Thank you, Mr. Speaker. For the most part, when people think about the cost of living, they gravitate to the high price of energy they pay. This would be a normal reaction given that we in the NWT face some of the highest energy costs in the modern world. Admittedly, when asked how to fix this, I’m sure many would point to such alternatives as wind and solar as a way to wean ourselves off fossil fuel.
These alternatives do have merit on displacing carbon emission by lowering diesel consumption, yet from an economic or commercial viability perspective, you would be lucky to recover your capital costs within 15 to 20 years, and by then you’re almost at the point of replacement, so the vicious cycle repeats itself.
To be clear, I’m not saying we shouldn’t make some strategic investments in alternative energies as part of our Energy Strategy, and I am supportive of decreasing our diesel use and carbon emission, but we need to realize that with such a costly capital investment, we are no further ahead of lowering our cost of energy to the consumer, and this needs to be our target.
What is the answer? Well, if you want to wait, as Cabinet suggests, for next month’s costly Energy Charrette and for their report and then a committee report to that and then a Cabinet strategy and then, finally, an action plan, you’ll soon realize that the life of the 17th Assembly will have expired, which is very convenient. Or we can immediately or economically unlock the power within. But before I give you one solution, which is staring us in the face, let’s ask some questions.
How do we better harness our own production and storage of energy? How well do we manage and produce our own diesel power? Finally, how much unused energy goes up the stovepipe at our diesel power plants? Mr. Speaker, if I have you curious, this continues down the rabbit hole.
After doing a forensic look at more than the $300 million worth of NTPC infrastructure, its production, its capacity and its geolocation, there was one conclusion that emerged that will lower our energy production at the source: recapture unused energy and economically lower our cost of energy in non-hydro communities, and ultimately have a trickle effect for all Northerners.
The solution: The earth is a battery of heat storage potential.
Mr. Speaker, I seek unanimous consent to conclude my statement.
---Unanimous consent granted
What this means is we have the capacity to recapture NTPC diesel-produced stovepipe heat, dissipate this heat into the ground, store it in earth tubes and reverse the energy in the winter months via utilidor exchange to heat homes and buildings. This process has many names, such as ground-coupled heat exchange or air-to-soil exchange, yet the principles of these processes all produce the same effect, which is to offer viable and economic alternatives in conjunction with lower diesel consumption.
With the government clearly out of ideas as we embark on yet another Energy Charrette, many Northerners hope this is just not another attempt to shelve at nothingness. We need economic and viable options for energy cost today, and we need real solutions we can all afford. Let’s hope the Cabinet is listening. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Dolynny. Member for Hay River South, Mrs. Groenewegen.
