BCBusiness

34 BCBusiness FEBRUARy 2018 COURTESy RiO TiNTO A partnership based on getting people to a speci-c location only started because Carl Anderson got lost. Last Feb- ruary the president and CEO of the BC Innovation Council (BCIC), was on a BC Growth Opportunities Tour in the northwest of the province, trying to show some guests the Skeena River. Instead, he ended up visiting Rio Tinto Alcan Inc.'s modernized alu- minum smelter in Kitimat. "You come out of the [Ter- race] airport, and you have to make a left, then a right," Anderson recalls at his downtown Vancouver o ce. "I was kind of distracted," admits the head of the BCIC, a Crown corporation that aims to encourage the devel- opment and implementation of technologies that meet industry's needs. "Thirty minutes later, we're in Kitimat. So we say, 'Let's go -nd the smelter.'" Anderson wasn't aware of the Rio Tinto facility's revamp, which was com- pleted in 2015 and reached full capacity the following year. The mining and metals multinational (called Rio Tinto Alcan in Canada since the corporation acquired Alcan Inc. in 2007) -rst built an aluminum smelter in Kitimat in 1954. The modernization has meant a renewed focus on shrinking emissions of harmful chemicals such as œuorocarbons. Aluminum is one of the most eneržy- intensive metals to make, but the Kitimat smelter has slashed its carbon emissions. "China produces over 50 per cent of the world's metal now," says Gareth Mander- son, general manager of Rio Tinto's B.C. operations. "But in China, the greenhouse gas per tonne of aluminum is eight or nine times what we have here." Manderson estimates that Rio Tinto now produces metal with 30 per cent less eneržy than before. By combining hydro- electric power with new technoložy—a system built by Rio Tinto called AP40—the smelter now throws o two tonnes of carbon dioxide for each tonne of metal, he explains: "Compared to the Middle East that's at eight tonnes of CO¤ per, or China, which is at 17, that's signi-cantly better than our com- petitors." Kitimat residents remain concerned about sul- phur dioxide emissions from the facility, but a Rio Tinto spokesperson says monitor- ing shows that SO¤ levels are much lower than the B.C. air quality objective. The smelter's transforma- tion caught Anderson by sur- prise. "No smoke," he says, still in disbelief. "I never knew it had been revamped. I never knew it was modern at all. So we came back and actually went up and did a tour, and it's just like, 'Holy shit.'" That 2017 tour led to a recruitment-focused alliance between BCIC and Rio Tinto. "We've been up twice talk- ing to people and working down to the actual prob- lem," Anderson says. "[Rio Tinto] go, 'Well, we can't get enough people to come up.' [They] put job postings up on bulletin boards. It's not like, 'We've got the world's best salmon -shing; it's incredible skiing'—you know what I'm saying?" The smelter employs about 1,000 people in opera- tions, and about 400 addi- tional workers as contractors and support sta. That makes it the top employer in Kitimat, a community of some 8,100 residents. BC Chamber of Commerce member Rio Tinto Alcan is looking for help in its on-the-ground operations (supervision as well as construction-type work) and engineering department. One of the BCIC/Rio Tinto collaboration's -rst projects is a 50-second video aimed at attracting talented young people to those jobs. "They gave us a whole stack of ideas," Manderson says about appealing to prospective employees. "I think we as a busi- ness can probably pro- mote the outdoor lifestyle, the rural lifestyle. For young people that want to get some fantastic experience in a business that's going places… this would be a great oppor- tunity." —N.C. Meal ticket VANCOUVER'S railtown Cafe SAVES MONEy By POWERiNG iTS KiTCHENS WiTH fortisBC NATURAL GAS FROM THE PROV- iNCE'S NORTHEAST W hen Dan Olson launched Railtown Cafe with fellow chef Tyler Day in 2012, the premises they took over ran on electricity. As their Vancouver restaurant and catering business grew to four locations, the pair switched to natural gas from FortisBC—not just for stovetops but for convection ovens, water heating and any equipment that doesn't need electric power. "Right now I'm buying everything I can natural gas," Olson says. Olson, who employs some 200 full- and part-time sta at Railtown Cafe and Railtown Catering, estimates that running equipment on natural gas costs him about a quarter of what he spent on hydro. "When we were just a simple café doing $1 million a year, we had 15 employees, urban.rural. Gimme smelter THE BC innovation CounCil HELPS METALS GiANT rio tinto ATTRACT WORKERS TO iTS REVAMPED KiTiMAT ALUMiNUM FACiLiTy no-SMokE Show Rio Tinto employees grapple with new technology

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