A cool bit on environmental news on an otherwise gloomy day: At the ski area Whistler/Blackcomb located in Whistler, British Columbia construction has just begun on the Fitzsimmons Creek Hydro Project. While damning up a creek doesn't sound like much, for Whistler this little project will produce a whopping 33.5 gigawatt hours of electricity each year. That's the equivalent of powering the resort's entire summer and winter operations, including all 38 of their ski lifts, 17 restaurants, 269 snow-making guns and a bevy of other buildings and services.Even better, Fitzsimmons Creek is just about the perfect waterway for this kind of construction. It already has an abundance of water, the requisite vertical drop to power the damn, it is not a major fish-bearing stream, nor is the creek the centerpiece of any major recreational activity. As a sort of cherry on top, no new roads will have to be cut and the power lines can be buried so as not to disturb the scenery.
