CONSTRUCTION, MAINTENANCE, OR SHUTDOWN: YOU NEED BOILERMAKERS.

You need the best in skills and training. The Boilermakers operate one of the most strenuous apprenticeship programs in the skilled trades. And we don’t stop there.

In concert with our major employers, our National Training Trust Fund keeps Boilermakers at the top of their game throughout their careers, as tools and technologies change.

You need the right people for the job. Our unique Job-Ready dispatch system ensures that we send you Boilermakers with the expertise and qualifications needed for the specific project. Our system gives us the ability to dispatch Boilermakers from across Canada, in timely fashion.

You need a safe and injury-free jobsite. We Boilermakers take safety training seriously, and our co-operative approach in tandem with our employers shows it. Keeping safety as a core Boilermaker value saves time, money, and lives.

You need to stay on schedule and on budget. Canada’s economy sometimes suffers from a shortage of skilled tradespeople. Working with the Boilermakers is your key to avoiding these shortages and getting your project finished on time and on budget.

of carbon capture, utilization, and storage (CCUS). In our battle against global warming, CCUS is a pivotal bridging technology that will help us make the giant leap from a high-emitting present to a non-emitting future.

Experts agree that CCUS is the only clean technology that can decarbonize industry. No other existing technology can do it, and its versatility means it can be applied to countless processes: steel, cement, fertilizer, petrochemicals, pulp and paper, as well as oil, coal, and gas-fired power.

Having had a hand in building Canada’s first three CCUS projects in Alberta and Saskatchewan, Boilermakers have seen first-hand that carbon capture works, and the technology is becoming more economical and effective with every new initiative. Indeed, if all proposed carbon-capture projects in Canada go ahead, they could capture 115 million tonnes of CO2 — 60 per cent of Canada’s 2030 target.

What’s more, constructing and maintaining CCUS facilities will mean thousands of good jobs for Boilermakers and other tradespeople — the kind of just transition that doesn’t leave skilled workers out of the mix.

Reaching our emissions targets and saving the planet from global warming is within our grasp, if stakeholders keep forging forward with sound solutions like CCUS and improving them every step of the way.

Liquefied natural gas

Clean-burning, spill-safe, and carbon-frugal, LNG is a natural fit for B.C.’s economy. With some 1.2 trillion m3 of untapped natural gas reserves, B.C.’s supply (enough to fuel domestic needs for 300 years) is ripe for export to energy-hungry economies in Asia.

There is a lot of buzz around LNG Canada’s massive LNG storage and transport hub under construction in Kitimat, B.C., and Boilermakers are proud to be part of it. The project represents the largest single infrastructure investment in the province’s history — about $40 billion. When completed, the Kitimat terminal will be one of the cleanest in the world, producing less than half the emissions of the average LNG facility elsewhere.

The economic benefits are colossal. At the peak of the construction phase, up to 10,000 workers will be employed erecting the facility’s infrastructure. And the Kitimat project is couched in sound environmental thinking. Its target market is industries in eastern Asia, now heavily reliant on coal-burning plants, for whom a swing to LNG would make a serious dent in the world’s net emissions.

Make no mistake, global demand for fossil fuels will remain high for the foreseeable future. The world consumed 4.2 trillion m3 of natural gas in 2021, and demand is projected to grow to 4.4 trillion m3 in 2030 and remain at that level through 2050. LNG’s cleaner profile and B.C.’s ample reserves make LNG a potent weapon in our fight for a clean energy future.

Richard MacIntosh is an International Representative of the International Brotherhood of Boilermakers union and the IBB’s Assistant International Director of Climate Change Policy Solutions for its M.O.R.E. Work Investment Fund. He is based in Surrey, BC. n