Peak oil not on YVR radar

North Vancouver City Mayor Darrell Mussatto was clearly excited as he announced his municipality was co-organizing a November 26 event on “peak oil” at the Centennial Theatre on Lonsdale Avenue.

With a confirming nod from Johnny Carline, the Greater Vancouver Regional District’s chief administrative officer, Mussatto touted the event, Peak Oil and the Future of Energy, while attending the GVRD land use and planning committee meeting on November 10.

Like the other directors in attendance that morning, Mussatto had also just sat through a discussion with Michael O’Brien, the Vancouver International Airport Authority vice-president of strategic planning and legal services. O’Brien had confirmed that, as one of three options in its planned expansion, YVR could yet erect a $1.2-billion runway that juts four kilometres into the Strait of Georgia. (According to veteran Richmond councillor and current GVRD director Harold Steves, this would all but “destroy” fish and wildlife habitat on Sturgeon Banks.) Nobody at the time picked up on the juxtaposition of sustainability and airport and air-traffic expansion. After the fact, Mussatto admitted: “It’s kind of ironic”.

Peak oil theory was created by American geophysicist M. King Hubbert, who created a method to model known oil reserves in 1956 and correctly predicted that oil production in the continental U.S. would peak in the early 1970s. Worldwide oil production is expected to peak anytime between now and 2050, and this will cause increases in fuel prices—including jet fuel—as demand begins to outstrip supply of oil.

Mussatto told the Georgia Straight he has a “huge problem” with what airport expansion could mean against that backdrop. “They are testing the water right now,” he said.

Peak oil is also on Steves’s radar as an issue to consider.

“They want to double the aircraft capacity when they may not even be able to afford to fly the planes in the future because the cost of fuel will be so high,” Steves told the Straight after the meeting. “They are out of touch with reality.”

On November 14, Massachusetts-based Cambridge Energy Research Associates released a report questioning the peak-oil theory. Author Peter M. Jackson claimed the world still has 3.74 trillion barrels in reserves, including “unconventional” oil. This is more than three times the oft-quoted figure of 1.2 trillion barrels of remaining oil in the world.

Anne Murray, airport vice-president of community and environmental affairs, said she was not sure what peak oil was. She also could not say how it may feature in planning and expansion decisions at YVR, Canada’s second-busiest airport.

“What are you referring to when you say ”˜peak oil’?” Murray asked in a phone interview. “If you look at the YVR Web site, you will see three forecasts: high, medium, and low. With an increase in the price of jet fuel, the demand would likely be low, so you would end up on the lower end of the forecast range.”

The www.YVR.ca/ Web site reveals a “draft 20-year master plan”. Within that plan is an overview for 2027, with high-, medium-, and low-growth scenarios for passengers, runway takeoffs and landings, and cargo tonnage transported.

“A low-growth scenario could result from slower than anticipated economic growth, external health or security concerns or increasing fuel costs,” the report notes. “A high-growth future could occur if the demand for air travel to and from emerging Asian markets grows more rapidly than anticipated.”

Aside from the foreshore runway, the other two options are for runways of either 2,740 metres or 2,130 metres to be built on Sea Island. These would cost about $300 million, and there is also the issue of noise pollution for nearby Richmond residents.

Murray added that the decision to build a runway has not been made yet and will likely wait a few more years, as it is a long-term process.

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