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Food for thought on fossil fuels

The Yukon is spending over $200 million on fossil fuels a year and for what? To make a few already rich guys richer.

The Yukon is spending over $200 million on fossil fuels a year and for what? To make a few already rich guys richer.

Yukon has tremendous resources, which can replace fossil fuels over time. No, it can’t be done immediately. But if it is done right it doesn’t have to take 40 years and it shouldn’t.

Yukon has so many renewable resources. We have solar and wind, and if there is no wind or sunshine we can produce electricity with wood gasification, another renewable source that is plentiful in Yukon.

If our political leaders would get off their lazy butts and do something about wildland fire mitigation, all the wood created by this activity could be chipped up and sent to a local gasification power station in every community.

All these alternative renewable resources would create local employment and tax revenues, which would stay here in Yukon.

There are now plenty of investors around from the manufacturers of the equipment to big banks.

But the most likely investment source could be a co-op for all Yukoners for the Yukon. That can involve First Nations, businesses and private investors.

Dawson Creek has a co-op for over 10 years for their big wind farm, which is producing much more electricity than Dawson Creek is consuming. The minimum investment is $300 and every investor has one vote in the co-op, independent from the amount invested. That means that no one big investor can take over the whole operation. But dividends are tied to the amount invested.

So why is the Pasloski government pushing hard again for the Whitehorse Trough oil and gas development, which will mainly result in fracking?

Don’t they hear and see what is going on around the world? There are more and more fracking bans and moratoriums, more investments in renewable technology all over the world.

Why can’t Yukon become an example and be the first jurisdiction in Canada to become fossil fuel free?

Werner Rhein, Mount Lorne