Vancouver's switch to renewable gas fuels province-wide debate

The city says by 2050all buildings in Vancouver will run on renewable energy. And not everyone is happy about it.

The City of Vancouver's commitment to transitionaway from fossil-fuel -basednatural gas towardsrenewableenergy entirely by 2050was widely misinterpreted afteraccusations were madethat natural gas would be "banned" and that everyone'sgas-powered appliances would need to be replaced.

The issue has since been debunked by city manager Sandhu Johnston but critics still say the shift will be costly.

"Vision Vancouver through all their years of building bike lanes have gotten very good at back-peddling," said JordanBatemanwith the B.C. chapter of theCanadian Taxpayers Federation, who stands by his positionthat consumers will pay a stiff price.

"If you look at their owndocuments, they have zero per cent natural gas in the City of Vancouver in 2050. Whether they want to call it a ban or not, they're still legislating it out of existence," he said.

The increasein consumer costs could be as high as an additional $1,500 per year for a family of four, according to a letter from Fortis B.C. to Vancouvercity council a natural gas provider for108,000 customers in Vancouver.

A static analysis

But environmentalists are not convinced.

"That's a static analysis," said MarkJaccard, director of the Energy and Materials Research Group at SFU, who appeared on CBC's BC Almanac.

"It says this is how much you've consumed this year, therefore all of that consumption needs to be replaced with a ridiculouslyhigh price for electricity and biomethane."

According to Jaccard,the figures don't take into account how energy efficiency would changeovertime, especially whenthere's a higher industrial emphasis on renewable energy consumption.

He admits there would likely be some added cost, but says it's better than the alternative.

"The cheaper path is to keep wrecking the planet; it's to keep extracting natural gas from the earth's crust and burning it," he said, adding that hethinks the city is doing the right thing by working towards innovation, rather than waiting for it.

"It will be a little bit more expensive, but actually you'd be building more efficient houses as you did that."

• City of Vancouver clarifies its position on natural gas in new buildings

• Natural gas prices rising forFortisB.C. customers

Bryan Yu, a senior economist atCentral 1 Credit Union, is also skeptical there would be a dramatic increase in consumer costs in light of the shift.

"A lot of the analyses are based on prices of current time," he said. "If there is demand or more activity in [renewable energy], that should bring those prices down ... It's not as though its going to be a shift right away from natural gas to renewable its a longer-term shift," said Yu.

According to Yu, natural gas prices are also abnormally low right now.

Bad news for the northeast?

In fact, the low prices have contributed toa bleak three-yeareconomic forecast for thenortheastern region of the province, where the bulk of B.C.'snatural gas is extracted,according to aCentral 1 Credit Union reportauthored by Yu.

Unemployment has been on the rise and housing activity has stagnated in the region, and the trend is expected to continue through to at least 2018.

Yu says Vancouver's transition away from natural gaswon't help the situation.

"I think itwould be a dampening on domestic demand," he said,"But ... a lot of our demand and long-term growth has comefrom the export sector, primarily."

Lori Ackerman, mayor of Fort St. John the largest city in B.C.'s natural gas-producing region says she commends what Vancouver is trying to do, but itshouldn't ignore the value in natural gas.

"I think they need to consider the impacts to other agencies that they have within their communities and that would be the hospitals, the school districts, the post-secondary education, as well as their business associations," she said on CBC's BC Almanac.

Ackerman says these institutions should have a say in what energy sources they consume andthinks the switch to renewable energyshould be a long-term goal. She also says it will take natural gas to get us there.

"The metals that we mine, the fuels that we use, are not going to go away anytime soon, because they will be needed to create these renewable energies."

With files from CBC's BC Almanac

To listen to the full interview, click on the audio labelled:Vancouver's long-termshiftto renewable gas fuels province-wide debate