Updated – January 2017: In October 2016, Squamish Nation Chiefs and Council voted to select air cooling as the cooling technique Woodfibre LNG Limited will use to cool its LNG facility. Find out more: woodfibrelng.ca/squamish-nation-announces-decision-on-woodfibre-lng-plant-cooling-technology/.
Hi Charlene,
Thank you for the question.
As part of our early design process, we considered a number of different cooling methods including air cooling, evaporative cooling (cooling tower, wetted surface air cooler, and hybrid wet-dry wetted surface air cooler), freshwater cooling from local streams, and, seawater cooling from Howe Sound. We chose seawater cooling as our preferred method because our assessment found that it provides greater stability in production and is more energy efficient than air cooling. In addition, seawater cooling produces less environmental noise and has less visual effects than air cooling.
If you are interested in learning more about the types of cooling methods we considered as part of the early design work of our project, please read our Assessment of Alternative Cooling Methods, which is posted on the Environmental Assessment Office’s web site here.
