PREMIER Gary Doer is especially proud that Manitoba is Canada's first province to commit in legislation to meeting Kyoto targets, to cut greenhouse gas emissions by three million tonnes in four years. Shutting down Manitoba Hydro's coal-burning plant in Brandon is central to hitting that target.
The Brandon plant is an easy mark, spewing 390,000 tonnes of GHG per year. But, as an engineering professor and student on the page opposite argue, it is not necessarily the best investment in the hunt for eco-friendly fixes that serve Manitobans' broader needs. James Blatz and Mark Hearson say spending $300 million to separate the grades at nine points where secondary roads cross the Perimeter Highway is a better bang for the taxpayer's buck.
The Perimeter Highway was intended to be an efficient, safe way for vehicles to move around the city of Winnipeg. Efficient transportation is central to Winnipeg's goal to become the country's largest inland port. But traffic on the Perimeter Highway is slowed and halted at nine points, where traffic lights or stop signs mark intersecting roads. This poses a hazard and a frustration to drivers, a disruption to the movement of freight and contributes -- through stops, starts and idling time -- to higher GHG emissions. Closing the coal-burning plant would cut more GHG per dollar, but it would have no other spinoff, Mr. Blatz and Mr. Hearson argue.
The engineering duo does not speak to the health hazards inherent in burning coal. But they are spot-on regarding the considerable hazards presented by halting highway traffic to let vehicles cross the Perimeter. As an infrastructure project, separating the grades will give considerable pay back to motorists, the environment and to the city's chances of being taken seriously when it says it is capable of moving international goods via air, rail and truck more efficiently than competing jurisdictions in North America.
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