A Damper on the City’s Sustainable Plans!
Vancouver has always been a city that strives to be better than itself. You have to commend both the provincial and the federal government for doing such a great job in natural resource management and generally building a greener, healthier province. Currently, the city has a new Renewable City Strategy which sets the ambitious goal of becoming 100% renewable by 2050.
The province is planning on achieving this objective through a variety of methods which include the Zero Emissions Building Plan (ZEBP) and Green Buildings Policy for Re-zonings.
The ZEBP requires new buildings to be emissions-free by 2030. It mentions stricter building standards that increase insulation and reduce energy inputs, but it would also require the phasing out of natural gas for heating and cooking which many restaurant owners were worried about.
This spurred Resource Works, a resource industry lobby group, which is funded in part by the BC Restaurant & Food Services Association to request a report on how these changes could increase electricity prices province-wide and decrease natural gas revenue for the provincial government.
The report stated that these policy implementations were so well received by developers because they planned on pushing these increased costs on to the consumer. The biggest issue identified in this report was Vancouver’s plan on phasing out the use of fossil fuels for heating and cooking. Natural gas is used in 108,000 Vancouver homes, businesses and public buildings, accounting for about 10% of B.C.’s natural gas consumption states the report. To replace it the city would have to switch to Renewable Natural Gases (RNG).
It is important to mention that that burning RNG produces the same amount of carbon dioxide as burning regular natural gas, but it is considered renewable because it uses methane for energy that would otherwise be released into the atmosphere through the decomposition of organic waste.
RNG is made from a variety of sources. The first being, bio-methane, which can be extracted from landfills, sewage treatment plants, and dairy farms. Alternatively, Wood waste can be turned into synthesis gas (SynGas). Currently, less than 1% of the gas burned in B.C. comes from bio-methane. Getting Vancouver to 100% renewable energy state would require more landfills than B.C. has in it, so most of the new supplies would likely have to come from expensive synthesis gas technology.
This causes concern amongst experts because it is unclear how the provincial government and the city expect to cover the capital investment of building new SynGas plants and biogas extraction facilities. Natural gas is already considered one of the “cleanest” fossil fuels because it has a much lower carbon content than that of coal or petroleum products. It is also abundantly available in B.C. and its production is an important economic generator.
A major flaw in this new strategy is that it fails to consider economic impacts to Vancouver businesses and homeowners, who already struggle with housing affordability. The report states that “The plan is not realistically costed out, nor does it connect the policy objectives to the city administration’s commitments to improving affordability for current residents and businesses, or future residents and businesses”.
However, I still believe that the people in charge of BC, know what they are doing. A larger shift towards sustainable behaviors and technology is exactly what is needed to spur a global movement towards a more sustainable planet. The costs saved in energy reduction and the jobs created through the introduction of greener technologies should offset the negative externalities from these changes. The main aim of this strategy was to address climate change and I think it manages to do just that.
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Main Article: Renewable City Strategy Slammed