Comment on what you found most interesting or surprising when reviewing the case studies included in Module 4.
I was very interested in the depth of community consultation that happened prior to the district heat projects that used biomass (Ouje-Bougoumou, Revelstoke) proceeded. Linking these projects to the local wood industry makes allot of sense and clearly had an impact in building support. In Nanaimo, there remains strong links to the forest industry but there is also recent experiences with proposals for co generation power plants that caused a great deal of community concern over air quality and other issues. In hindsight, there was no real dialogue between the proponent and the community about how the energy would be generated and how the community would benefit. Perhaps the local support would have been there is more time was spent upfront addressing the communities concerns and discussing how the community to best benefit from the economic spin offs from the project.
