General Infrastructure Discussion

[jollyburger]

Originally Posted by Migrant_Coconut

Forgive my skepticism, but we can't even get plastic recycling to turn a profit - and that's just converting solids to other solids.

Producing 103 million litres of green fuel will require a massive amount of electricity -- 315 megawatts – to run the direct air capture plant and produce 35,200 tonnes green hydrogen from water using electrolysis.

https://www.alaskahighwaynews.ca/fort-st-john/carbon-capture-biofuel-plant-planned-for-bc-4514944

[WarrenC12]

What do they mean here? Megawatt hours? 315MWh is 315,000kWh, which costs about $31,500. 315MW to run the machines would mean $31,500 per hour, but how much is it running to produce 103 million litres of fuel, plus the Hydrogen.

Even running 24x7 that would be $275 million.

[madog222]

Originally Posted by Jimbo604

Another news story about Metro Vancouver north shore sewage treatment plant construction issues:

https://bc.ctvnews.ca/timeline-for-billi...ertain-after-project-abandoned-1.5610652

CTV News Vancouver - Published Oct. 4, 2021 1:52 p.m. PDT - Timeline for billion-dollar North Shore wastewater treatment plant uncertain after project 'abandoned'

"VANCOUVER - Construction on the new North Shore sewage treatment plant, already years behind its initial timeline for completion, has slowed so significantly that Metro Vancouver now considers the project “abandoned” by the contractor.

In a statement, Metro Vancouver told CTV News the project contractor, Acciona Wastewater Solutions LP, significantly reduced staff last Wednesday without notice. ..."

Acciona has now been fired and a new contractor will finish the project.

[FarmerHaight]

Originally Posted by Migrant_Coconut

Forgive my skepticism, but we can't even get plastic recycling to turn a profit - and that's just converting solids to other solids.

From my understanding, the bi-products of carbon capture generate only part of the revenues. Perhaps the bigger money-maker is the carbon credits sold to companies that want to get to net zero without changing their own behaviour.

[officedweller]

WRT Iona:


Pic by me of notice from Vancouver is Awesome.

[Sheba]

Metro Vancouver to hire new contractor for troubled $1-billion North Shore treatment plant

Metro Vancouver will try over spring and summer to get its much-delayed, over-budget new North Shore wastewater treatment plant back on track and devise a plan for completion of the now $1-billion project with the help of a new contractor.

The regional district board approved a process to hire PCL Constructors Westcoast Inc. on a contract worth about $40 million for the job of developing a new plan with Metro Vancouver, including a revised budget and schedule.

“We anticipate being able to formally finalize this in the coming weeks,” Metro’s chief administrative officer Jerry Dobrovolny said in a statement.

Metro Vancouver in January terminated its contract with the project’s initial contractor, Acciona Wastewater Solutions LP, after Acciona missed key milestones and last fall appeared to have “abandoned” the project.

...

Dobrovolny said Metro’s board of directors, at its March 25 meeting, will also consider an amendment to Acciona’s contract with the engineering firm AECOM to keep that company on the project in the role of engineer of record.

In the meantime, Dobrovolny said Metro and PCL will look for opportunities to complete parts of the project that are already underway, such as concrete work, “to keep construction moving forward,” through the 2022 season.

Metro has spent $498 million on the project to date, with another $267 million in approved funding for construction in 2022, according to a Feb. 23 staff report.

Metro’s liquid waste committee reviewed staff’s recommendation at its Feb. 23 meeting to split the job to complete construction into two contracts, the first to review and complete the plant’s design, and devise a plan to complete construction with a revised budget.

Completion of construction will be awarded in a second contract, said Cheryl Nelms, general manager for project delivery, which ideally would be PCL if they are able to offer a guaranteed maximum price to deliver the plant.

...

[madog222]

Metro Vancouver is contributing $18 million in funding for the long discussed Sapperon district energy system in New Westminster. It sounds like Metro Vancouver will take the lead on these systems throughout the region while New West has been looking at this for a decade.
This will be a sewer heat recovery system (the city had considered then ruled out biomass combustion).
Royal Columbian Hospital will be the first consumer, Sapperton Green will definitely be connected when built and Brewery District was built to allow connection.

435 Canfor Ave was identified as the best location when this was studied back in 2014, at the time it was city owned. The city acquired 151 Spruce Street in a and land swap for the Canfor site a few years ago. 151 Spruce seems like a great location for the district energy facility. https://goo.gl/maps/7qwG7Rhsq2rMHtFo7

Metro Vancouver has committed up to $18 million in funding for the Sapperton District Energy System, and is actively exploring future opportunities to support a number of similar projects around the region.

New Westminster Council recently gave first reading to a new District Energy Bylaw, which will enable implementation of the Sapperton project. Further funding from other orders of government is being sought to allow the project to proceed. The City and Fraser Health are also working to confirm participation of Royal Columbian Hospital as the major user of the new system.

