Skip to content

Letter: Kootenay Lake needs electric ferry as soon as possible

Letter from Nelson-Creston Green Party member Mary Donald

To the Editor:

Open letter to B.C. Transportation Minister Claire Trevena

We see that you have changed the date for full electric propulsion for the Kootenay Lake ferry to 2030 from 2040, but we still find this completely unacceptable in light of the dire climate crisis we are now in. How many thousands of tons of greenhouse gases will be emitted by the diesel motors between installation in 2022 and 2030?

We have such an opportunity here to mitigate those emissions by starting out as a fully electric ferry. We have the technology now, and in fact at Corvus Energy, right here in B.C. Have our government marine engineers taken the trouble to travel to Norway to see the new electric ferries in action (now for several years) and talk with engineers there about any problems? And as you noted, they are using electric ferries in Finland, Sweden and Ontario already. We already have prototypes to follow; we just need the will. BBC News reports that operating costs of electric ferries are one-quarter of diesel’s costs, and electric motors need minimal maintenance.

You also mention doing “incremental improvements” and “a long-term, systematic approach to electrification.” We do not have a long-term anymore in which to act, to mitigate the climate emergency. And any expense imposed now for electric ferries will pale in comparison to the massive expenses we are going to incur with the increasing extreme weather events now occurring and prognosticated to come. In fact, the UN’s annual emissions report released in November states that we are on track for 3.2 degrees of warming if we continue as we are, and we will have an unlivable planet. And it states that the world is not doing enough, that we must transition off fossil fuels as fast as possible.

We hope you will reconsider your configuration of this new vessel to a 100 per cent electric ferry, and use the opportunity to have a prototype for the other inland ferries.

Mary Donald

Nelson-Creston Green Party

Riding Association