British Columbia has once again staked its future on a megaproject - this time, the export of liquefied natural gas to Asia from three terminals near Kitimat.

The National Energy Board has already approved export permits and site preparation has been started adjacent to Kitimat's waterfront. It's all systems go, it seems, for $20 billion worth of investment into a bold new industry.

The natural gas is to come from the northeastern corner of the province, adjacent to the Alberta border. Huge amounts of energy would be needed to cool the natural gas to liquefied form so it could be shipped offshore.

No megaproject comes without a cost, and the big one that was stressed last week was that the province would have to abandon its dream of self-sufficiency in electrical energy by 2016, even in the drought years when there is not enough water to run our dams at full capacity.

Now, the goal will be self-sufficiency in average years, not the bad years. The change was needed because the Kitimat LNG plants will need to use a lot of energy, and clean electricity is the energy of choice for them. A small percentage of the energy they use will come from natural gas.

We welcome any effort to get our natural resources to new markets. We welcome the revenue that this will bring, because as the politicians have already noted, we need money to power our schools and health-care systems.

With that, some notes of caution. First, markets for energy are notoriously volatile. When the Kitimat LNG terminals were first proposed - five years ago - the idea was to import LNG, not export it. Today, rising demand in Asia and rising reserves here have turned the tables.

The corporations involved in the LNG projects, along with the provincial government, are all gambling that today's market conditions are here to stay. Promoters of other LNG ideas around the world are all making the same gamble, so the markets are going to be tilted in favour of the buyers.

Also, since no provincial government seems able to resist an alluring megaproject, consider for a moment the fast ferries. Or Tumbler Ridge and the northeast coal development, which never lived up to its expectations.

Just because a lot of money is tossed into the mix does not guarantee success.

Finally, the plan to use green electricity notwithstanding, don't ignore the real environmental concerns that will need to be overcome.

A $1-billion, 463-kilometre pipeline will need to be built to carry the natural gas from Summit Lake, north of Prince George, to the coast at Kitimat. The LNG produced by the plants will need to be loaded onto tankers, which will move down the narrow channel and to the ocean.

Another pipeline proposal, to connect Alberta's oilsands with refineries in Asia, has been getting a rough reception from environmentalists who are concerned about the damage that could be done, and who question the wisdom of shipping an energy source offshore.

The raw materials to be carried are quite different - and an LNG spill would not have the lasting impact of a bitumen spill - but there are similarities between the two ideas. Both would involve lengthy pipelines, high-energy consumption, and tankers in a delicate area of the north coast.

Energy supplies are rarely in convenient locations, which is why the Interior is cross-crossed with pipelines and high-capacity electricity lines; the power has got to be brought to the people. The proposed natural gas pipeline would be just the latest in a long list of them.

Nevertheless, the dangers inherent in the LNG plans should not be ignored just because LNG is deemed to be much less offensive than the oilsands.

This is not to discount the potential benefits - and the northern Interior could certainly use an economic boost.

As we move ahead, we need to be aware of all of the ramifications, good and bad, and we need to understand the risks as well as the economic gains that LNG might bring.