The Member raises good points. What was once old is new again. I mean, I’ve been a homeowner for just about 40 years and I’ve had a woodstove from the very first time I set up housekeeping with my expectant wife. Now, it’s been rediscovered and it’s like a technology or a skill that people have lost and have to relearn. Yes, we do sit in the heart of the Boreal Forest.
We’re also, in Norman Wells, for example, building up something of a biomass industry where they’re bringing in pellets. Businesses and homes are converting. The Power Corporation is still on natural gas. Everybody else has been given their notice and we’re making the switch. The thing about natural gas is it’s demonstrated to be somewhat cheaper than diesel, about 20 to 25 percent cheaper. When the price of oil was a bit higher, the difference with biomass was about 30 to 40 percent. Plus it’s a renewable resource. A lot of it is locally harvested and just about all of it will be once the pellet mill gets put in place.
In terms of the power, we’re looking at about $30 million for one megawatt. Lutselk'e, when the studies were done, and we invested hundreds of thousands of dollars with Deline to prove that out, and if they want to go bigger and put in a transmission line for two other communities and it’s more than one megawatt, then that price of that hydro dam would increase accordingly and it would be a bigger impact.
There are, in my mind, with today’s technology some better investments. For example, I’ve mentioned Lutselk'e where we have a power purchase agreement with the Lutselk'e community and Bulldog Power for a power purchase agreement, and they’ve put up, I think, 35 kilowatts of power and it’s feeding into the grid.
There are some that would say it’s just for show, it doesn’t really work. But what the solar people have shown us is that you get seven months of good solar here and if you can cut all your other energy requirements for seven months and then only get a marginal solar output and have to use other types of backup, you’re better off than just say, ah, it’s not worth it and just keep burning diesel. As we know here in Yellowknife, burning diesel is not an option.
We have intentions in the coming years to go across the territory. For example, all the thermal communities, especially the small ones, have all been changed out with LED streetlights to cut the demands. The money that we’re putting in that Deputy Minister Aumond talked about is going to be available there to all the communities. We are, in the 18thAssembly, those of us who come back, are going to have to look at some significant investments in Yellowknife, up in Inuvik, where you could put in nine megawatts of power that would cut the diesel consumption in the Northwest Territories for generation in half, which would be a cost savings as well as huge impact on our carbon footprint.
We have lots of work to do. We’ve come a long way in the last four or five years, but clearly, there are a lot of things to do in terms of the energy sources that we use and the affordability.