Justin Helps Keep BC-Alberta Power Line Idea Alive
June 23, 2016
A proposed $1 billion BC power line into Alberta received a little boost earlier this month when Prime Minister Justin Trudeau confirmed earlier comments from the federal government that it would consider a funding proposal from Western Canada.
The project would help BC improve the economics of its multi-year, $8.8-billion Site C hydroelectric project, and help Alberta reduce its dependence on coal and natural gas. Alberta’s NDP government intends to phase out the use of its 18 coal-fired power plants by 2030 as part of a climate change plan that will replace two-thirds of that power with renewable electricity — primarily wind power.
Journalist Peter O’Neil, writing in the Vancouver Sun, quotes Trudeau as saying, “I think anything we can work together interprovincially or nationally on (to get) emissions down, you know, emphasizing hydroelectricity, creating opportunities to get off coal, to get off natural gas, where possible, this is good for the country, it’s good for our emissions profile, it’s good for the economy we need to build.”
O’Neil also reports that Alberta Premier Rachel Notley’s government is interested so as long as BC shows more support for an oilsands pipeline to carry diluted Alberta bitumen to the west coast.
Image courtesy of Naypong at FreeDigitalPhotos.net.
