Like many towns across Alberta, the landscape around Hinton is a pincushion of oil wells. At the bottom of some of the deeper wells, temperatures can reach upwards of 120 degrees Celsius, and that geothermal heat could be about to spur the town on to its next energy windfall.

A plan is underway to pump water up from deep underground, capture the heat it brings to the surface, then re-inject that water into the ground. The captured heat could warm a dozen municipal buildings or even eventually provide electricity.

“That’s attainable, that’s not a huge technical challenge. The question is at what cost,” Jonathan Banks, a research associate in geoscience at the University of Alberta, told DeSmog Canada.

The town recently got $1.2 million in federal and provincial grants to explore the feasibility of the project, known as a Front-End Engineering and Design, or FEED, study. That should be complete by the end of the summer.

“If the FEED study shows that the project is viable…we could start building the system in the fall of 2018,” Banks says, cautioning that there are a number of unknowns, such as an uncertain regulatory process.

Like many Canadian jurisdictions, Alberta currently has no regulatory framework for geothermal power.

The project would be a first for Canada. That has led to apprehension among residents, who tend to be conservative in their approach to energy.

“There’s always insecurity when you’re building something for the first time,” explains newly elected town councillor Dewly Nelson.

Hinton, Alberta Goes Back to the Well — For a New Kind of Energy https://t.co/t3zkq1XlQd

— DeSmog Canada (@DeSmogCanada) March 20, 2018

Nelson himself started as a critic of the project. Working for the Chamber of Commerce — some of whose members were concerned about the town wasting money — he set about trying to research the project.

“I came up with a little different of an answer than I think people were hoping for,” he says. He now chairs a committee on alternative energy in the community.

“I’m a bit of an evangelist,” he laughs.

A 2016 preliminary study suggested that the cost of a geothermal heating system for the town could be recouped in about 16 years against business-as-usual heating costs.

Nelson concedes the number “could be a little optimistic” at $10.2 million due to the number of hurdles associated with it being the first of its kind.

But he maintains that the benefits of the project extend beyond the lifetime cost (despite insisting that, as a municipal project, for it to be recouping any revenue at all is a plus). He says the spinoff benefits could be in new businesses setting up shop in Hinton due to the cheap, long-term heating contracts the town would be able to provide.

“I think we’ll be surprised at some of the different uses that other people think of,” he says, offering as an example a greenhouse for the fledgling cannabis market. He also points to Boise, Idaho, which uses its similar system to heat an alligator farm.

In Klamath Falls, Oregon, a brewery makes use of the heat. The town’s partner in the project, Calgary-based Epoch Energy, has visited some of those sites to survey their systems.

“Seeing it as a tool for diversifying our economy, that’s the biggest winner for it,” Nelson says.

Two hours away on the other side of the B.C. border, Valemount is also looking at building a “geothermal industrial park” that would make use of a relatively accessible pocket of heat they suspect to be just underneath the town. That could produce electricity, heat water for a brewery, warm a greenhouse and even keep the sidewalks ice-free.

Nelson explains that the American projects also have other lessons to offer Hinton: they charge differently for the use of the power. In Klamath Falls, users are charged directly for the heat. In Boise, users are charged by the volume of water they use, encouraging innovation around efficiency.

Winning over skeptical residents, both Nelson and Banks agree, has been a process of continual engagement and education.

“It doesn’t take a lot to connect with people, and just plant that seed,” Nelson says.

A big part of why Nelson thinks the oil-friendly residents should welcome geothermal to town? It all runs on the same infrastructure and knowledge as the oil and gas industry, making it an excellent way to make use of existing oilfields and some of the workers who have been hit by low oil prices.

“If it ever really takes off on a large scale in Canada, it will be because of oil and gas,” he says.

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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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A drive along Iceland’s ‘ring road,’ a winding narrow highway that encircles the isolated island’s 1,332 kilometre circumference, will take you from the sublime to the beautifully desolate in quick succession as views of snow spotted mountains give way lava fields, relatively young in geologic time at 800 years, covered in the country’s signature muted green moss.   But perhaps no natural feature is so stunningly otherworldly than Iceland’s geothermal activity.   The remote island is the outcome of upwelling forces, emerging in the volcanic seam between the Eurasian and North American tectonic plates. The result is a remarkably active geologic landscape, one pitted with boiling mud pots, meandering hot rivers and steaming caverns that open up out of a serene landscape like gaping mouths of Hades.   One of my first day trips, along Iceland’s famous Golden Circle route, I stop at the Geysir geothermal valley, a popular tourist hot spot (the English word geyser is a derivative of the Icelandic word geysir, which means gusher). The Strokkur Geysir, like Old Faithful, is a pressurized water column that superheats and erupts at regular intervals, blasting 25 to 30 metres into the air above a crowd of camera-ready spectators.   Both laconic hot pools and violently boiling cauldrons of water surround the Geysir, all of which can be seen from a vantage point just a short hike up the hill. Small-scale geothermal stations, used in a domestic capacity at houses and farms, dot the landscape, easily identifiable with their consistent plumes of steam rising into the mid-day sky, which at this latitude, above 64 degrees north, seems a bluer blue.