From New West Record https://www.newwestrecord.ca/local-news/...de-sewer-heat-to-new-westminster-5172200

[jollyburger]

Here's the impact assessment for that new TOPAZ fibre optic cable

https://www.ceaa-acee.gc.ca/050/evaluations/proj/81122

Seems like they are working with Shaw and were laying cable last year. Sounds like the building they are saying that was being upgraded in Vancouver is that one in Port Alberni (?)

https://www.albernivalleynews.com/news/n...rs-off-port-alberni-could-be-for-google/

[officedweller]

AECOM to complete design of new North Shore Wastewater Treatment Plant
https://ca.movies.yahoo.com/aecom-complete-design-north-shore-105500069.html

[officedweller]

From Trish Jewison twitter posted Sept 25th:

North Shore Wastewater Treatment Plan under construction centre of pic:


https://twitter.com/TrishJewison?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor

[jollyburger]

I wonder if they're going to extend water restrictions in October. No rain and it's heading towards the lower bound of water storage levels

http://www.metrovancouver.org/services/water/sources-supply/reservoir-levels/Pages/default.aspx

Edit: Vancouver Sun article from five days ago about low water levels throughout BC

https://vancouversun.com/news/local-news/drought-levels-high-in-bc

[WarrenC12]

Originally Posted by jollyburger

I wonder if they're going to extend water restrictions in October. No rain and it's heading towards the lower bound of water storage levels

http://www.metrovancouver.org/services/water/sources-supply/reservoir-levels/Pages/default.aspx

It's low but not that low. Interesting this year how summer has shifted what feels like a full month here. It was slow to get going but has now lasted into October.

Vancouver has always had pretty good September weather, but we're usually into the regular rain by mid October.

Halloween night is often terrible for the kids out getting candy. I expect it will still suck this year.

[djmk]

Originally Posted by WarrenC12

It's low but not that low. Interesting this year how summer has shifted what feels like a full month here. It was slow to get going but has now lasted into October.

Vancouver has always had pretty good September weather, but we're usually into the regular rain by mid October.

Halloween night is often terrible for the kids out getting candy. I expect it will still suck this year.

we used to never get forest fire smoke in the city at all. This year we had smoke in October.

this is very weird. However, I'm not entirely sure I should be complaining.

[Repthe250]

We’ve had a very weird last several seasons:
Summer 2021: heat dome, hottest temps in the country, ever recorded.
Fall 2021: atmospheric river after atmospheric river, landslides, floods
Winter 2022: one of the, if not the coldest Christmas on record in BC.
Spring 2022: of the coolest, rainiest springs on record.
Summer 2022: Summer started mid July and is currently on par to last til mid October.
Fall 2022: record breaking drought, summer like first half of October

Crazy times

[aberdeen5698]

Originally Posted by Repthe250

Winter 2022: one of the, if not the coldest Christmas on record in BC.

The week before Christmas in 2008 was just as cold, or colder, plus it dumped a couple of feet of snow that hung around for weeks on end.

But yeah, no doubt that the weather is getting more extreme.

[Repthe250]

I was in Kelowna on Christmas Day last year and iirc, the daytime high was -25C. When I landed in Vancouver on Boxing Day, it was -8C at like 5 pm. I’ve never seen a Christmas that cold.

[cairnstone]

Originally Posted by Repthe250

I was in Kelowna on Christmas Day last year and iirc, the daytime high was -25C. When I landed in Vancouver on Boxing Day, it was -8C at like 5 pm. I’ve never seen a Christmas that cold.

e

I have been her 30 years and about ever 3rd or 4th Christmas January has even cold and miserable. YVR shut down in a in 97 I believe because of snow and then had a good 2 weeks of barely zero highs. Really not that unusual ever talk to old locals they will tell you it was not unusual to be able to walk across the Fraser some winters. We seem to take a 10 year snap shot of the weather and say its different but it really is not.

We need to take the good with the bad

[aberdeen5698]

Originally Posted by cairnstone

...ever talk to old locals they will tell you it was not unusual to be able to walk across the Fraser some winters. We seem to take a 10 year snap shot of the weather and say its different but it really is not.

I don't ever remember the Fraser freezing over in the Lower Mainland, but there used to be skating on Lost Lagoon on a pretty regular basis back in the old days.

What IS new, however, is last year's heat wave and November rains. I could never have imagined an event that would take out all five highway AND all three railway connections to the rest of Canada.

[Changing City]

Originally Posted by aberdeen5698

I don't ever remember the Fraser freezing over in the Lower Mainland, but there used to be skating on Lost Lagoon on a pretty regular basis back in the old days.

What IS new, however, is last year's heat wave and November rains. I could never have imagined an event that would take out all five highway AND all three railway connections to the rest of Canada.

What? You can't remember January 1929? (It froze in 1922, and briefly some time in the 1940s, I believe, and in 1962 the upper reaches were frozen, as far as Surrey)


See image in the New Westminster Archives

[CanSpice]

Originally Posted by aberdeen5698

I don't ever remember the Fraser freezing over in the Lower Mainland, but there used to be skating on Lost Lagoon on a pretty regular basis back in the old days.

What IS new, however, is last year's heat wave and November rains. I could never have imagined an event that would take out all five highway AND all three railway connections to the rest of Canada.

A few years ago (2018 maybe?) I took the paddlewheeler riverboat tour from New West to Fort Langley and the Fraser was frozen over. It was really cool being an icebreaker through it.

Last year there were ice floes in New West, and it froze shore-to-shore between Langley and Mission.

How quickly we forget.