From theGlobeandMail.com

Fibre optic line to link Inuvik's satellite network to the world

JOSH WINGROVE - Nov. 19 2013

This is part of a series looking at infrastructure projects designed to create economic opportunities in the North.

One dish is German, the other Swedish, while Canada is building a third to fill in gaps in its satellite surveillance network, which the government says is "mainly" land and ice monitoring, though territorial officials say the satellites may have military purposes.

Inuvik's satellite site opened in 2010, hailed as a way to drive further development for the northern community ideally placed to download data from satellites racing past the North Pole several times a day. The satellite site "can be expanded as opportunities arise," the federal government said at the time. And now some are.

To stoke its growth, the territory is spending $65-million to $70-million to connect Inuvik to the south with a fibre optic line, one that would bring broadband Internet access to Inuvik and allow satellite data to be transmitted far more quickly - what a German official called "near-real time."

"We know it's a huge investment for the community. It's a territory-building investment for us," NWT Finance Minister Michael Miltenberger said during a recent visit to Ottawa, where officials discussed the issue with the federal government.

Currently, the German and Swedish satellite stations can't transmit data quickly online. Instead they are forced to download it, put it on a disk and mail it out of Inuvik - "a process that no longer meets their needs," Mr. Miltenberger acknowledged. "They've all said that, which is why, to us, this line is such an obvious project that needs to get done."

The fibre optic line - as wide as a thumb - is an international opportunity in a region once known for the DEW Line, a Cold War-era defence system. Now, with fibre optic capability, the Northwest Territories would be inviting countries to build antennas, or satellite dishes, to collect a range of data, including weather patterns, mapping, ice conditions and shipping - and potentially, though "not necessarily," military information, Mr. Miltenberger said.

Germany and Sweden welcome the notion.

"We would take advantage of the line as soon as it's built," said Wolfhard Geile, a representative in Canada for the German Space Agency, DLR, adding Germany is "quite happy and surprised" at how quickly the NWT is pushing for the line to be built.

"At the moment, I would say it might be a disadvantage for Inuvik not to have that," added Anders Jorle, vice-president of public affairs for the Swedish Space Corporation. "There might be other companies, or other operations from ours, [interested in Inuvik by] this kind of infrastructure. Generally, I would say it's a good thing to have these kinds of communications in remote places."

The paths of polar-mapping satellites change throughout several orbits each day, but they always cross the North, Mr. Geile said. Therefore, northern antennas, or dishes, have the most exposure to the orbiting satellites, affording them the most time to download high-resolution images."If you're looking to have coverage that's consistent, then it's a good place to be," said Caroline Cloutier, director of Natural Resources Canada's Data Acquisition Division, which is leading the building of Canada's new dish.

The federal government says there's been other interest from the "international community," but only Germany and Sweden have signed on. The NWT suspects they won't be the last.

"We anticipate by 2020 that we'll have at least six satellite dishes there. We expect that number to double after that," Mr. Miltenberger said. "The line will give Inuvik the capacity to become probably the premiere remote sensing site in the world."

The fibre optic line would run from Fort Simpson, NWT, up the Mackenzie Valley to Inuvik and on to Tuktoyaktuk. Communities along the way would be linked in, giving them high-speed Internet access. The NWT is committed to building it alone.

Ottawa is spending $6.2-million to build its own antenna, which is scheduled to enter service next year. Currently, it gathers information at sites in Quebec and Saskatchewan, and through a deal to occasionally use Germany's Inuvik dish.

Canada appears to welcome the NWT plan. The antennae download a "quite significant" amount of information - the equivalent of 250 high-definition movies a day, Ottawa says - which would be most quickly sent through a broadband connection, Ms. Cloutier said. And environmental monitoring information is often needed quickly, such as during a flood, or when tracking ice conditions, she added.

"Getting that data across through high-speed networks is critical to meet the need for that information. So having a high-speed connectivity link to the facility would greatly increase the speed at which we can access the information coming out of it," she said.

A departmental spokeswoman said in a written statement that "broadband connectivity is essential to the long-term success of our satellite station facility," and that Canada "may" sign on as a client to use the high-speed line. Asked about military capabilities, Ms. Cloutier says Canada's antenna is "mainly" for science but data may have some "operational applications."

The territory expects each new dish at the Inuvik site would generate between $400,000 and $500,000 in fees for using the fibre optic line, which Mr. Miltenberger hopes have in place by 2016. Mr. Jorle's agency's global network of satellite dishes includes two Alaska sites, but the NWT is confident Canada could carve out a niche that the United States can't - because others fear American national security law could give the government power to seize the data, Mr. Miltenberger said.

"If the Americans thought there was a security issue, they'd be able to shut you down, take whatever needed taking," he said, adding: "In Canada, we don't have that type of legislation. We've got a much more collegial type of arrangement. And we're going to be catering to business, military and government ... Their preference, by far and away, which is being demonstrated, is to do business in Canada."