Geothermal pools in the Geysir valley. Photo: Carol Linnitt.

One of the more visibly active of Iceland’s geothermal areas, the Geysir is teeming with tourist busses. [view:in_this_series=block_1]

I gather myself and head for Hveragerdi, a small town about 40 kilometres outside of Reykjavik that tourist brochures have named ‘the geothermal village.’   The first thing you notice pulling into the small town off the highway are the rows and rows of greenhouses. On closer inspection you can see the glass structures are rimmed with thick pipes, drawing hot water from the ground into the houses to support a robust growing season all year round.   In July, Iceland’s hottest month, the temperature averages 11 degrees Celsius, so the added warmth is critical to the country’s success in growing plants year round.   On a Tuesday afternoon I stopped by Garðyrkjustöð Ingibjargar, the local garden centre, run by Ingibjorg Sigmundsdottir, that has been using geothermal heat in its greenhouses since the 1950s.   “I have been in this business for 35 years and have always used geothermal and my father before me,” Sigmundsdottir said. “Since this town began to build up, it always used geothermal.”

The geothermal greenhouses at Garðyrkjustöð Ingibjargar have been in operation since the 1930s. Photo: Carol Linnitt.      “In the middle of the town here we have a hot spring and we use steam to heat the houses,” she said, adding sustainability is something people in Iceland value highly.   “We have very beautiful nature in Iceland and everyone takes very good care of the nature.“   Although Iceland’s vast geothermal resources have been in use since the time of the Vikings, for bathing and washing, it was in the 1930s when the nation embarked on an expensive experiment, pumping hot water through city infrastructure as a source of direct heat. Building on that success, geothermal heated greenhouses quickly followed.   Geothermal horticulture is essential to produce production in Iceland. I recently walked into a restaurant in downtown Reykjavik asking for that restaurant that uses produce grown in geothermal greenhouses. “Do you know the one I’m talking about,” I asked a perplexed-looking hostess.   “Every restaurant in Reykjavik uses vegetables grown in geothermal greenhouses!” she replied.   Beyond plants and vegetables, Hvergardi also uses geothermal to manufacture the vast majority of Iceland’s ice cream and heat underground ovens for baking bread. A common tourist pastime in the city’s geothermal park is to consume an egg you’ve just boiled in a narrow nearby river.   Up beyond the small town centre, with a cup of coconut ice cream in hand (and after changing a flat tire — done before my ice cream melted I’ll have you know!), I arrive at the base of Reykjadalur, or Smoke Valley, named for the multiple steaming geothermal vents along the hillside.   I start the hour hike in to the hot rivers above around 7:00pm, during the late sun of the day. Luckily, because of the high latitude, it won’t be fully dark until around 11:00pm.   I climb the steep trail and round the shoulders of winding hills until I come to a wide open valley with a gentle, steaming river at its base. Jackpot.

The hot river of Reykjadalur. Photo: Carol Linnitt.   I lingered in the hot water until about 10:00pm, just in time for a twilight hike back to the trailhead.   The next day as part of an envoy from the Iceland Geothermal Convention in Reykjavik, I board a bus and head out to Hellisheidi, the world’s largest geothermal power station.   I had discovered the plant before on a previous excursion after noticing its immense steam release tracking through a mountain pass on the highway. I pulled off the road to take a closer look.   Although impressive from the outside, once inside the facility, where our group was welcomed by Pall Erland, the CEO of Orka Náttúrunnar (ON Power), Hellisheidi was a sight to behold.

Steam rises from the Hellisheidi station in Iceland, the world's largest geothermal power plant. Photo: Carol Linnitt.   The plant, which generates 300 megawatts of electricity and 133 megawatts of thermal power, provides all of Reykjavik with direct district heating. It supplies half the population of Iceland with power, Erland said.   According to Reykjavik Energy, Iceland’s power and utility company, the use of geothermal energy displaces 560 thousand tons of coal or 360 thousand tons of oil for heating the capital city each year. In the 100 years between 1914 and 2014, the use of geothermal and hydro power in Iceland prevented 250 million tons of carbon dioxide equivalent from entering the atmosphere, according to Orkustofnun, the country’s National Energy Authority.   Hot water from Hellisheidi travels over 20 kilometres by pipeline to Reykjavik. One of the tour guides at the plant told my group the “ridiculous pants” on the pipelines were insulation, designed to minimize heat lost in the water during its trip to the city.   “It’s around 83 degrees when it starts from this power plant and only looses one to two degrees on the way to the houses” in Reykjavik, Erland told me, “where it is used by half of the population of Iceland for heating houses, for industries, for swimming pools, even heated football fields.”   “That’s a new one,” I laughed.   “We are blessed with a lot of hot water,” Erland said. “So after being used in the houses the rest coming out around 35 degrees is an excellent hot water [source] to be used either to heat up streets, walkways, football or other sport fields. We even use the rest of it to go to a little beach in the summer where people can come and enjoy the sun and a little warmth from the seawater being heated up with geothermal.”   “So,” I replied, “I’m guessing Icelanders don’t like shoveling snow.”   “Well the modern Icelanders try to avoid it as possible and thanks to our renewable resources, we can easily use it for…making life easier,” Erland said with a smile.   DeSmog Canada is currently in Reykjavik for the Iceland Geothermal Conference. To learn more about geothermal potential in Canada, read Canada Has Enormous Geothermal Potential. Why Aren’t We Using it?

