten Marcia, president and CEO of Deep Earth Energy Production, also known as DEEP. “A successful project like DEEP will really help bolster other projects in other provinces to move ahead and get a little more traction.”

There’s also plenty of opportunity for retraining oil and gas workers for geothermal projects, including in manufacturing components, performing electrical work and operating rigs. In 2014, it was calculated by CanGEA that while the controversial Site C Dam in northeastern B.C. would only generate 150 permanent jobs, the same amount of power produced by geothermal would result in 2,000.

Saskatchewan Did What?! Province OKs Canada’s First #Geothermal Power Plant https://t.co/cf6kY2lrkb #SaskPower #cdnpoli #renewableenergy

— DeSmog Canada (@DeSmogCanada) June 7, 2017

A downturn in oil and gas production in Alberta has also left a highly skilled drilling workforce without jobs. The geothermal industry has argued the province’s abandoned oil and gas wells present an opportunity to potentially put thousands of drillers back to work.

Recent Changes to Federal Tax Code Helped Push Project Forward

It’s anticipated that drilling for the project will commence later this year, but DEEP has been attempting to build this project for many years.

Initially, it was expected that power production would begin in 2013.

But Marcia says in an interview that it encountered problems in funding the project, resulting in delays. In 2014, a $2 million pre-feasibility study that was co-funded by Natural Resources Canada and SaskPower concluded that 2017 was a viable operational date for the project if studies and tests were completed in a timely manner.

Thompson — who also serves as a principal of Borealis GeoPower —  points to the federal government’s recent change to the tax code to recognize geothermal heat as renewable energy, which allows for flow-through share capabilities, as a key reason for why the project could finally move forward.

“The province wants to know that the developer is actually going to spend their money and develop,” she says. “By having the mechanism available to raise financing for a project and drill wells, that signals to the province that if they provided the PPA, the private sector could do their part and go ahead and get financing.”

Aquifer Could Support 20 Small Geothermal Plants

Thompson says that in the “volcanic section of the world” — which includes the likes of Iceland, New Zealand and California — it’s not unusual to have a geothermal plant with capacity to generate 200 megawatts of electricity.

That’s simply not possible in most of Canada. Instead, geothermal companies wishing to generate electricity from heat will have to drill over three kilometres into the earth to reach the resource in the range of 120 degrees Celsius, constructing a series of small plants within the same region.

Marcia notes that most geothermal gradings are about 30 degrees Celsius per kilometre. At this location — right along the United States border, near Estevan — it’s about 40 degrees Celsius per kilometre.

In other words, it’s an ideal spot.

According to DEEP, the Williston Basin Hot Sedimentary Aquifer could support 200 megawatts worth of capacity from more than 20 plants.

The current estimate for the first five megawatt plant is around $40 million in capital costs, or about $8 million per megawatt of new installed capacity. For context, British Columbia’s proposed Site C Dam would add 1,100 megawatts for $9 billion, or about $8.2 million per megawatt of installed capacity.

However, Marcia notes that she anticipates the federal government will fund about half of the project, bringing down capital costs significantly. It’s also expected that economies of scale in later projects would result in capital cost savings of 10 per cent.

In addition, DEEP plans to sell the wastewater before reinjecting it back into the earth. Marcia says the most obvious client would be a greenhouse developer, with the wastewater discounted to the price of readily available natural gas and coming with carbon credits for the developer.

“There’s a huge business case for our wastewater,” she explains. “The water that comes out of the plant is still 65 degrees Celsius, so it’s extremely hot still. We’ve done some modelling on what we can do with that: as it turns out, from just one of our plants, we could heat a 45 acre greenhouse.”

In an interview with a Saskatchewan radio station, Marcia suggested that heat could help grow a variety of products, including legal marijuana.

Province Still Plans to Expand Fossil Fuel Power In Future Years

This is all taking place within the context of Saskatchewan’s commitment to have 50 per cent of generating capacity from renewable sources by 2030.

Saskatchewan’s grid currently has 4,437 megawatts of capacity. The plan is to increase that to 7,000 megawatts by 2030, meaning that 3,500 megawatts of capacity will have to come from renewables if the government sticks with its commitment.

“Obviously, five megawatts isn’t a lot when they’re looking at possibly a 7,000 megawatt grid by 2030,” says Mark Bigland-Pritchard, energy consultant and co-author of the report SaskPower’s Carbon Capture Project: What Risk? What Reward? “By itself, it’s insignificant. If they can do a whole lot of them as they are saying, then it’s another contributor.”

Most of the growth in renewables to 2030 will come from new wind power, via a controversial procurement process that only allows for utility-scale producers to bid (effectively disqualifying the community-scale wind projects). Solar projects are expected to add another 60 megawatts, an arguably small amount given the province is one of the sunniest places in North America.

Bigland-Pritchard notes that Saskatchewan’s plan completely disregards the “low-hanging fruit in climate policy” of conservation, and includes a further buildout of fossil fuel powered electricity. In addition, Saskatchewan is the only province that relies on coal-fired power that hasn’t announced a roadmap to phasing out the high-polluting source.

Despite that, he suggests there is potential for geothermal projects in Saskatchewan, especially if DEEP manages to get its first pilot plant working in two years or so.

“If — and it’s an enormous ‘if’ — they can make this geothermal system work in the first one to five units, then they could easily get enough to replace at least one coal unit,” he says.

Electric Utilities Must Grant More Permits for Geothermal

Next up for DEEP is the completion of the $8 million bankable feasibility study, which the company has already secured funding for. Marcia says the company will be drilling in the fourth quarter of this year, once final well licensing is completed and depending on rig availability.

Thompson emphasizes that SaskPower will have to give out far more permits to DEEP and other geothermal companies in order to ensure the power source is allowed to expand; she emphasizes that it’s not that companies don’t have the knowledge or technology or even the financing. The hold-up is the permitting process.