++++++++++

From theGlobeandMail.com

In the North, a power crunch hinders development

JOSH WINGROVE - Nov. 12 2013

This is part of a series looking at infrastructure projects designed to create economic opportunities in the North.

In developing Canada's North, the challenges often begin with the wall sockets.

Consider the case of Fortune Minerals Ltd., a resource company behind a proposed Northwest Territories mining project for gold and other minerals. In addition to navigating environmental approvals and development permits for the project, dubbed NICO, Fortune faces another issue - how do you power the thing?

Large-scale NWT industrial projects typically lie far off the patchwork power grid, so they run on diesel, which is expensive and emissions-intensive. In talks with the territory, Fortune hopes to avoid that. That means the NWT could need a new power plant, new transmission lines or both. And soon.

"Power is always a significant issue," Julian Kemp, Fortune's CFO and vice-president of finance, says in a telephone interview. Diesel power forces mines to pay high upfront costs and high operating costs, threatening a project's viability. "That can be a significant deterrent to advancing any project," he says.

It's a problem northern leaders are looking to address - revamping the power grid to spur resource development that the federal government has signalled is a priority. In the NWT, officials are asking Ottawa to raise the territory's borrowing limit so they can take on debt to build new power facilities, likely a hydro generator, and transmission lines, which could link existing facilities to the projects that need power.

"That would allow us to make some of these revenue-generating, blue-chip economic development opportunities," Finance Minister Michael Miltenberger said during a recent visit to Ottawa, where his delegation pushed for new borrowing rights. "Basically, give us the wherewithal to use our own tools. Untie our hands, as it were." Without the extra debt, he added, "these resource projects will always be stuck, at this point, relying on diesel."

The NWT isn't the only territory in a power crunch. The Yukon government is mounting a similar push, though the circumstances are different. While the NWT is asking permission to borrow, the Yukon is asking for funding. Its government has transmission lines in place, as well as highway systems and other infrastructure it says sets the stage for growth. What it wants is a new dam.

"Really that piece that we seek going forward is the energy piece. And there are a lot of projects we believe would become viable, if we could provide this renewable, lower-cost energy, because these are the challenges," Yukon Premier Darrell Pasloski says in an interview at his Whitehorse office.

Yukon Energy says it's considering a new hydro dam and other options, including wind and biomass, but that they'd all need some federal support in a territory with 37,000 people.

"To expect that small number of people to alone pay for a large hydro project is not realistic," Janet Patterson, a spokeswoman for Yukon Energy, said in a written statement. The territory isn't connected to the continental grid, leaving it unable to sell excess power to raise revenue or to buy it to meet a shortfall, she added. "Bottom line, we can't do it alone."

The territory expanded its power generation and transmission capacity in 2011, but is now relying on diesel backup in some cases due to growth in demand from all sectors - residential, small business, government and industrial.

"All these things are adding to the demand for electricity, so essentially, we've run out of hydro electricity, so we've got to come up with new ways of finding power, or else we're just going to burn more diesel and nobody wants that. We don't want to do that. It's expensive and it's bad for the environment," Ms. Patterson said in an interview.

The federal Conservative government has put an emphasis on Northern development. It was a priority outlined in October's Speech from the Throne. How it will handle the territories' requests is unclear. It's up to the Finance Department to raise the NWT debt limit, and an official said the department "will engage and discuss any such request from the NWT."

The Yukon request is in early stages, but the federal government says power generation is an important issue. Ottawa this year gave $124,000 in research funding to the Yukon's Kaska First Nation to explore the potential of geothermal power.

Canada is working "to develop an approach that will protect the environment while addressing the future power needs in the North to support resource development, business development, and the long-term sustainability of northern communities," said Jennifer Kennedy, a spokeswoman for Leona Aglukkaq, the Nunavut MP and minister responsible for the Canadian Northern Economic Development Agency.

In the NWT, diesel power for industry currently averages about 30 cents per kilowatt hour, five or six times what it costs in some provinces. Some mining companies expect hydro power could cut that in half.

"If we had power like the cost of power in Quebec, our rate of return on our project would change significantly, and that would make financing easier. There's no question about that," said William Mercer, vice-president of exploration for Avalon Rare Metals Inc., whose flagship project is the development of the Nechalacho Rare Earth Elements mine in Thor Lake, NWT.

He called on governments to partner with industry to help build infrastructure, such as transmission lines, saying that was the standard in the past. "In those days, the government played a role in infrastructure development ... now there's a tendency of government to say, 'No, you do it,' " Dr. Mercer said.

There's no shortage of demand. Dr. Mercer figures his NWT mine alone could take 20 megawatts - by comparison, the peak demand across all of the Yukon last year was 83 megawatts - while Fortune Minerals considers itself as something of an "anchor tenant" for new power capacity that could then make other projects viable.

"Sometimes you need that base consumer, that corner tenant in your plaza or whatever you need, that's going to give you that foundation," Fortune's CFO, Mr. Kemp, says. "That's where we see ourselves, as a catalyst to be able to move forward."