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We're playing with matches

We're playing with matches Picture a group of careless campers starting and leaving a camp fire burning in the midst of a dry Yukon summer. Anyone remember the Fox Lake Fire? Yukon Energy's plan for liquefied natural gas electrical generation is playing

Picture a group of careless campers starting and leaving a camp fire burning in the midst of a dry Yukon summer. Anyone remember the Fox Lake Fire? Yukon Energy’s plan for liquefied natural gas electrical generation is playing with the matches that will cause catastrophic climate change.

This week the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warned that we must stop spending money on new fossil-fuel powered electrical generation and start immediately to develop renewable sources of electricity. But that’s the opposite of what is being proposed by Yukon Electric.

The company proposes to replace one fossil-fuel powered source (diesel generators) with another, even more expensive fossil-fuel powered source (LNG turbines). This will take us down the wrong path, making the Yukon part of the problem rather than part of the solution.

The devil is in the details. Yukon Energy argues that natural gas is cheap and expected to stay that way. One of the main reasons for that will be that other more responsible energy users are moving away from fossil fuels like natural gas. Their reduced demand will make natural gas cheaper. Like junk food, natural gas that is cheap isn’t necessarily good.

Furthermore, spending $42 million on expensive LNG generators will make that much less money available for renewable options like wind, solar and hydroelectric. Why not go with less expensive diesel generators and use the money saved to invest in a renewable future?

Stuart Clark

Whitehorse