She adds there have been no permits given for geothermal in Alberta.

“[SaskPower’s decision] really speaks to not the resource quality, but to their commitment to use all the tools in their toolbox for renewable energy,” she concludes. “And I hope it sends a strong message to British Columbia, who has been very, very slow in giving out electricity purchase agreements to the geothermal industry, even though the resource there is the best in Canada.”

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For more than a decade, advocates of geothermal energy have pushed for the same kind of treatment other energy producers receive from the federal government — with little progress.

But with the release of the federal budget on March 22, that changed.

The budget included the expansion of financial mechanisms to geothermal, which will allow these emerging renewable energy operators to write off more expenses. The change is significant for geothermal energy, which requires higher upfront investments than wind or solar.

“This is a milestone for us,” said Alison Thompson, chair and co-founder of the Canadian Geothermal Energy Association (CanGEA). “We’re legitimate. We’re there.”

Granted, the budget only provided one of seven things CanGEA requested.

Conservative MP Matt Jeneroux, who recently tabled a private member’s motion in the House of Commons to support Alberta’s geothermal sector, said in an interview that the budget was “an early success” and shows awareness of the industry.

“Now we really need to make sure that awareness translates into actual action,” he said.

Alleged Typo Previously Prevented Sector From Growing

Thompson says the geothermal sector was successful in getting the tax code changed to recognize geothermal energy a few years ago.

But there was a typo. Or at least, that’s the suspicion.

“Geothermal energy was stated in the tax code, but further down [in the code] it became just ‘geothermal electricity,’ ” Thompson explains. “So for the past several years, we’ve had this situation where geothermal has been acknowledged as a renewable energy, but only the electricity side.”

But you have to have geothermal heat in order to spin a turbine to generate electricity, meaning the suspected typo seriously restricted the industry.

Budget Allows for Flow-Through Shares, Key Tool to Attract Investors

Up until now a dollar invested in geothermal wouldn’t go as far as the same dollar invested in solar, oil, gas or mining projects. It’s why the tweaks in the budget matter.

The changes also allow for the legal use of “flow-through shares,” a mechanism that can help attract investors during the early exploration stages. Such measures have a tax value of about $9 million.

Unlike wind or solar, it’s impossible to know that an area is good for geothermal until drilling. That requires bringing on investors at an “earlier risk stage” than other technologies.

“There’s still a huge amount of risk associated with exploratory drilling and seismic testing,” explains Sean Collins, president at Terrapin Geothermics.

“Any sort of project or process or incentive or write-off program that can allow for capital to flow more easily towards exploratory drilling really is one of the main areas we see there being an opportunity for significant growth and development of the industry.”

Geothermal Appeals to Wide Variety of Political Interests

Jeneroux, who represents the riding of Edmonton Riverbend, says that he first became interested in the concept of geothermal via the issue of orphaned, abandoned and suspended oil and gas wells in Alberta.

After all, there’s plenty of potential for retrofitting some of the wells to capture geothermal energy and create lots of jobs. But Jeneroux says he started to see a number of hurdles at the federal level that needed to be overcome before the sector could proceed. He says he talked to Conservative interim leader Rona Ambrose about a year ago, and she gave him the clear to look into the issue a bit more.

“Initially, there was a lot of education needed as to what geothermal technology was and is and now that people — especially my colleagues — understand it a bit more, it’s more ‘well, why haven’t we been doing this before?’ ” he says. “It’s become unanimously supported in our caucus and now hopefully strong support from the House of Commons as well.”

Conservative support for geothermal is something that gives Thompson great hope. It’s confirmation that geothermal is “bipartisan energy” that appeals to politicians of all ideologies, regardless of where they land on issues like climate change, energy security or job creation.

Geothermal energy is “starting to bubble to the forefront,” Collins added.

Advocates Look to Mid-Year Budget Review For Further Changes

But there’s still much more to be done to really get the geothermal sector up and running.

Jeneroux’s motion will likely help keep the subject relevant for a while longer: it still needs to go through the process of being debated and brought before a committee, which has an uncertain timeline.

There’s also the potential for more federal support to be unveiled with the mid-year budget review, says Thompson, or maybe something next spring. She emphasizes that “parity has not been achieved” for geothermal.

Further steps the federal government could take to “de-risk” the sector include: loan guarantees, expansion of the Eco-Energy for Heat Initiative, providing more funding to industry groups such as CanGEA and taking a leading role in resource mapping.

“Let’s just solve the whole problem,” Thompson suggests. “Let’s not do it piecemeal. Because that does not lead to investor confidence or certainty.”

At this stage, it’s largely about exploratory drilling, and setting projects in motion.

Borealis GeoPower has received a drilling permit for its Valemount project in British Columbia. Thompson, who serves as principal at Borealis, says the company is working hard to have a late spring or summer drilling season.

While the federal budget didn’t give geothermal advocates everything they were hoping for, it is a good start for setting a precedent.

“We’re now starting to see politicians from all parties and stripes recognize that the geothermal industry fits almost every single political agenda,” Collins said.

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Abandoned oil and gas wells in Alberta are on the rise — but where many see a growing liability, Alberta’s fledgling geothermal industry sees massive opportunity.

“We’ve got these old wells that we know are hot and we’re going to fill them with cement and walk away,” says Tim Davies, CEO of geothermal company Turkana. “It’s just stupid.”

There’s currently no permitting framework for geothermal in Alberta, leaving the renewable energy out of play.

“I own the well, I own the land and I own the oil. But I can’t own the heat,” Davies said. “There’s just no mechanism for that in place.”

“The oil business has drilled 400,000 wells in Alberta alone,” Alison Thompson, president of the Canadian Geothermal Energy Association, told DeSmog Canada. “They’ve already found all the hot water the province has.”

