Most of the coal mines on Vancouver Island closed long ago. A few working remnants of that robust past linger on, such as Quinsam Coal in Strathcona Park, but Vancouver Island's coal industry had said farewell to its glory days. Now the ghost of that dangerous and grimy past, when the Royal Navy fuelled up in Nanaimo, and Ginger Goodwin lost his life in a union organizing drive, is surfacing. The implications of coal bed methane gas extraction for an island just beginning a new life in the post-resource extraction era are startling.
Posted on September 26, 2012
Potential savings of millions a year spur application to burn.
The four Norske Skog pulp mills in British Columbia are lining up to burn coal to help them deal with wet hog fuel and sludge, after the release in August of a report on the "test" of coal at Elk Falls Mill. The report chronicles a veritable miracle of clean air results -- reduced dioxins, almost no impact on greenhouse gases, and less mercury than when burning natural gas. Predictably, the mill is also making much of the fact that the coal comes from Quinsam Mine, thus "keeping the money in Campbell River."
Posted on August 29, 2012
Crofton pulp mill has devised an impressive follow up to the spectacular success of its sister mill in Campbell River with burning coal. Readers of the Watershed Sentinel may recall that that mill declared coal a win-win situation (they win and they win again) after it revealed to the pulp and mining town that burning coal actually decreased most pollutants (See “Mill Praises