Risley Calls for Expedited Environmental Assessment for Stephenville Green Hydrogen Proposal
John Risley says he doesn’t mean to be critical of the province’s environmental assessment process, but the current slow pace and uncertainty could threaten the viability of his company’s green hydrogen proposal at Stephenville.
Risley, a director with World Energy GH2, notes a similar project was approved much quicker in Nova Scotia.
He’s urging the province to simply adopt a similar policy and assess its project as one, instead of in three stages.
Meanwhile, Risley all but took credit for landing German Chancellor Olaf Scholz in Stephenville last month.
On VOCM Open Line with Paddy Daly, he said his company “found out” in mid-June that Scholz was coming to Canada to discuss LNG or liquid natural gas. That was two months before it was announced publicly.
Risley says the company contacted the German Embassy with info on green hydrogen, and an invite to its expo in the west coast town.
He says they were able to convince the German delegation that instead of just the ballrooms of Toronto and Montreal, they should see first-hand what’s happening on the ground to help offset the green energy needs of the future.
As for the World Energy GH2 project, Risley insists they will commit to any reasonable environmental mitigation.
In return, he says they need some assurance that what they’re spending on studies and equipment won’t be a waste of time and money.
Barb Dean-Simmons · Journalist |
John Risley doesn’t want to end up at the back of the line.
Risley, one of the directors of World Energy GH2, the company that is proposing to convert wind and water to hydrogen at Stephenville on Newfoundland’s west coast, says the company plans to be a player in the global hydrogen industry. To do that, he said, they need to be early to market.
“Speed is important,” Risley told the crowd at a resources seminar hosted by Atlantic Business magazine in St. John’s on Thursday, Sept. 8
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The components needed to generate hydrogen power — mainly wind turbines and electrolysers — are in high demand and the list of customers is getting longer, he explained.
There are only five companies in the world that manufacture electrolysers, he added. Two of them are in Germany and three are in the United States.
The race to develop green hydrogen is also getting more intense, Risley said, noting U.S. President Joe Biden recently signed an Inflation Reduction Act, offering huge subsidies for the creation of green hydrogen.
That means more competition for the components needed for wind farms.
“And many of the manufacturers of wind turbines are committed right out to 2027,” said Risley.
That puts World Energy, and any other Canadian companies, “in a race for equipment.”
If World Energy GH2 is to reach its goal of having wind turbines set up near Stephenville by the end of 2024, the orders for the components have to be placed before the end of this year, said Risley.
“If we don’t place an order for electrolysers before December, we run the risk of not being able to get them for the next five years,” he said.
He expressed frustration with the pace of the environmental assessment process in Newfoundland and Labrador.
“A project in Nova Scotia almost our size is being permitted in much less time than we are being permitted.
“We can’t hope to get permitted until 2023 and our application was in first,” he said by way of comparison.
In August, the province’s environment minister advised the company that an environmental impact statement (EIS) is now required.
Among the things to be detailed in the EIS are: confirmation of the final proposed locations of wind turbines, worker accommodations, offices, explosive storage facilities, access roads, power lines and substations, as well as their distances from, and potential impact on, nearby receptors; identification of land use overlaps with protected areas, private land, mining operations and traditional land uses; and potential effects on flora and fauna in the area.
That process also provides opportunity for public comment.
The minister will deliver EIS guidelines to the company by Dec. 3.
It could be March 2023 before the minister makes a final decision on whether or not to allow the project to proceed.
Risley said the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador was not ready for the World Energy GH2 plan.
It was only this year that the province killed a 10-year moratorium on the development of wind energy and started to consider regulations related to that industry.
“The province is not as sensitive to our time constraints as we would like them to be,” he said.
In a discussion with reporters after his presentation, Risley said to get this project off the ground, things can’t happen in a “sequential order.”
He added the company is willing to follow the necessary environmental process, but it can’t order billions of dollars worth of equipment to build if it doesn’t have some sense that it will get approvals if it does all the necessary environmental work.
“We don’t actually need the piece of paper,” he said, “but we need the certainty of getting the approvals.”
Regarding the environment, Risley added, “I look at this as the first real opportunity Atlantic Canada has to play a real role in the global problem of climate change.”
He said severe weather events around the world — such as the recent floods in Pakistan and extreme heat in Europe — should put things in perspective.
“Our company will do all the work required to make sure our project is as benign as it can be," he said about the environment. “We want this to be a project that the region … the province and the country can be proud of and we won’t do that by stepping all over the environment.”
Yet he urged people to consider the global environment as well as the local environment.
“Put this in perspective,” he said. “We're losing the war about climate … and if we don't do something about it we’re going to have a lot more to worry about than where the moose cross the road.”
With green hydrogen, he said, Atlantic Canada will help the world decarbonize.
“The prime minister signed an obligation … to be a first mover in hydrogen and to try to deliver hydrogen to Germany in 2025.
“All our premiers endorsed that unanimously,” he said, “so let’s get on with it.”
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