“The oil patch has those skills to get the most out of every well,” Thompson said, adding the workforce has been hamstrung by a lack of forward thinking policies. [view:in_this_series=block_1]

The number of orphaned wells — left in the wake of a mass exodus of oil and gas producers — has quadrupled in the last 12 months.

Ben Lee, owner of Raven Thermal Systems, says the oil and gas sector’s loss could be the geothermal industry’s gain.

“For the first time in more than a decade you’ve got very skilled workers that have exactly the skillset that a successful geothermal project needs,” Lee told DeSmog Canada.

Geothermal energy draws on the earth’s natural warmth to create a renewable form of energy with a low environmental footprint and virtually no carbon emissions. Importantly, geothermal provides reliable base load capacity, similar to a hydro dam or gas-fired power plant, enabling system stability.

Despite being home to enormous geothermal potential, Canada is the only country on the Pacific Ring of Fire that doesn’t use the resource to produce commercial-scale energy.

CanGEA released a report in late 2014 that found geothermal could supply all of the energy needs of British Columbia for much cheaper than the Site C dam, currently under construction.

“You’ve got top-notch geologists, reservoir engineers, drilling and completion engineers, surface engineers and all the associated landmen and everything else that comes along with a successful drilling program,” Lee said.

“They are available, and available on the cheap to some extent right now, because there is so much supply.”

Lee, who has a degree in aerospace engineering and specializes in heat transfer systems, used to work in other resource industries but last year founded Raven when he saw an opportunity to bring underutilized geothermal energy to the forefront.

But Alberta has yet to see a single geothermal operation materialize.

Lee said the regulatory climate in Canada has failed to keep pace with knowledge of Canada’s vast geothermal potential. Currently there is no licensing framework in place for the development of geothermal energy in Alberta.

For Lee and others struggling to find work in the province, waiting for policy to catch up has been painful.

“We have some very available high-end skill that’s sitting around and could be very quickly turned around because at the end of the day whether you’re drilling for oil or drilling for hot water, the process is the same.”

Craig Dunn, an exploration geologist with Borealis Geothermal, the only company in Canada to have a geothermal exploration permit for B.C., said many of the techniques used to develop oil and gas deposits are directly applicable to geothermal.

The steam-assisted gravity drainage, or SAGD, used to recover bitumen deposits in the Alberta oilsands is “basically geothermal in reverse,” Dunn said, saying with one steam is pumped into a reservoir and in the other steam is pumped out.

“I got into this because one of my last jobs was in a heavy oil play,” Dunn said.“And I thought, ‘is this the best we can do? Is this a resource we want to hand down to our children?’ ”

Canadian Companies Going Abroad for Geothermal Opportunity 

Brett Erickson from FlashPoint Resources Management Inc., a Calgary-based drilling and completions firm, said his company has been busy applying its skills in Nicaragua and other countries, such as the U.S., that are open to geothermal development.

“Alberta has some of the best engineers and best mind power when it comes to drilling and power generation as a whole,” he said, but other countries “are ahead of Canada when it comes to green energy.”

“I believe it’s because we’ve got access to easier, cheaper energy like oil, gas and coal,” Erickson said. He added geothermal is expensive to start but it’s “the greenest energy out there.”

“It’s a lot more reliable than hydro or wind,” he said, “with less of a footprint.”

Erickson said it’s going to take some help to get geothermal up and running in Canada.

“It is an expensive technology but over the long term it has a payback and that’s what investors care about, the long-term payback,” Erickson said

Proving geothermal is low risk but high return has been a key struggle for geothermal companies in Canada, Erickson said. “With the downturn in oil there are investors that are sitting on money that usually would have gone to oil projects.”

“The pieces are in place for geothermal to take off in Canada.”

Thompson, who previously worked with companies interested in using geothermal energy to reduce the carbon footprint of the oilsands, said industry is eager for the opportunity to apply what they know to this new resource to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

“If someone would just at the government level formulate a task force…we don’t need to reinvent the wheel,” Thompson said. “It’s plug and play. That’s what we’re hoping for.”

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Like a stand of eager horses chomping at the bit, Canada’s young geothermal industry is waiting impatiently at the starting line, ready for the race to begin.   But there’s no starting pistol in sight. At least, not yet.   Getting geothermal projects up and running in Canada "has been harder than it needs to be,” according to Alison Thompson, founder and president of the Canadian Geothermal Energy Association (CANGea).   Thompson, along with a group of delegates from Canada’s geothermal industry, is currently in Reykjavik at the Iceland Geothermal Conference where delegates, experts and scientists from around the world are swapping stories from the geothermal trenches.   Despite having the second largest delegation at the conference after Iceland, Canada has little to show or tell.   “Canada has an incredibly high quality resource and we can’t even get out of the starting gate,” Thompson told DeSmog Canada.

The Iceland Geothermal Conference 2016 in Reykjavik, Iceland hosts delegates from over 50 countries. Iceland is one of the largest producers of geothermal industry in the world. Photo: Carol Linnitt.

Maps released by CanGEA show Canada, especially in the oil and gas rich west, is teeming with geothermal activity, the same natural forces behind British Columbia’s beloved hot springs. Conveniently, much of the temperature of the province’s varied geography has already been mapped thanks to high levels of natural gas drilling.

“The United States is the number one producer of geothermal energy in the world. Mexico is number four,” Thompson said. “I want to see Canada up in the top five.” 

