No extension past 2030 for Belledune coal-fired power plant, Ottawa says
CBC
N.B. Power's Belledune generating station will not be allowed to burn coal past 2030, says a spokesperson for federal Environment and Climate Change Minister Steven Guilbeault.
Ottawa won't sign the so-called "equivalency agreement" that the Higgs government has been hoping to strike to let the plant run on coal for an extra decade, the spokesperson says.
"I can confirm that the Government of Canada is committed to phasing-out coal-fired power by 2030 across the country, including in New Brunswick," Joanna Sivasankaran said in an email to CBC News.
"The Minister will not sign an equivalency agreement that extends past 2030."
The decision effectively gives the province and N.B. Power just eight years to come up with an alternative fuel source or close the plant on New Brunswick's north shore. More than 100 people work there.
Belledune spewed more than 2.5 million tonnes of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere in 2019, making it the second-largest emitter in the province after the Irving Oil refinery. In 2018 Belledune's emissions were higher than the refinery's.
On Tuesday, New Brunswick Environment and Climate Change Minister Gary Crossman said Belledune came up briefly during his first virtual meeting with Guilbeault on Nov. 19.
"We did ask about flexibility and we're looking forward to the next meeting coming up, hopefully in the near future," Crossman said. "New Brunswick's a small province and we're doing the best we can to move ahead."
The province's youngest power plant, Belledune began operating in 1993, and its design allows it to continue to 2040.
But under the federal government's climate plan, coal-fired electricity generation must be phased out a decade before that, in 2030.
New Brunswick has pushed for an "equivalency agreement" to let the plant reduce its annual output and run until 2040 by spreading the same volume of emissions over a longer period.
N.B. Power says that would allow it to avoid the cost of building a new natural gas plant to make up for lost electricity generation.
In July, then-federal Environment and Climate Change Minister Jonathan Wilkonson told CBC News he was open to the idea.
"I certainly understand the perspective of the province of New Brunswick."