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This is a guest post by David Suzuki.

Abundant, cheap fossil fuels have driven explosive technological, industrial and economic expansion for more than a century. The pervasive infrastructure developed to accommodate this growth makes it difficult to contemplate rapidly shifting away from coal, oil and gas, which creates a psychological barrier to rational discourse on energy issues.

The ecological and true economic costs of energy use force us to scrutinize our way of living. And because our infrastructure doesn’t allow us to entirely avoid fossil fuels, we must face the contradiction between how we should live and constraints against doing so.

Canada has no national energy plan, other than governmental desire to be a fossil-fuelled energy-export superpower. Given the consequences of human-induced climate change already hitting home, you’d think the highest priority of governments at all levels would be to decide on the lowest-emission energy path. But politicians focused on election intervals have difficulty dealing with generational issues.

Real, important conversations and decisions are instead delayed by diversionary and often irrational arguments and tactics: accusing critics of being hypocrites, claiming foreign money drives environmental agendas and labelling activists as eco-terrorists or enemies of Canada among them. In place of true progress, we get consolidated political power and greater corporate profit and control. Enough already!

Sustainability requires conservation and abundant energy employed with minimal ecological upset. Yet the inability to consider the need to shift quickly from fossil fuels means governments and industry look to mega-technologies like carbon capture and storage to justify inaction on reducing greenhouse gas emissions, while dismissing solar and wind as impractical, too expensive or unable to meet energy needs. Nuclear power may be an alternative to GHG-emitting fossil fuels, but it’s extremely expensive and would not be online were it not for enormous subsidies. Nuclear fuel is also finite, so costs will rise while the problem of radioactive-waste disposal remains unsolved.

As a northern country, Canada is especially vulnerable to climate change. Polar regions heat faster than temperate and tropical zones — Inuit have noticed the growing impacts for decades. With the longest marine coastline of any country, we’re also subject to sea-level rise. And our economy relies on climate-dependent activities such as agriculture, forestry, fisheries, tourism and winter sports, all of which are already feeling climate change impacts.

Where is the political leadership and will to confront climate change? We’re seeing some from individuals, grassroots organizations and municipalities. But what about our provinces? Just as the catastrophic loss of northern cod off Newfoundland warned against unsustainable practices, the destruction of $65 billion worth of B.C. trees by mountain pine beetles — once kept under control by winters with temperatures below -30 C for a week or more — should make the province take notice.

Where’s the leadership? Once lauded for policies such as the carbon tax and energy agreements with California, B.C.’s political leaders have now embraced liquefied natural gas, claiming industry expansion will create hundreds of thousands of jobs and add billions of dollars to provincial coffers — never mind that no one in power now will be held accountable for these promises because they’re several elections from being realized.

LNG should be labelled LFG: liquefied fracked gas. Hydraulic fracturing — fracking — requires pumping millions of litres of chemical-laced water deep underground to shatter shale and liberate embedded gas. It’s a short-term way to get energy with long-term ecological impacts on water and whatever organisms might be down there. (It was once thought life disappeared at bedrock, but we now know bacteria are found at least 10 kilometres down.)

Fracked gas is mostly methane, a greenhouse gas more than 30 times as potent as carbon dioxide. Studies reveal leakage around fracking sites may be high enough to affect climate change more than coal! Calling it a “transition fuel” between coal or oil and renewables is nonsense. And fracking is known to cause seismic activity.

B.C. is also planning the Peace River Site C dam, yet a report by the Canadian Geothermal Energy Association claims geothermal could generate similar amounts of power at a much lower cost.

If our leaders are serious about long-term health and prosperity, they need to stop focusing on short-term profits from rapid fossil fuel development and export and start engaging in serious conversations about our energy future.

Learn more at www.davidsuzuki.org.

Image credit: People chatting via Shutterstock.

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At a time when B.C.’s politicians are considering flooding the Peace Valley for the Site C hydroelectric dam, a new project by the Canadian Geothermal Energy Association says the province could be sitting on a figurative gold mine of power with low environmental impact.

“The low level of effort is surprising, especially if it results in a plan that involves large and possibly avoidable environmental and social costs,” the panel wrote.

The Site C joint review panel recommended that, regardless of the decision taken on Site C, that BC Hydro establish a research and development budget for the engineering characterization of geographically diverse renewable resources, such as geothermal.

“If the senior governments were doing their job, there would be no need for this recommendation,” the panel added.

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