“We have enormous potential for geothermal energy in Canada,” Stephen Grasby, geochemist with Natural Resource Canada’s Geological Survey of Canada, said.   The “in place capacity” of geothermal energy in Canada “is well over a million times what Canadians actually use,” Grasby told DeSmog Canada.   “There’s always a distinction between what’s in place and what you can extract from that and that’s where economic barriers come in,” Grasby said, adding the high capacity is “comforting because it says we only need to produce a tiny fraction of that to supply a significant amount of energy for Canada.”   Canada spent a full decade studying the country’s vast geothermal resources during 1975 to 1985 but when the energy crisis ended, so did the country’s desire for renewable energy security.   But now concerns about climate change have pushed the alternative energy portfolio back onto the table.   In 2007 Grasby, along with a team of scientists and researchers, began updating Canada’s old research, finding geothermal potential exists right across the country.  

Stephen Grasby photographs Hellisheidi, the world's largest geothermal power station outside of Reykjavik, Iceland. Photo: Carol Linnitt.   How you view the resource “depends on what end use you want to make of it,” Grasby said. “You can use it for direct heating, electricity generation or heat exchange systems.”   Geothermal plays are greatly varied, Grasby said, meaning how one uses the resource largely depends on what they want to do with the heat.   Grasby, who is also in Iceland for the geothermal conference, said he hopes his work at Natural Resources Canada can help advance the geothermal industry in Canada.   “We’re not a regulatory department, our main focus is to provide industry the geological information they need. That’s the one area we can help in.”   “We find the haystack and leave it to industry to find the needle,” Grasby said.   “Now we’re looking at what we can do to move things forward.”   Ben Lee, owner of Raven Thermal Services, says it’s unfortunate that in Canada geothermal “has always been something of an afterthought.”   Lee, who has a degree in aerospace engineering and a background in the oil and gas sector, said there are many ways of using geothermal heat effectively.   “I had a bit of an epiphany flying over Regina once in the late winter,” he said.   “It was amazing to see everything was white except for this big teardrop shape off the south edge of the city.” Prevailing winds from the north were pushing warm air generated in the city south, “creating this teardrop of melt,” Lee said.   “It just happened to be the perfect scenario for me to see that marked in the snow.”   Lee said thinking about heat — how it’s generated and how it’s wasted — plays a big role in how he sees his company utilizing geothermal energy.   “How can we capture that heat and use it more efficiently?”   Lee is also attending the Iceland Geothermal Conference in Reykjavik, a northern city entirely heated using geothermal direct heat systems. Hot water, piped 27 kilometres in from Hellisheidi, Iceland’s largest geothermal energy plant, is circulated throughout the city for district heating.

Insulated pipelines carry hot water from the Hellisheidi geothermal power station to Reykjavik for district direct heating, a system that has been in use in the city since the 1930s. Photo: Carol Linnitt.   “A piece that gets missed in Canada is the direct heating side of geothermal,” Lee said. And being in Iceland, Lee said he’s excited to see geothermal heated greenhouses used to grow much of the country’s produce.   “They’ve got greenhouses growing food in the Arctic — as if that is not applicable to Canada,” he said.   “I had a friend go up to the Northwest Territories and pay $16 for a single red pepper. My question is how can we leverage our geothermal resources to address our concerns about food security up north, particularly for First Nations?”   For Lee, the opportunities for geothermal are a vast as the resource: “We can help a lot of people solve different problems with the same solution.”   But that solution is caught in a regulatory grey zone that has so far prevented any major projects from getting off the ground.   Despite the resource potential, Canada has zero mega watts of energy production.   “There’s a regulatory pathway to owning an oilsands mine in Alberta, or for opening up a coal mine,” Thompson said. “But there’s no regulatory pathway to operating geothermal.”   She added the industry doesn’t enjoy any of the tax benefits or incentives given to other sectors.   “At the national tax level we’re legally disadvantaged against mining, oil and gas and other renewables.”   “We’re not looking for a hand out we’re looking for a hand up — we want parity with other industries.”   Thompson said without favourable tax and policy structures in place, finding investors to back geothermal projects, which are capital intensive in the early stages, has been near impossible.   “Because we can’t get the tax incentives, unless you get a geothermal lover, an investor is going to put their money elsewhere.”   “We’ve been in this valley of death,” Thompson said, but added she hopes public awareness about geothermal as well as increasing government interest might get things moving in a positive direction.   “We can do this. We just need to want to do it.”

Image: Power generation at the blue lagoon, Iceland. Photo: Carol Linnitt.

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Revelations from DeSmog Canada’s exclusive sit-down interview with Harry Swain, the chair of the panel that reviewed the $8.8 billion Site C dam, were raised during question period in the B.C. legislature on Thursday.

Andrew Weaver, Oak Bay-Gordon Head MLA and Deputy Leader of the B.C. Green Party, asked the government about the economics of the Site C dam project in light of Swain’s unprecedented interview.

Swain, a former Deputy Minister of Industry Canada and Indian and Northern Affairs Canada, is thought to be the first review panel member in Canadian history to speak out about a project in this manner. His comments to DeSmog Canada prompted follow-up by the Globe and Mail, CBC, CKNW and CFAX.

“Mr. Swain was very clear that the government was rushed in approving Site C, and British Columbians will pay for their haste,” Weaver said during question period. “As Mr. Swain said: ‘Wisdom would have been waiting for two, three, four years to see whether the projections they’ — that’s BC Hydro — ‘were making had any basis in fact.’ That’s not exactly a glowing endorsement for the fiscal underpinning of Site C.”

The panel that reviewed Site C predicted that the dam will lose $800 million in its first four years of production while it sells excess power for a third of its cost on the export market.

“My goodness, we could use that money to build a state-of-the-art sewage system in Victoria,” Weaver quipped.

Weaver continued during question period:

“Mr. Swain is only the most recent person to suggest waiting a few years to see if electricity demand for the project materializes. We could still build Site C down the road if necessary, but we could use the additional time to properly explore cheaper alternatives like our vast geothermal potential in B.C. We have the time. LNG final investment decisions are delayed or not happening at all or somewhere down the yellow brick road or perhaps in never-never land.”

