YUB Community Session - March 31 , 2014
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
1 1 YUKON UTILITIES BOARD 2 3 4 5 6 YUKON ENERGY CORPORATION 7 WHITEHORSE DIESEL TO LIQUEFIED NATURAL GAS 8 CONVERSION PROJECT (LNG PROJECT) 9 10 11 12 13 14 ___________________________________________________________ 15 16 COMMUNITY SESSION 17 18 ___________________________________________________________ 19 20 21 22 March 31, 2014 23 Whitehorse, Yukon 24 25 2 1 Proceedings taken at the Westmark Whitehorse Hotel & 2 Conference Center, 201 Wood Street, Whitehorse, Yukon. 3 ___________________________________________________________ 4 March 31, 2014 5 6 Mr. B. McLennan Chair 7 Mr. R. Laking Vice-chair Mr. N. Prasad Board Member 8 Mr. A. Fortin Board Member Mr. R. (Les) Boisvert Board Member 9 Ms. G. Bentivegna Board Counsel 10 Ms. D. Lemke Executive Secretary, Yukon Utilities Board 11 Ms. C. Henry Hearing Officer Mr. D. Ward Board Staff 12 Mr. B. Clarke Board Staff 13 Ms. A. Jones, CSR(A) Official Court Reporter Ms. D. Gerbrandt, CSR(A) Official Court Reporter 14 Gordon Gilgan 15 Skeeter Wright Sally Wright 16 Rob Lewis Aubin Tuzlak 17 Heather Ashthorn Werner Rhein 18 Theo Stad Lois Johnston 19 Maryanne Lewis Jennifer Line 20 Mary Amerongen Cam Kos 21 Ken de la Barre Jacqueline Vigneaux 22 Gary Bemis Colleen James 23 Bob Jickling 24 ____________________________________________________________ 25 3 1 THE CHAIR: I'm going to call this 2 community meeting to order. My name is Bruce McLennan, and 3 I'm chair of the Yukon Utilities Board, and I would like to 4 introduce the Board members sitting on the Panel. 5 To my left are fellow Board members 6 Naresh Prasad; Bob Laking, who is the vice-chair; and to my 7 right are Les Boisvert and Andre Fortin. So on behalf of my 8 colleagues I would like to make a very brief opening 9 statement. 10 This morning we began the public hearing phase 11 of the Yukon Energy Corporation's (YEC) application for an 12 energy project certificate and an energy operations 13 certificate for the Whitehorse Diesel to Liquified Natural 14 Gas Conversion Project, also known as the LNG Project. 15 These certificates are applied for under 16 Part 3 of the Public Utilities Act and have been referred to 17 the Yukon Utilities Board to review and hearing in accordance 18 with the terms of reference presented by the Minister of 19 Justice in his letter of December 18th, 2013. 20 At the end of the hearing, the Board is to 21 provide a recommendation to the Minister on whether the 22 energy project and energy operations certificates should be 23 granted for the LNG Projects, whether the certificates should 24 be subject to any terms and conditions, and it is also to 25 make any other recommendations or provide any other 4 1 information that it considers advisable in the circumstances. 2 This evening's community session will allow 3 individuals who are not registered parties to present 4 information that may inform the registered parties and the 5 Board of issues that may not have been considered in their 6 formal submission. Your comments will be transcribed, and 7 the transcripts will become public documents. These 8 transcripts will be posted on the Yukon Public Utilities 9 website. What we hear tonight will be taken into 10 consideration in making our recommendation to the minister. 11 As outlined in the community session 12 guidelines that were prepared and distributed prior to the 13 hearing and are available at the registration desk, your oral 14 statement should be related to the Minister's terms of 15 reference of the matter before the Board which may be found 16 on the Board's website. 17 More particularly, they should address: (a) 18 the public need for the project under reasonable electrical 19 load forecasts; (b) the capability of currently available 20 generation facilities to meet forecast load requirements; (c) 21 the risks facing the project and their effect on customer 22 rates; (d) any alternatives to the project, given reasonable 23 load and risk assessments; and finally (e), whether it is 24 prudent to build the LNG Project at this time. 25 The community session guidelines outline the 5 1 rules for the presenters. You should refer to those 2 guidelines, but I would like to remind you of a few of the 3 more important rules. 4 Presenters will be called in the order they 5 have registered. And Ms. Bentivegna, who is Board counsel, 6 will do the calling of the registrants. Please start your 7 presentation by stating your name. 8 Registered presenters will have up to ten 9 minutes to make their statements. You will be advised after 10 about nine minutes that you have one minute left to complete 11 your presentation. No visual aids are permitted. 