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Take the long view, invest in renewables

Take the long view, invest in renewables Open letter to Energy Minister Scott Kent: We're afraid that your short-sightedness has gotten even shorter. You're now agreeing with the Yukon Environmental and Socio-economic Assessment Board, which has not look

Open letter to Energy Minister Scott Kent:

We’re afraid that your short-sightedness has gotten even shorter.

You’re now agreeing with the Yukon Environmental and Socio-economic Assessment Board, which has not looked beyond the Yukon’s borders to consider that the fracked gas that will feed Yukon Energy’s liquefied natural gas project is destroying our neighbours’ water and our shared climate.

We wish you would wake up. You’re doing a great disservice to all our children’s future by allowing this project to happen.

The LNG economics don’t make sense. We’re better off investing in renewable energy, and we have the ways to build that now. We can build a smart grid that will allow wind, solar, and hydro to meet our electric, space heating and transportation needs.

You’re simply delaying the Yukon’s smart energy future by investing in this expensive and extreme fossil fuel: LNG.

Natural gas prices are risky: Recently Manitoba Hydro’s application for their natural gas electric plant was turned down by their Public Utilities Board (Winnipeg Free Press, July 2). The board ruled that the “short-term capital cost advantages are offset by significant ongoing operating cost risk, primarily fuel costs.”

This Yukon Energy LNG project is very unpopular with the Yukon public and for good reasons. By the way, there are close to 4,000 Yukon people who have signed the petition against this LNG project and 300 of those are in your riding. It is time that you start listening to Yukoners.

JP Pinard and Sally Wright

Whitehorse