Weaver asked Bill Bennett, the Minister of Energy and Mines: “Given the massive costs associated with rushing into Site C, will he hit the pause button on construction for two to four years, as recommended by Mr. Swain, and use the time to save British Columbians money and explore viable alternatives?"

Bennett responded saying, “I categorically disagree with the premise of the question” and then went on to say: “Fair enough questions about the need for the electricity, the cost of the project. These are all legitimate issues that we should be debating in this House.”

Bennett then quoted several excerpts from the panel’s report, including that Site C “would be the least expensive of the alternatives, and its cost advantages would increase with passing decades as inflation makes alternatives more costly” and that BC Hydro “has done a responsible job in forecasting.”

The panel's report also said it did not have the information, time or resources to look at the accuracy of cost estimates and recommended that, if the project proceeds, costs and need should be examined in detail by the province’s independent regulator, the B.C. Utilities Commission. The panel noted it could not conclude the dam was needed on the schedule presented and said the province had failed to investigate alternatives — something it was instructed to do 32 years ago, when the utilities commission first turned down the Site C dam on the Peace River. 

Swain called this failure to research alternatives a ‘dereliction of duty’ in his interview with DeSmog Canada.

“Those are very strong words from a very highly regarded senior official from the Canadian government,” Weaver said Thursday in the legislature. “To be even more blunt, it’s recklessness on the part of the government.”

Weaver continued:

"What we need right now is a government that is willing to show leadership on this, willing to put good policy ahead of ideological politics. My question to the minister is this. Will he listen to the call from every member of this side of the House, along with the expert opinion of the joint review panel and countless others, to send the Site C project to the British Columbia Utilities Commission for a proper regulatory review?"

Bennett continued his refusal to send the project for a review by the B.C. Utilities Commission.

Bennett responded:

"B.C. Hydro figures that we’re going to need 1,100 megawatts of electricity in 2024. We set about, over the past two years, to determine what’s the best way to get that 1,100 megawatts of electricity. We looked at absolutely everything, and the decision that we made on this side of the House was to honour the ratepayer. We chose the option that is the fairest, lowest cost to the ratepayer, but that side of the House wants us to do something different."

But the panel that reviewed the Site C proposal found the government hadn't looked at "absolutely everything," as Bennett states.

“The panel concludes that a failure to pursue research over the last 30 years into B.C.’s geothermal resources has left BC Hydro without information about a resource that BC Hydro thinks may offer up to 700 megawatts of firm, economic power with low environmental costs,” the panel's report read.

The Canadian Geothermal Energy Association (CanGEA) has argued geothermal can meet all of B.C.’s future energy needs at a lower cost than Site C with fewer environmental impacts. The association has requested meetings with Minister Bennett with no success.

"We welcome him to become more informed and to engage in constructive dialogue with the association and with our members," said Alison Thompson, chair of CanGEA.

In a press release, Weaver said the minister's talking points are missing the point. “This dam didn’t make sense for B.C. thirty years ago, and it doesn’t make sense now.”

“The question that needs to be asked is what’s the rush?” Weaver added. “LNG isn’t materializing along the timeline promised by government. Even if B.C. Hydro’s current projections are true, we still have up to four years before we need to start building the dam. We should use that time to explore alternatives before embarking on the largest infrastructure project in B.C. history.”

The full official transcript of the exchange in the Legislature can be viewed on Hansard.

BC Hydro is scheduled to begin construction on the Site C dam this summer, but the project is facing six legal challenges, including one that alleges that Cabinet erred in dismissing key portions of the joint review panel’s findings on the project.  

The dam would be the third on the Peace River and would flood 83 kilometres of the Peace Valley, impacting 13,000 hectares of agricultural land. The project is opposed by B.C.’s Treaty 8 First Nations, several of which have filed lawsuits.

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Part 1 of DeSmog Canada’s exclusive sit-down interview with Harry Swain, the man who chaired the panel tasked with reviewing BC Hydro’s Site C dam, sparked a firestorm of activity on Tuesday.

Energy Minister Bill Bennett responded to Swain’s critique in the Globe and Mail, the B.C. NDP issued a statement on Swain’s comments and an environmental law expert called the statements “unprecedented.”

Martin Olszynski, an assistant professor in the Faculty of Law at the University of Calgary, said Swain’s comments are extremely rare.

“To the best of my knowledge, this is the first time that a panel member has spoken about a previous report in this manner,” Olszynski, an expert in environmental assessment, said. “To my knowledge, it’s unprecedented.”

The concerns Swain raises are not unusual though, Olszynski pointed out.

“The course of actions taken by the B.C. and federal governments in this case are not atypical,” he said. “They very often will ignore, or pay only lip service to, the recommendations of their expert panels. If you talked to other people who have served on similar panels — if they were willing to talk — they might express similar frustration.”

Geothermal Recommendations for B.C. Ignored …. For 32 Years

Certainly, the issue of recommendations being ignored is a live one in the case of the 1,100-megawatt Site C dam proposed for the Peace River. The dam is facing six legal challenges, including one that alleges that Cabinet erred in dismissing key portions of the joint review panel’s findings on the project.

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But beyond that, one of the key issues the panel raised in its report was the B.C. government’s failure to follow a recommendation to investigate alternatives to the dam, particularly geothermal — a recommendation made 32 years ago by the B.C. Utilities Commission when it first turned down the Site C proposal.

“The province or the province and its wholly owned subsidiary BC Hydro should have taken to heart the admonitions of the utilities commission 32 years ago and done some of the basic work that would allow an industry to develop,” Swain told DeSmog Canada. “But they didn’t do it, so there we are.”

In speaking notes obtained by DeSmog Canada, the province prepares to deflect questions about why it hasn’t pursued geothermal.