12 If a Yukon Utilities Board member requires 13 clarification regarding a presentation, they will wait and 14 ask for that clarification at the end of your presentation. 15 There will be no questions taken from the 16 floor. The applicant and other registered parties who might 17 be observing this community session will neither take or ask 18 questions, nor will they provide comment at tonight's 19 session. If they wish to address points raised this evening, 20 they will be able to do so in the formal hearing, which 21 reconvenes tomorrow. If they do so, those matters will 22 appear in the transcripts. 23 This session will conclude at 10 p.m. at the 24 latest. If anyone is speaking at that time, they will be 25 allowed to complete his or her statement. 6 1 There are to be no comments from the floor 2 during an individual's presentation. 3 If you don't want to make an oral statement, 4 you can still make a written submission, but it must be 5 received by midnight tonight. 6 We will take a break in between. I had 7 planned to take a break at about 8:20, 8:30 for 15 minutes, 8 but there is an interpreter, who we didn't realize was going 9 to be here tonight, and she has asked if we could take a 10 five-minute break after every hour. So I will try to 11 accommodate that. So we will take a break at 8, 9; and she 12 should be fine until the end of the session. 13 If you have a cellphone, I would ask you to 14 turn it off or place it on mute. 15 And with that I would ask the first registered 16 presenter to approach the microphone and make the statement. 17 And you can use the microphone or you can make your 18 presentation from that table. 19 So I'll get Ms. Bentivegna to call the first 20 speaker. 21 MS. BENTIVEGNA: Mr. Gordon Gilgan. 22 MR. GILGAN: Good evening. My name is 23 Gordon Gilgan. I'm a resident of Whitehorse, Yukon. 24 Firstly, let me thank you for the opportunity 25 to address you on the matter of the Yukon Energy Corporation 7 1 proposal to purchase two liquid natural gas generators to 2 replace two diesel generators that the Yukon Energy 3 Corporation has decided has completed their useful life. 4 By way of introduction, I've lived in the 5 Yukon for 13 years. I'm retired from regular employment, but 6 I still work as a consultant. I'm a biologist. I have two 7 degrees in science and a doctorate in higher education. 8 I'm appearing before you tonight because I am 9 an energy consumer and I'm a shareholder in Yukon Energy 10 Corporation. 11 I am concerned about their proposal to 12 introduce liquid natural gas into the fossil fuel energy 13 mixture of the Yukon. I recognize that the Yukon Utilities 14 Board is one of the checks and balances to ensure that public 15 utilities such as Yukon Energy Corporation operates in my 16 best interest. 17 I'm concerned that the Yukon government is 18 prepared to borrow $39.2 million to enable Yukon Energy 19 Corporation to purchase these generators and the 20 infrastructure necessary to bring liquid natural gas into the 21 Yukon. 22 I was told by Yukon Energy Corporation in a 23 public meeting that this purchase and operation will reduce 24 emissions from the current generators based on analysis of 25 several consultants that the corporation presented as being 8 1 independent. 2 In a subsequent discussion with the 3 consultants, they admitted that if the corporation had used 4 current scientific information that was readily available to 5 them, they would not have made such a claim as they know it 6 is not the truth. 7 In spite of this admission, Yukon Energy 8 Corporation continues to claim that liquid natural gas is a 9 cleaner fuel than the diesel currently used for power 10 generation. 11 It's important to recognize that the 12 electrical generation we're talking about is for the backup 13 of the hydro generation capacity of Yukon Energy Corporation. 14 In the past year, according to Yukon Energy Corporation 15 website energy consumption calculated that I was looking at, 16 we used 425.7 gigawatt hours of electricity generated by 17 hydro and an additional 2.11 gigawatt hours generated by 18 back-up diesel. That is less than half of 1 percent of the 19 total electricity consumed that is generated by these backup 20 diesel generators. 21 You may think that this year that has just 22 passed is an outlier, but the information provided by the 23 corporation -- to the corporation by the InterGroup 24 consultant in March of 2011 indicated that diesel generated 25 2.7 gigawatt hours of electricity in 2010.