Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions are to the Minister of the Environment and again in follow-up to my Member’s statement earlier today. I noted the impact of increasing energy costs on the cost of living and our vulnerability to these costs is increasing, an anticipated jump in the cost of living as electricity rates soar almost 30 percent in the next few years, despite the injection of $65 million.
Why does the government, that claims a commitment to fiscal prudence, not spend money for renewables now to stop the hemorrhage of tax money and save our citizens from rocketing energy costs? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. The Minister of Environment and Natural Resources, Mr. Miltenberger.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The reality is we have to and we are doing both. Yet, as we laid out for the people and for the Members that there is a rate cliff because there’s been no increase in power rates for the last five years, the fuel prices have continued to escalate and rather than put the burden fully on the ratepayers that buy power, we put that subsidy in. At the same time, we are making significant, and have made significant, investments: $50 million or so in the last Assembly towards solar, biomass, wind, improving our energy standards, rebates for people to help them convert to more energy-efficient appliances to upgrade their houses. We have work underway with solar being put into Simpson. We’re looking at wind. We’re going to go to Diavik and see the tremendous work that they’ve done there, to see how that may apply to Inuvik. Biomass is being put in in a lot of our own facilities. We’re working on a biomass industry. So we have to do both. Thank you.
Thank you. I heard the remarks from the Minister and yet the WSCC report issued a couple months ago says 8.7 percent increase in electricity costs this year alone, and I am aware of no new community electricity systems in the life of my time as an MLA. We’re into our sixth year here. So that defies what the Minister is saying. Public consultation is about to get underway on a new Energy Plan, I believe yet to be seen, that will chart the future for energy development in the coming years. The Finance Minister set the rules of its fiscal strategy: no new expenses, deferred infrastructure, paying down debt before going to public consultations.
In the same way, will the Minister establish that, given that our new Energy Plan will be based on renewables and bringing an end to the fossil fuel dependency of our communities, will he establish those same criteria? Thank you.
Thank you. Just concluding, in fact we’ll be having operational the rebuilt Bluefish site, which is about a $37 million investment in hydro. There is a tremendous amount of work that’s been done on the Taltson expansion, for example, and now we just have to have the debate on the transmission line and how do we proceed to link those two systems so that in fact we can become more energy efficient.
Everything we do as a government is looking towards the long-term of minimizing our costs and reliance on fossil fuels. Our Greenhouse Gas Strategy is predicated on trying to limit emissions and that’s all tied with minimizing our reliance of fossil fuels. So that is built in as a fundamental premise of the work that this Assembly has done and of Assemblies before them. Thank you.
Thanks to the Minister for those remarks. There are electricity generating systems based on biomass and renewables all over Europe. We’re learning now the Maritimes are doing it through wood gasification. The possibility in Fort Liard for geothermal, thanks to the private industry there in the community pushing it really hard. There’s even electricity generation from biomass in Senegal, but where is the priority listed in the Biomass Strategy? I think it’s item number 12 or the item for 2012, this generation of mine heat and power in a community in the Northwest Territories. Thank you.
Thank you. I agree with the Member that the whole area of wood gasification is of great potential and of great interest to us. Combined heat and power as it now exists, as far as I understand it, is for every megawatt of power electricity that you generate, you have to be prepared to somehow capture and put to use four megawatts of heat, four to five megawatts of heat. So it is an area with challenges. We are looking to the day when, as we watch the technology expand, of something that would be applicable in the communities that are in the Boreal Forest and maybe those outside where we could transport biomass to them. It is an area with potential. We have a lot of initiatives on the go but the issue of using biomass to generate electricity has not been put into practical reality yet.
Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Final supplementary, Mr. Bromley.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Thanks to the Minister for those remarks. That was, indeed, my point, is that it hasn’t been put into practicality yet here in the Northwest Territories.
Given that we are choosing to spend $100 million in subsidies for electricity rates, what actions will the Minister take to replace the community electricity systems that we know are really expensive, based on fossil fuels, and make the changes required?
The solar strategy that’s going to be coming out is going to have ambitious targets in there to try to displace up to 20 percent of the diesel in communities that are currently being used for generation of electricity. We are looking very closely at the work that’s been done by Diavik as they have invested about $30 million into wind turbines, which we think has great applicability to helping deal with the energy circumstances and challenges that are currently facing the community of Inuvik. In fact, the community of Tuk could also benefit from that type of installation, for example. The biomass, we’re going to look at that in terms of combined heat and power, as we’re going to look at expansions of the grid to make sure we can become as efficient as possible. If we hook the Snare and Taltson bridges together and came up the west side down the highway, we would be able to pick up communities that are not currently on the grid. We’re looking at expansion of the grid into Whati. We can pick up Providence. There is plenty of opportunity here before us. There is the question of resources and time. All those types of initiatives are being seriously considered and we want to have that discussion in the coming weeks with committee and with the people of the Northwest Territories.
Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. The honourable Member for Hay River North, Mr. Bouchard.