“While geothermal energy has a role to play in British Columbia, it has been slow to develop and has not developed the track record to reliably meet today’s growing demand,” read the notes prepared for the government’s Site C announcement in December.

Asked what he makes of that statement, Swain responded: “Dereliction of duty.”

The B.C. government has the principal responsibility for lands and resources under the constitution, Swain said.

“And in that sense, the province owes — in my view — an obligation to the citizens of B.C. to do a lot of basic mapping and exploration,” he said. “I don’t think there’s a major resource industry in this country that didn’t start without governments doing some of the basic work.”

Canada is the only country around the Pacific Ring of Fire that does not produce geothermal power at a commercial scale.

Vast Amount of Data Available From Gas Drillers on Geothermal Potential

In the past three decades, technological advances have led to the discovery of even more geothermal potential in B.C. — including in the Peace Country, where the Site C dam is proposed.

“Up in the Peace, in the very strata that are being drilled for natural gas, there’s a lot of hot water,” Swain said. “Moreover, since the well logs of exploration and drilling companies are supposed to be deposited with the provincial government, there is a vast amount of information available. It was surprising to me that no attempt had been made to exploit that information.”

The challenge is that currently BC Hydro, the province’s crown energy corporation, is forbidden by law to involve itself in projects beyond big hydro and large transmission projects.

“All of the other production stuff is to come from the holy private sector,” Swain said.

To prevent future governments and panels from being “seriously uninformed” again, the panel recommended that, regardless of the decision taken on Site C, BC Hydro establish a research and development budget for the characterization of geographically diverse renewable resources.

“It’s probably fair to say that institutionally Hydro really, really wants to build this,” Swain said. “And that’s perfectly understandable. If you ask the Ford company, ‘what would you like to do?’ they’ll say ‘build cars.’ If you ask Boeing ‘what’s the solution to our transportation problems?’ they’ll say ‘airplanes.’ ”

The Canadian Geothermal Energy Association has argued geothermal can meet B.C.’s future energy needs at a lower cost than Site C with fewer environmental impacts. The association has called for a one-year moratorium on Site C to allow time for further due diligence on geothermal.

The LNG Wild Card: Inconsistency in Province’s Statements

One of the B.C. government’s go-to talking points on Site C has been that the dam is needed to power the liquefied natural gas (LNG) industry. In a Jan. 30th letter to the Peace River Regional District, Energy Minister Bill Bennett wrote that liquefied natural gas facilities would drive more electricity demand than the Joint Review Panel accounted for in its report (due to an addition error).

Swain says that, although there was an addition error in the report, it doesn’t change the conclusion: demand for the dam wasn’t proven.

“Given skepticism about LNG and about demand elasticity, I see no reason to modify the conclusion,” Swain said. “Frankly, I think their low-demand figure was probably overstated. So far there is no evidence that even their low usage scenario is likely to take place.”

Beyond that, if the province’s original LNG dreams had come to pass as quickly as they’d stated and if the plants had relied on grid electricity (two big ifs), that power would have been needed well ahead of Site C’s in-service date of 2024. A single LNG plant can require as much as 700 megawatts of electricity to run the giant compressors required to cool gas to 163 degrees below zero; at least 10 plants are proposed for B.C.’s coast, but it’s unclear whether any will come to fruition.

“If the initial scenario took place, the power demand would arise a long time before Site C could be built,” Swain said. “There really wasn’t a compatibility between the two statements of the province if you think of one statement about the development of the LNG industry and the second about the timeframe in which Site C was to be built. By their own story, they had an inconsistency.”

Site C Dam ‘No Ordinary Project’

About 20 B.C. local governments have asked the government to send Site C to the B.C. Utilities Commission to further investigate demand and costs — a recommendation made in the panel’s report and echoed by Swain in Part 1 of his interview with DeSmog Canada.

With a price tag of $8.8 billion, Site C would constitute the largest expenditure of public money in B.C. history.

“Site C is not an ordinary project,” the panel wrote in its report.

Swain said British Columbians should pay attention because “it’s going to effect them in the pocket book,” “destroy valuable bits of landscape” and “affect the constitutionally protected rights of First Nations.”

He suggested British Columbians consider the dam in light of the alternatives.

“Have we really pushed conservation and efficiency as far as they can go? And the answer is no,” he said. “What other kinds of generation or energy production are available and what are their costs and benefits?”

Swain called B.C.’s refusal to consider its entitlement under the Columbia River Treaty “inexplicable” and noted the verdict is still out on how British Columbians will react to electricity prices going up 30 per cent in the next three years (demand could decrease, for example).

Ultimately, the way forward needs to be one that considers all the options, not just large hydro dams.

“The province has defined the role of Hydro as being very limited,” Swain said. “If this were not the BC Hydro company, but simply … the ‘energy company’ whose job it was to make sure that demand was satisfied at reasonable prices regardless of source, regardless of who got to build and own, regardless of those kinds of extraneous considerations, we might have a more balanced view.”

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The Peace Valley Landowner Association is celebrating a small victory following a Federal Court decision that four applications for judicial reviews of the massive Site C dam, planned for the Peace River, will be heard this summer.

The Association and representatives of B.C. and Alberta Treaty 8 First Nations appeared before Federal Court last week to oppose a BC Hydro motion to have the cases heard in May because of the financial implications if the Site C construction schedule was delayed. BC Hydro wants to start work on the $8.8-billion project in June.

The Landowner Association and First Nations argued that, if the hearings were fast-tracked, there would be insufficient time to prepare legal arguments and cross-examination plans.

The court ruled that the applications for judicial review – brought by the PVLA, Mikisew Cree, Athabasca Chipewyan, Prophet River, Doig River, West Moberly and McLeod Lake First Nations – will be set for this summer, depending on court availability, and will be heard consecutively by one judge. That could stretch the hearings into late summer.

