Risk communication in public consultations for locally unwanted land uses: a study of the public consultation for the South East False Creek neighbourhood energy facility

City governments all over the world are looking at ways to promote and incorporate sustainable sources of energy. The City of Vancouver attempted to incorporate such a process using biomass combustion in the South East False Creek development, a new model sustainable community in the centre of the city. However, this technology was rejected and an opportunity to employ this beneficial energy source was missed. This project examines the public consultation process for this proposal to determine how it might have contributed to the rejection. Challenges to the acceptance of such a technology by the public, both generally and for this project specifically, were exposed. It was determined that the rejection of biomass combustion as an energy generation technology was largely a consequence of faulty execution of certain components of the planning and consultation processes and less a result of unacceptable risk inherent to the proposal itself.