Interest in natural gas as a fuel source is growing in the North. It’s cheaper, it’s cleaner.

It’s more efficient to transport in liquid form than diesel fuel.

And there’s lots and lots of it.

So was the message presented last week during the Yukon Geoscience Forum in Whitehorse.

Don Dean of PROLOG Canada told the audience the major oil companies are just not interested in the market for diesel fuel in northern Canada because of the expense involved.

The last refinery was built in Alberta 35 years ago, he pointed out.

Dean said natural gas can supply the same fuel requirements currently provided by diesel for almost half the cost and fewer greenhouse gas emissions.

And western Canada is awash with natural gas resources, said Dean. He was one of four panelists during the discussion on establishing a supply chain for liquefied natural gas (LNG).

“Five years ago, we could not even spell LNG,” said Yukon Energy vice-president Michael Brandt. “Now, we speak gigajoule.”

Brandt said the decision by the publicly owned utility to go with natural gas to replace old diesel generators at the Whitehorse Rapids Dam was a “big, bold move.”

The challenge facing the North is establishing a supply chain, an LNG corridor running up the Alaska Highway, he said.

Brandt told the audience last month’s approval by B.C. of a design for a bigger, better transport truck to haul LNG was a major step.

The King B will move substantially more LNG than today’s transport trucks, he said.

Cameron Brown of the Casino Mining Corp. said the company is proposing to use natural gas to power what would be the largest mine in the Yukon’s history.

Its energy needs would be greater than the whole Yukon, said the company’s vice-president of engineering.

Brown said renewable energy options such as wind are not sustainable to meet Casino’s needs.

The decision to go with natural gas over diesel will save enormous amounts of money and result in much fewer greenhouse gas emissions, he told the audience.

“The key to all this is we must have a robust and reliable supply chain.”

Casino, said Brown, will need 12 truck loads of LNG a day. It will have its own fleet of 36 transport trucks, trucks powered by the cleaner natural gas.

So substantial would the mine’s energy needs be that Casino has entered into an arrangement with Ferus to build an LNG supply facility in Fort Nelson, B.C. if the Casino mine goes ahead, Brown told the audience.

He said deciding to go with natural gas over diesel will result in a 28 per cent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions at the mine site, and a 50 per cent reduction through the whole supply chain.

“We are confident in our discussions with Ferus that a robust and reliable supply chain can take place,” Brown said.

Calum McClure’s company, Cryopeak, is built around the LNG market, which he says is growing, and growing.

In the last 10 years, production from the huge natural gas resources in Canada and the U.S. has grown substantially, he pointed out.

Calum said using natural gas as a primary source of energy just makes sense because it is far cheaper and much cleaner burning.

There are 300 years of known gas reserves, he said.

Calum pointed out the company has helped install systems in remote northern communities, and was involved with the LNG generating plant in Inuvik.

B.C.’s fleet of ferries is moving toward natural gas as a fuel source, he told the audience.

Calum said Cryopeak was retained by JDS Silver to install an energy plant at its new Silvertip mine west of Watson Lake, just south of the Yukon border, though access is through the Yukon beginning near Rancheria.

The six megawatts of generation is provided by natural gas. The mine has one backup diesel generator.

Calum pointed out the JDS Silvertip mine made the decision early this year to go with natural gas when the price of oil was selling for a low of $40 a barrel.

“They have full reliance on natural gas,” he said.

Calum said there is the potential in B.C. for the LNG market to take off, to such a degree that the domestic market could provide producers with an alternative to the Asian market.