A first of it’s kind peer reviewed study focusing on the practice of flaring at liquefied natural gas export facilities has been publicly released.
The study that began around a year and a half ago, took a decade’s worth of data between 2012 to 2022 from a total of 48 LNG facilities around the world and a Toxicology and Public Health Expert from Simon Fraser University in Dr. Tim Takaro illustrated what the researchers found;
“The main finding was that the emissions from the start-up operations are three times more intense than regular operations. So it’s an unreported hazard to health that is happening in British Columbia at this very moment.”
Flaring emits air pollutants that have been said to be harmful to humans even in short periods.
The study also stated that most environmental assessments overlook the startup phase and as a result, might underestimate potential health impacts on local populations.
And while it wasn’t included in the study because it was still under construction at the time, the study’s lead researcher from the University of Victoria, Dr. Laura Minet, has heard from Kitimat residents about their concerns with their own recently opened LNG Facility;
“I’ve seen videos and I’ve heard many residents complaining about the smoke and the noise that the flare was making. We can see online, all the flaring notifications that LNG Canada is sending. We counted about 20 notifications over the past year for flaring that would occur over multiple days or even weeks.”
The main reason this study was called first of it’s kind is because it used data from a satellite that can take pictures of flares and then provide an estimate of the volume of the gas that was flared.
But work on the study is not finished yet as Dr. Minet confirmed that there will be a second part to it;
“In the study that just got published, we developed stick models to say there’s 10 or 20 percent chances that a facility will flare that much gas over it’s start-up phase. And we want to use those results and apply them to Woodfibre LNG that is under construction in Squamish. Just to see if we would get different results from their environmental impact assessment, which did not include start-up flaring.”
It’s been estimated that the second part of the study will be released in the fall of next year.