Chapter 5

The rural Upper Skeena currently meets its power needs from a number of sources. For renewable sources, these include solar PV, wind, biomass, micro hydro, and BC Hydro[1]. From non-renewable sources, this includes diesel generators, fossil fuels for space heating. Not only is meeting power needs from non-renewable sources financially challenging, but it also results in environmentally unsustainable behaviour since the usage of diesel generators and fossil fuels contributes significantly to GHG emissions within the community. With the current energy mix, diesel generators produce only 7% of the total energy used by project participants but are responsible for 31% of all emissions.

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The lack of clean energy opportunities within the region give rise to the specific challenge of excess GHG emissions. This, if left unchecked, increases the rural Upper Skeena’s culpability in contributing to dangerous environmental impacts[2] at a macro scale such as overall annual temperature rise, increased annual precipitation, more frequent and intense extreme weather events, heat waves and eco-system degradation.

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Although the rural Upper Skeena is currently responsible for GHG emissions at a community scale, it is important to note that many other companies and organizations throughout British Columbia and Canada are responsible for significantly higher GHG emissions as a result of their operations. For example, the LNG industry and slash burning are two emissions-intensive industries which operate in the Northern British Columbia region.

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In addition to environmental impacts, continued use of the above mentioned energy sources will also contribute to impacts to human health (injury and death due to extreme weather, respiratory and cardiovascular problems and cancers due to air pollution, mental health issues) and economic consequences (climate change affects various economic sectors such as agriculture, forestry, tourism and recreation, financial and operational stress on health and social support systems, damage to infrastructure from extreme weather).

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As identified in a number of case studies within the region, in order to avoid contributing to these macro level changes, as well as reducing their own carbon footprint, numerous community members have identified reducing GHG emissions as a priority. Given the complete lack of clean, renewable energy generation sources within the community, this priority cannot be addressed without considering clean power projects as an integral part of the sustainable energy future that the rural Upper Skeena wants.

 

[1] BC Hydro is considered a renewable source in this scenario as over 90% of the electricity generated by BC Hydro is from renewable energy sources.

[2] Greenhouse gas emissions: drivers and impacts - Canada.ca