Ken Boon, PVLA president, said the decision shows the court is not going to rush or let BC Hydro set the agenda.

“The government knew when they made this decision in December that these court cases had already been filed,” he said.

It is not the Association’s problem that BC Hydro may have to adjust its’ schedule, he added.

First Nations, whose application names several federal ministers and BC Hydro, are claiming the dam will destroy their traditional territory and way of life and allege the federal government has violated their treaty rights by failing to consider the potential impact.

The PVLA application claims environmental approvals of the dam were seriously flawed and that the two levels of government failed to consider the joint review panel’s assessment of the economics.

Site C, the third dam on the Peace River, will flood 5,550 hectares of land and generate enough power for 450,000 homes, but the joint review panel found the power would not be needed until 2028 at the earliest.

Meanwhile, B.C. Supreme Court has ordered that petitions for a judicial review by the PVLA and B.C. Treaty 8 First Nations will be heard by a single judge.

The Association’s review petition is set to be heard April 20 and no date has yet been set for the B.C. Treaty 8 hearing.

The two courts are involved because the Site C project was approved by the federal and provincial governments.

As the Site C approval wends its way through the courts, the Canadian Geothermal Energy Association is continuing its campaign to persuade the government to look more seriously at the potential of geothermal and on Wednesday released technical information it compiled for the report “Geothermal Energy: The Renewable and Cost Effective Alternative to Site C.”

CanGEA chair Alison Thompson said that the geothermal unit energy cost of $56-$73 MWh compares positively to the updated Site C cost to ratepayers of $58-$61MWh.

“If the B.C. government treats geothermal energy as a priority, not an afterthought, geothermal will provide firm energy beginning in 2018 at a lower cost than Site C and in a manner that benefits ratepayers, taxpayers, First Nations, the economy and the environment, not to mention having a carbon footprint that is lower than Site C,” she said.

Image Credit: B.C. Government

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With 2014 drawing to a close, DeSmog Canada decided to take stock of its most popular stories of the year.

Readers came in droves for our in-depth reporting on climate change, oilsands and oil pipelines, but they also loved articles about potential solutions to our climate change woes. Indeed, two of our Top 10 posts are on Canada’s geothermal potential.

Without further ado, here are DeSmog Canada’s Top 10 articles of 2014. Thanks for reading!

1. Bill 4 Passes: B.C. Parks Now Officially Open…To Pipelines and Drilling. More than 10,000 citizens wrote letters and signed petitions to try to stop the B.C. government from passing Bill 4, which allows for industry (and others) to carry out "research" in provincial parks related to pipelines, transmission lines, roads and other industrial activities that might require park land.

2. PHOTOS: Famed Photographer Alex MacLean’s New Photos of Canada’s Oilsands are Shocking. One of America’s most famed and iconic aerial photographers used his unique eye to capture some new and astounding images of one of the world’s largest industrial projects.

3. Debunked: The Top 10 Stupid Arguments in Neil Young Debate. You may recall that in January last year, Neil Young created one helluva stir with his Honour the Treaties tour. The Alberta media hyperventilated with these Top 10 stupid arguments.

4. Alberta Partners with Major Oilsands Companies to Develop Kindergarten to Grade Three Curriculum. This story created such an uproar that at least one company dropped out of curriculum development.

5. Top Five Craziest Things Climate Change Recently Did in Canada. From the mass die-off of sea scallops on the West Coast to a jump in Lyme disease because more ticks are suriving the winter, this Top 5 list attracted a lot of eyeballs.

6. Top 5 Reasons Why Geothermal is Nowhere in Canada. Canada is the only country on the Pacific Ring of Fire without any commercial geothermal power plants, despite having abundant potential and, ironically, Canadian energy companies running geothermal power plants around the world.

7. Top 10 Quotes from Canada’s Muzzled Scientists. Environics Research collected dozens of quotes from scientists who allege the Harper government is muzzling them, interfering with their research and ignoring their findings — particularly when it comes to evidence that covers issues such as climate change and other impacts of unsustainable industrial development.

8. Energy Executive Quits Trans Mountain Pipeline Review, Calls NEB Process A ‘Public Deception'. Marc Eliesen had some scathing words for the National Energy Board when he dropped out of its review of Kinder Morgan’s Trans Mountain oil tanker and pipeline project. He called the review process “fraudulent” and a “public deception” and called for the province of B.C. to undertake its own environmental assessment.

9. New Maps Reveal B.C. Has Enough Geothermal Potential to Power Entire Province. As B.C.’s politicians contemplated flooding the Peace Valley for the Site C hydroelectric dam, a new report from the Canadian Geothermal Energy Association said the province is sitting on a figurative gold mine of geothermal power with low environmental impact.

10. Only Four in 10 British Columbians Have Heard Of This $7.9B Mega Project — Have You?. The Peace River Country, which spans the Alberta-B.C. border, feels a world away to the 75 per cent of B.C.’s population that lives in the Lower Mainland or on Vancouver Island. But, as the biggest infrastructure project in the province’s history, the $8 billion Site C dam stands to impact all British Columbians — from the implications for our electricity bills to the flooding of some of our province's most valuable agricultural land.

Photo: Alex McLean. Surface oil on tailings pond at Suncor mine near Fort McMurray.

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Geothermal energy offers a low-cost, clean and viable alternative to the $8 billion Site C dam proposed for the Peace River, according to a new report released Tuesday by the Canadian Geothermal Energy Association (CanGEA)

The report, Geothermal Energy: The Renewable and Cost Effective Alternative to Site C, estimates that geothermal power would ring in at about $73 per megawatt-hour (MWh). BC Hydro has estimated the cost of Site C at $83 per MWh. The report also says the proposed geothermal plants could be built for approximately $3.3 billion, less than half the cost of the Site C dam.

