Whistler Goes 100% Renewable For Olympic Year

Whistler is set to open a new hydro electric system that will generate enough renewable energy to match the entire resort's power news.

"This is going to be a monumental winter season for Whistler Blackcomb. Excitement is mounting for the 2010 Winter Games and we are thrilled to showcase our world-class mountains and PEAK 2 PEAK Gondola to the world," says Stuart Rempel, Senior VP of Marketing and Sales, Whistler Blackcomb.

The Fitzsimmons Creek Renewable Energy Project will produce 33 gigawatt hours of green electricity per year - the equivalent amount of energy required to power the ski resort's winter and summer operations including all 38 lifts, 17 restaurants, 270 snowguns and countless other buildings and services.

The Fitzsimmons Creek area is an ideal location for a successful Run-of-River project. The creek has an abundance of water, the necessary vertical drop, it is not a major fish-bearing stream, and the creek water is not used recreationally within the project area.

This summer, crews installed and buried 3.5km of pipeline, which will carry the water from the intake at Fitzsimmons Creek all the way to the powerhouse, near the Whistler Sliding Centre.

This September, project crews are doing concrete work on the intake structure, backfilling, grading and seeding for re-growth over the buried pipeline, and erecting the powerhouse. The 450m-long transmission line will also be installed and buried this month.

Commissioning and commercial operation date is expected to occur later this fall with the anticipation that the Run-of-River project will be producing power by Christmas.

“The Fitzsimmons Project represents a very meaningful step for us in doing what we can to address climate change inside our own operating footprint,” says Arthur DeJong, Mountain Planning and Environmental Resource Manager, Whistler Blackcomb.

“I look forward to the day this winter when we begin to generate power out of the Fitzsimmons Project. It has been a long and challenging road, and we’ve made great gains, but this project is still only one of many steps that we need to make to become truly sustainable.”

Courtesy of and © Snow24 plc

I think this is good news for skiing. I cannot believe that it will be too long before the European Commission starts to gets it's teeth into ski energy consumption.
The Whistler project will be a showpiece of what can be done. Their construction plan includes for further development so as to be "Closed area" self sufficient, something that the current project will only partially achieve.

Yes, it's about time the world started to use whatever alternative source of renewable energy is available in each location. Here, for example, they're now trialling one out at sea in the tidal race between one of our islands and the mainland.

I would expect, as oil gradually runs out and becomes very expensive (quite apart from the global warming issue) that increasing numbers of these projects will get going. To me, anyway, they are a much more sensible solution than nuclear power, since we still haven't managed to find a way of totally processing/safely storing the waste.

Ally

To me, anyway, they are a much more sensible solution than nuclear power, since we still haven't managed to find a way of totally processing/safely storing the waste.

Except for the fact that France derives 80% of electric power from nuclear sources. So, if they haven't got their waste disposal right, we are in the direct firing line anyway.

After 32 years, there are still Scottish and Welsh farms that are not allowed to run stock, due to the residual efects of Chenobyl.

Dave Mac,
I think it's 23 years since Chernobyl - April 1986. My husband and I were farming in Wales then/still are farming in Wales, so it is a subject I know a fair bit about, through the NFU and farming papers etc.

We weren't affected by it, because we farm in south-west Wales, and it was north Wales that experienced the fallout from Chernobyl (in rain). As far as I understand it, there are about 300 farms in north Wales still under restrictions because of it (plus a few in Scotland and north England).

They are allowed to graze their stock on the mountains, but the animals have to be tested for radiation levels before they go to slaughter. So, the farmers bring them down to the lower 'clean' pastures to graze for a few weeks to reduce the radiation levels to an acceptable level before slaughter. It creates a lot of trouble for these farmers because they have the government people there testing the stock, and it means they have to plan everything well ahead, and if they don't own any lowland of their own they have to rent some in and move the stock on to it. And if an animal tests too high for radiation they have to keep it back for a while until the level drops.

We are also strongly reminded of Chernobyl here locally, because every year a group of school children from Belarus (the area most affected by Chernobyl) come here on holiday to give them a break from the high radiation levels and the poor food and health care they experience at home. The charity that organises this for them says that it gives these children an extra 2 years of life. Apparently 4,000 people in the former USSR have died so far from cancer caused by Chernobyl.

Quite honestly I cannot believe how our government is again considering building more nuclear power plants, when they still haven't solved the problem of how to get rid of the radio-active waste.

Hydro-electric power creates its own environmental problems, but nothing on the scale of nuclear power.

Ally

Whilst I agree with all of your sentiments, Ally, I follow a different logic.

France has committed to nuclear power in a big way. If there is a nuclear accident on mainland Europe, then, given what happened after Chernoble, the UK is in the firing line. It will receive the fallout.

The upshot is that France generates it's power at a fraction of the cost of that of the UK . It therefore seems logical to me, to generate our power from nuclear sources. If the technology is sound, then we are OK, and we should get our power at a low cost. If the technology isn't OK , then our grandchildren are going to need sunglasses that have three lenses, and shoes wide enough to fit six toes.

Dave Mac,
Although nuclear power is cheap to generate, what is incredibly expensive is the capital cost of building the power plant, and then de-commissioning it afterwards. They seem to have only a short operating life of around 40 years, so I would think that the total costs of generating electricity during their lifetime would be considerable.

I also think that they release radiation even when they're working normally, and obviously a lot more if there's an 'accident'. The Irish sea is said to be the most radioactively polluted in the entire world due to Sellafield/Windscale, even though Sellafield is now used for re-processing etc. rather than energy production.

I know why our government is considering building new nuclear power stations. It's simply because we will soon be in a situation where there isn't enough electricity to power the national grid, and conventional power stations produce more CO2 than nuclear ones, and we have promised to control our CO2 production.

I would rather put up with 1960s style power cuts than build more nuclear power plants. And in any case I'm sure people would soon adapt if they were told they would now have an energy quota of e.g. 50% of their current levels. We would all start taking the bus to work/car sharing/use bicycles etc. and build solar systems to heat our hot water, stop using tumble driers, stop buying a new kitchen/bathroom etc. so often, put insulation in our walls and roofs etc. etc.

I think the government should put money into other safe sources of renewable energy like bio-digesters which create bio-gas, etc.

Ally