BCBusiness

3% Share of B.C.'s roughly 36,000 craft artisans who make a living solely from their art NOVEMBER 2017 BCBUSINESS 19 age children. She lives above the county council o•ce, where a development permit for the Hvalá plant was put to a vote in October. This con ict mir- rors the struggle that often follows when a major ener‚y project like the Site C dam lands on the agenda in B.C. Alterra Power and its founder, Ross Beaty, have faced Icelandic ire before. Beaty's acquisition in 2009 of domestic power producer HS Orka hf, which has a majority stake in the hydro project, sparked a national outcry led by singer Björk. The foreign-ownership slur crops up anytime HS Orka makes a move in Iceland. Beaty, who had no comment, made his fortune in mining as founder of Vancouver- headquartered Pan American Sil- ver Corp. until launching nearly a decade ago what is now Alterra. His growing renewable ener‚y empire, which includes wind and run-of-river projects in B.C., a solar power operation in Ontario and geothermal plants in Iceland and Nevada, is rooted in the notion that Western society must shift to a no-growth way of life. For Agla, it's ironic that a company guided by this ethic will forever change the wilder- ness around the village she loves. HS Orka CEO Asgeir T here are few places more remote than Árneshrep pur. Nestled in Iceland's West"ords region, encircled by mountain peaks that undulate like the ocean below, it's the nation's least-populated county, with just 30 year-round residents. Árneshreppur is facing extinc- tion. Weak transportation links, an unreliable power grid and an economy based on small-scale –shing and agriculture have trig- gered an exodus of young people. Now a proposed 55-megawatt hydroelectric project, backed by Vancouver-based Alterra Power Corp., threatens to divide neigh- bours whose families have lived together for centuries—and dry up waterfalls that have owed to the sea for longer still. "There is a very heated discourse on the matter," says opponent Elín Agla, the local harbourmaster and mother of one of the county's two school- Power Struggle ENERGY Margeirsson insists that much of the Hvalá project, which calls for the construction of dams, will be built underground, and that Árneshreppur won't su§er the devastating environmental e§ects claimed by critics. The plant would help modernize the region and revamp its industry, including a edgling salmon farming sector, he adds. Margeirsson concedes that Hvalá will produce more elec- tricity than the area needs now, but he says the rest will ow into the national grid. "What is bad about producing electricity that goes to other parts of Iceland?" he asks. "Most parts of Iceland import electricity from some- where else in the country." At press time, Árneshreppur council was expected to vote narrowly in favour of Hvalá. Agla believes Beaty is the only person who can stop it. Although she considered making a personal appeal to him at his Bowen Island home when she visited B.C. last summer, there's still an ocean between them. OCEANS AWAY The coast of Árneshreppur in Iceland A plan to harness hydro energy in the Icelandic wilderness has drawn the B.C. company behind it into a Site C–like debate overseas by Scott Neufeld 112 Number of –bre, pottery, wood and mixed-media artisan guilds in B.C. $1.4 Billion Approximate provincial GDP from visual and applied arts in 2014 5,000 Hours of weaving it took Sola Fiedler to create Vancouver Tapestry, which sold for $150,000 at Circle Craft Christmas Market in 2014 ENERGY BOOST Iceland produces nearly all of its electricity through renewable energy, mainly hydro and geothermal power. The Hvalá hydro plant proposed by Alterra Power's Icelandic subsidiary would satisfy the country's electricity needs for the next three years. SOURCES: NATIONAL ENERGY AUTHORITY OF ICELAND, HS ORKA COST: $200 million ESTIMATED CONSTRUCTION: 2018-22 CAPACITY: 55 megawatts, enough electricity for about 10,000 Westfjords residents ANNUAL POWER PRODUCTION: 340 gigawatt hours ALUMINUM INDUS- TRY'S SHARE OF ICE- LAND'S ELECTRICITY CONSUMPTION: 71% RESIDENTIAL ELECTRICITY CONSUMPTION: 5%

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