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SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE - Some people chase robbers. Some chase skirts. Dr. J.P. Pinard chases wind.

"I like to call myself a wind prospector," said the Whitehorse-based scientist, whose job it is to study the direction and speed of wind.

Dr. J.P. Pinard tours the weather tower at the Avalon site. - Guy Quenneville/NNSL photo

Dr. Pinard - who has helped the GNWT and Aurora Research Institute install wind monitoring stations in communities like Tuktoyaktuk, Lutsel K'e and Norman Wells - visited Yellowknife recently to tour Thor Lake, the future site of a rare earth mineral mine by junior exploration company Avalon Rare Metals.

The purpose? To study whether the site is flanked by wind of the correct speed and direction to partially power Avalon's mine.

Dr. Pinard said this was the first time he's been asked to determine the viability of a wind farm at a mine, but added it's a phenomenon that's catching on - and not just to ensure green practices.

"In the last couple of years, there have been a number of mines in Alaska ... that have expressed interest in exploring wind," said Dr. Pinard.

"A lot of these mines want to be good corporate citizens, but they also realize they could save money if they knew they had good wind potential."

Seated beside Dr. Pinard on the cramped Air Tindi plane full of food, mail and core boxes destined for Thor Lake was Wade Carpenter, chair of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources' Wind Energy Committee.

According to Carpenter, a study conducted by BHP Billiton has concluded that wind energy would help reduce the amount of fuel trucked up to the Ekati Diamond Mine by 190 truckloads per season.

He said the idea of wind power at Avalon was suggested to ENR in a letter written to the department by the Yellowknives Dene First Nation, prompting ENR and the research institute to contract Dr. Pinard to make a preliminary visit to study the site's topography, to be followed up by a desktop study.

Avalon camp manager and chief geologist Chris Pedersen said the best potential site for a wind farm would be a 800-foot ridge south of the future mine.

The ridge is in the path of the Hearne Channel, which, according to Canadian Wind Encyclopedia, is an area of high wind energy. Dr. Pinard said if the wind travelling through the channel were to hit the ridge at a certain angle, it would travel upward and create what he called "the Venturi effect," resulting in high wind speeds.

While rough land conditions prevented Dr. Pinard from actually visiting the ridge, a fly-over later confirmed the ridge is host to only a small number of trees - the better to ensure the Venturi effect.

As of press time. Dr. Pinard was still waiting for wind data from a weather station close to the Avalon site. Once he can study that data, he can make a recommendation to the GNWT.

"It would be the first non-community-based wind monitoring station," said Carpenter. But Dr. Pinard said an Avalon wind farm would have to perform under particularly tough economic expectations.

"These wind farms have to pay off within a certain period," he said. "If you get a payoff of four to six years and the mine life will be 10 to 15 years, then it makes sense to put (in) a wind farm."