QUEBEC — After Quebec, it’s Ottawa’s turn to say no to Énergie Saguenay, this mega-project for a natural gas liquefaction plant intended for export.
This refusal buries for good this controversial project estimated at more than $10 billion in its current form, but the company might also present a completely new proposal.
In its 285-page report released Monday following six years of review, the Impact Assessment Agency of Canada said the project was likely to harm the environment.
The Agency concludes that the plant would increase greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, that the increase in maritime traffic on the Saguenay would harm the beluga population, while there would also be negative effects on heritage culture of the Innu First Nations.
The Trudeau government therefore decided that these negative impacts on the environment were not justifiable in the circumstances and refused to grant its authorization.
GNL Québec’s Énergie Saguenay project consists of a natural gas liquefaction plant in Saguenay with a long gas pipeline to supply it. But he already had little chance of seeing the light of day since the Legault government had refused him.
Remember that last year, the Bureau of Public Hearings on the Environment (BAPE) issued a devastating report on the project, which led the Legault government, which was nevertheless quite favorable, to refuse to grant the necessary authorizations.
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The sum of the risks of the project greatly exceeded its advantages, concluded the BAPE.
The promoter maintains that the carbon balance will be positive because its energy will serve as a substitute for more polluting energies abroad. However, the BAPE affirms rather that the GHG emissions associated with the supply of natural gas upstream do not confirm this positive balance.
In addition, these new LNG supply infrastructures risk delaying the transition to cleaner energies in the world, in the targeted export markets, concluded the BAPE.
The BAPE also maintains that the government will have to take into account the risks posed by maritime traffic to the survival of the belugas that frequent the Saguenay and the St. Lawrence estuary.
The BAPE considers that the debate is strongly polarized and that its hearings did not allow to decide on the social acceptability of the project.
In July, the Legault cabinet finally ruled that the project risked “disadvantaging the energy transition”.
The plant’s objective was to export by sea, each year, 11 million tonnes of natural gas from Western Canada to Europe and Asia, for a period ranging from 25 to 50 years. A gas pipeline 780 kilometers long was also to be built by the company Gazoduq, in order to transport gas from Ontario to the Saguenay.
Patrice Bergeron, The Canadian Press
