Drawing The Line: An environmental history of the Westcoast Transmission natural gas pipeline, 1948-1982

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dc.contributor.advisorKheraj, Sean R.
dc.contributor.authorVan't Veen, Esther
dc.date.accessioned2024-03-18T17:58:46Z
dc.date.available2024-03-18T17:58:46Z
dc.date.issued2024-03-16
dc.date.updated2024-03-16T10:51:33Z
dc.degree.disciplineHistory
dc.degree.levelDoctoral
dc.degree.namePhD - Doctor of Philosophy
dc.description.abstractThis dissertation is an environmental history of Westcoast Transmission Company Limited (Westcoast), which built Canada’s first big-inch natural gas pipeline and inaugurated large-scale natural gas usage in British Columbia. The study starts in the late 1940s, when the company was founded, and ends in 1982 when it effectively concluded its first encounter with substantial public resistance to its natural gas pipeline ventures. The dissertation asks to what extent Westcoast shaped human-nature relations and argues that Westcoast’s energy transition was about more than technological innovations and economic questions of supply and demand. Instead, natural gas usage and exploitation were intertwined with gender identity, community building, geopolitical questions, colonial ambition, and the definition of modernity. Relying primarily on three archival collections in two Canadian cities, parts of which are newly available to the public, this dissertation explains how Westcoast developed, operated, maintained, and expanded its complex energy system and sheds light on Canada’s relatively late transition to fossil fuels and the persistent nature of Canada’s fossil fuel reliance.
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/10315/41873
dc.languageen
dc.rightsAuthor owns copyright, except where explicitly noted. Please contact the author directly with licensing requests.
dc.subjectCanadian history
dc.subject.keywordsCanadian history
dc.subject.keywordsEnvironmental history
dc.subject.keywordsEnergy history
dc.subject.keywordsNatural gas
dc.subject.keywordsBritish Columbia
dc.subject.keywordsB.C. history
dc.subject.keywordsImpact assessments
dc.subject.keywordsEnergy security
dc.subject.keywordsAlberta
dc.subject.keywordsIndigenous history
dc.subject.keywordsEnergy transition
dc.subject.keywordsFossil fuels
dc.subject.keywordsHigh modernism
dc.subject.keywordsColonialism
dc.subject.keywordsGender dynamics
dc.subject.keywordsMackenzie Valley Pipeline Inquiry
dc.subject.keywordsBerger Inquiry
dc.titleDrawing The Line: An environmental history of the Westcoast Transmission natural gas pipeline, 1948-1982
dc.typeElectronic Thesis or Dissertation

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