“Geothermal can be built as you need it, where you need it, and the capital costs are much lower,” CanGEA Chair Alison Thompson told a press conference in Victoria.

The B.C. cabinet is expected to decide whether or not to proceed with the Site C dam before Christmas. The federal and provincial governments issued environmental assessment certificates for the Site C dam in October, but the project is facing five legal challenges and calls from local governments to delay the decision for a year while other options are considered. The dam would impact 13,000 hectares of agricultural land in the Peace Valley and is opposed by B.C.’s Treaty 8 First Nations.

Read DeSmog Canada’s 12-part series on the Site C dam.

The joint review panel’s report on Site C called the province of B.C. out for failing to pursue research into B.C.’s geothermal resources over the past 30 years. That report provided wind beneath the wings of the geothermal industry, Thompson said.

“Evidence at the Site C hearings created new urgency for the mapping work we had already begun,” she said.

Now that favourability mapping indicates that geothermal can meet all of B.C.’s future energy needs, including the 1,100 MW of capacity and 5,100 gigawatt hours per year of energy that would come from the Site C dam.

“It’s been convenient to dismiss geothermal,” Thompson told the press conference. “This mindset around what people think geothermal is, it’s just not true anymore. And so B.C. has remained on the sidelines over the past 30 years when 25 other countries have installed geothermal power plants.”

Canada is the only country around the Pacific Ring of Fire that does not produce geothermal power at a commercial scale. (Read: 5 Reasons Why Geothermal is Nowhere in Canada.)

CanGEA’s new report lays out 10 key advantages of geothermal when compared to the Site C dam.

Those include the generation of more permanent jobs (2,000 permanent jobs for geothermal vs. 150 permanent jobs for the Site C dam) distributed throughout the province and a reduced need for transmission upgrades.

“The $1 billion northeast transmission line can be avoided or delayed,” Thompson said.

Thompson also pointed to a proposed geothermal power plant in Valemount, an area that consistently experiences brownouts due to its location at the end of a transmission line.

“That project provides base-load power for the area, provides economic stimulus and avoids the need to shore up that [transmission] line,” Thompson said.

There are also opportunities to decrease the greenhouse gas emissions of the oil and gas sector by electrifying the region, displacing the use of fossil fuels at well sites, for instance.

Oil and gas companies have helped identify B.C.’s geothermal potential through their drilling in the northeast of B.C. Often the water and gas that comes up out of the ground is piping hot, which presents another opportunity.

“They could run that through a heat exchanger, which then can be sent to the power plant,” Thompson said. “They can produce micro-power, enough probably for their own operations. They often, on purpose, cool the products before it goes into their machines. It’s a win-win for everybody.”

CanGEA is calling for a one-year moratorium on the final investment decision on Site C to allow time for further due diligence on geothermal. The industry group is also calling on the B.C. Utilities Commission to review its findings and make recommendations by November 2015.

“We’re crazy not to look at this further,” Oak Bay-Gordon Head Green MLA Andrew Weaver told DeSmog Canada. “The government has said many times that they want to protect the ratepayer … that requires them to look at geothermal. It would be irresponsible not to do it.”

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The provincial and federal governments have issued an environmental approval certificate for the Site C dam despite acknowledging it will cause significant adverse environmental effects.

“Those effects are justified in the circumstances,” says the decision statement signed by Leona Aglukkaq, Canada’s minister of environment.

The province must still decide whether to proceed with the 1,100-megawatt project based on an investment decision, expected by the end of this year.

“The final decision still has to go through the cabinet, so we’ll still be working to convince them it’s not the best decision,” said Andrea Morison of the Peace Valley Environment Association, a group that has fought the dam for decades.

The $8 billion project would be the third dam on the Peace River and would be located seven kilometres from Fort St. John, B.C.

The dam has been opposed by local farmers, ranchers and the Treaty 8 First Nations because it will flood 87 kilometres of the Peace River, impacting wildlife and flooding 30,000 acres of farmland, including an area the size of the city of Victoria within the Agricultural Land Reserve.

West Moberly Chief Roland Willson has already vowed to challenge the decision in court and has said the province can’t have both the Site C dam and liquefied natural gas (LNG) development, which requires gas from Treaty 8 territory.

The environmental assessment certificate is subject to 77 conditions, including establishing a fund of $20 million to compensate for lost agricultural lands and activities.

In May, a federal-provincial Joint Review Panel issued its report on Site C. The panel was ambivalent in its findings, saying both that the dam could provide cheap power but also that the costs needed to be examined further and that it’s not clear that the power will be needed on the timeline provided.

“The Joint Review Panel considering the dam’s impacts determined that they are so significant that only an ‘unambiguous need’ for the power would justify them. And BC Hydro did not demonstrate such a need,” said Karsten Heuer, president of the Yellowstone to Yukon Conservation Initiative (Y2Y). “We don’t understand the basis on which the B.C. and federal governments could issue their approvals.”

Y2Y has argued that the Site C reservoir would seriously impede wildlife movement in the region.

“The Peace River Valley is located at the narrowest width of the Yellowstone to Yukon region and the existing Williston Reservoir already is a major blockage to wildlife movement,” Heuer said.

The joint review panel’s report included a recommendation to refer the project for review by the independent B.C. Utilities Commission, saying the panel didn’t have the time or resources to comment on the cost of the project.

“All British Columbia Hydro ratepayers should be concerned about that,” said Gwen Johansson, mayor of the District of Hudson’s Hope.

The panel also found that the province has failed to look at alternatives to the Site C dam for the past three decades. New maps released this month indicate B.C. has enough low-impact geothermal energy to power the entire province. 

Read DeSmog Canada's 12-part series on the Site C dam.

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