On October 13, just after 1 a.m, and only eight months after British Columbia signed the Great Bear Rainforest Agreements — set in place to protect the world’s largest coastal temperate rainforest — the Nathan E. Stewart tugboat ran aground near Bella Bella. Even though the 10,000-tonne fuel barge the tugboat
Continue readingAuthor: Aurora Tejeida
‘Our Salmon Will Not Survive’: Gitxsan Nation Raising Funds to Fight Pacific Northwest LNG in Court
Between the Site C dam, Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain pipeline and the Pacific NorthWest liquefied natural gas (LNG) export facility, it’s hard to keep track of all the projects that have been approved in B.C. But for First Nations that will be affected by the Pacific NorthWest LNG terminal and
Continue readingOilpatch to Solar Field: Alberta Oil and Gas Workforce Lines Up for Solar Training
There just aren’t enough solar training centres in Alberta to keep up with demand from former oilpatch workers, according to Russel Benson, owner of Gridworks Energy Group, an Edmonton-based company that designs, supplies and installs solar panels.
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Oilpatch to Solar Field: Alberta Oil and Gas Workforce Lines Up for Solar Training
There just aren’t enough solar training centres in Alberta to keep up with demand from former oilpatch workers, according to Randall Benson, owner of Gridworks Energy Group, an Edmonton-based company that designs, supplies and installs solar panels.
Benson, who has worked in the solar industry since the year 2000, said 
more capacity is needed to upgrade the skills of the province’s vastly underemployed oil and gas workforce which has lost thousands of jobs in the wake of plummeting oil prices.
“We do a lot of training,” Benson told DeSmog Canada. “The interest in training is unbelievable, it’s gone up two or three fold just in the last couple of years. And it continues to grow.”
Benson, who said he’s had to turn people away from full classes, is currently considering opening up another training centre in Calgary to keep up with demand.
But as reports of overburdened solar training centres start to emerge, the biggest question — of who will employ all the newly trained workers — remains unanswered.
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