I read with interest that Hawaiian Electric and Fortis have signed an agreement for the export of liquefied natural gas (LNG) from British Columbia, where I live, to the Aloha State.
While most reports described the agreement as yet another step in a long and uncertain process — a step some called premature, given that Hawaii’s Public Utilities Commission hasn’t yet approved Hawaiian Electric’s Power Supply Improvement Plan — in British Columbia casual observers might think the departure of LNG tankers was imminent, given the enthusiasm with which our government responded to the deal.
The B.C. government is anxious to see a final investment decision on one of 19 proposed LNG projects in the province before next year’s election. So single-minded is government in its pursuit of an LNG export industry that its chief advocate has taken to referring to those exports as a “moral imperative.”
In order to help move this particular proposal along, B.C.’s government has partially exempted Fortis’s LNG expansion plans from oversight by our provincial PUC, an ironic move, given the pivotal role Hawaii’s PUC will play in determining if Hawaiian Electric can go forward with its LNG plans. No need for thorough oversight here, government appears to reason, because jump-starting LNG exports from B.C. is so clearly in the public interest.
As many British Columbians concerned about LNG development would say, that public interest argument is debatable. More than a thousand residents, along with organizations, local governments and individual political represen-
tatives, have written government expressing concerns about the proposal to export LNG to Hawaii. Exports would take place from a new terminal on the salmon-rich Fraser River, located in the heart of our province’s largest population center.
Concerns raised include risks to the climate; upstream impacts from fracking, such as earthquakes and groundwater contamination; freshwater use during drilling; loss of farmland to LNG serving power lines; safety risks posed by the LNG terminal and tanker movements; impacts of increased vessel traffic and in-river development on endangered killer whale and salmon populations; and plans for a massive new dam in northeast B.C. to power the LNG industry.
Several of the impacts of LNG exports are easily quantified using a modeling tool developed by the Pembina Institute, a well-regarded Canadian research group. Pembina’s tool shows that fulfilling the 20-year contract to export LNG to Hawaii would require drilling 270 new wells in Northeast British Columbia and use of up to 1 billion gallons of fresh water for hydraulic fracturing, and could generate up to 26 million tons of climate-harming emissions during extraction, processing, transport and liquefaction of the natural gas.
Of course, shipping LNG to Hawaii, converting it back to gas and burning it to generate electricity will release yet more greenhouse gases, making the argument that LNG is a useful step in the transition to from oil renewables wishful thinking at best.
Unfortunately, given the B.C. government’s push for LNG exports, wishful thinking rules the day in our province. That’s why I was excited to learn of Gov. David Ige’s goal to power Hawaii entirely with renewable energy by 2045.
That’s real climate leadership, and by pursuing this goal Hawaii is setting an example that can inspire the world.
Hawaii residents are right to carefully weigh the pros and cons of adding LNG to their energy mix, lest it be an unneeded and harmful distraction on the journey to Hawaii’s clean energy future.
Kevin Washbrook is a director with Voters Taking Action on Climate Change, a nonprofit group based in Vancouver, B.C., that is challenging proposals for large-scale LNG exports from its province.
