Kyoto, Canadians, Energy and the Environment
Posted by Stoneleigh on February 22, 2007 - 11:13am in The Oil Drum: Canada
Topic: Environment/Sustainability
Tags: climate change, energy efficiency, environment, greenhouse gas emissions, hydrogen economy, kyoto [list all tags]
Last week, we learned that Canada’s record on greenhouse gas emissions reductions is the worst of the G8. Worse even than the non-signatory to the Kyoto Accord, the United States. This sets a realistic counterpoint to the much hyped greenwash announcements of the Canadian federal government in previous weeks. The Eco-Energy public relations events were primarily recycled hot air from the previous administration; wrapped in Tory blue paper and tied up with green ribbon. The appearance of action while committing to nothing was assailed by political partisans and pundits, but with no effective or constructive criticism. It was a clear victory of symbolism over substance.
While the average Canadian appears oblivious to the warning signs, and climate change deniers remain firmly in control of the federal governments in Canada and the U.S., the reality is becoming increasingly stark for those paying attention.
In summary, world peak oil production (conventional oil) is here. North American peak natural gas production is here. Mining the Canadian tar sands is a losing proposition, costing more in environmental impacts, natural gas and fresh water than it is worth. The concept of parking a couple of nuclear reactors in the oil patch to replace the natural gas being used is laughable on multiple levels, not least because we have no plan in place for dealing with the radioactive spent fuel.
Canadians, on the whole, don’t give a fig for our environment. We continue to despoil it unabated, assuming that when we make one area uninhabitable, we can simply move on to another. We pave over our productive farmland in order to build our future ghettoes, currently known as suburbia. As a species (homo hydrocarbonus), there can be no doubt that we will consume every drop of recoverable fossil oil we can before we are done, and all the natural gas. We can debate how long that will take, and whether we mitigate the effects to any perceptible extent, but that is petty stuff. More interesting are the questions of how we will accommodate the climate change refugees, and how much of our current economic and cultural practices we can sustain as oil and natural gas rise in price. The case of post-Katrina New Orleans is instructive on how we will deal with climate change refugees, as a best case outcome.
There are a small, but well-connected and vocal group who are working toward the creation of the “hydrogen economy” as the ubiquitous successor to today’s hydrocarbon energy paradigm. In my book, The Emperor’s New Hydrogen Economy, I argue that this is not going to work for a wide variety of reasons. (I don’t propose to repeat those here. If you are interested, there is a sampling that pre-dates the book available on my web site ). The hydrogen economy is currently the most popular of the never-quite-ready “silver bullet” solutions being proposed to our energy problems. Mirages will not solve the problems; only deflect us from searching for viable solutions.
How do we move forward from this point? First, we need to acknowledge and accept some realities.
- Fossil fuels are finite, and we are consuming them at an accelerating rate. The peak production precipice is upon us. There is little time to start making major adjustments that could avoid or mitigate major economic and societal collapses.
- Governments are unlikely to provide constructive leadership on these matters. The scale is beyond their conception, their track record is not encouraging, and politicians never want to be the bearers of bad news.
- The major multi-nationals in the energy sector have no reason to deliver viable alternatives until they have wrung every penny of profit they can from hydrocarbons, without regard to the consequences which they shed onto the residents of planet earth.
- The only force that can alter the course is the combined power of the consumers in the industrialized and industrializing world. The third world does not consumer enough hydrocarbons to be a factor. The oil companies extract, transport, refine, store and distribute their products because consumers buy them, both directly and indirectly. If the market stops buying, the producers will stop producing.
- There are no silver bullet solutions. The hydrogen economy is hype. Finding more hydrocarbon reserves (e.g., sub-sea methane clathrates) will simply result in more greenhouse gas emissions. Sustainable energy sources (solar, hydro, wind, tidal, geothermal, biomass, etc) are real and they work, but they generally cost more than fossil fuels at current prices, and take time to implement, especially on a scale to replace our current use of fossil hydrocarbons. Intelligent conservation and improved efficiency are the two biggest wins available to us, and the potential is huge, but not enough on their own.
- A personal energy plan will permit us to take the initiative to reduce our overall energy use, and related costs. It will permit us to substitute sustainable energy sources for finite sources. It will allow us to make the necessary adjustments in a controlled manner that is tailored to our personal circumstances. Collectively, these personal energy plans in aggregate will permit our communities to adjust to higher fossil energy costs while minimizing disruptions.
The real question is, do we have the foresight, fortitude and personal energy to develop a personal energy plan and follow through on it? Based on my personal experience, I think we do, but not if we sit on our hands and wait for someone else to deal with the matter. I speak to this in the second half of my book, The Emperor’s New Hydrogen Economy. There, I present many ideas there on how you can save on your energy bills with zero or minimal financial investment to get you started, and several ways to substitute sustainable energy into your consumption mix.
It’s time to get past the rhetoric that we can’t afford to save the environment. If we intend to survive as a species, we can’t afford to do otherwise. The good news is that we can do this while improving our own financial situations (though perhaps not that of Exxon-Mobil), and without devastating the economy (though there will be some changes, as is natural in our economy anyway). There are opportunities, if we are prepared to embrace them.
Many Canadians are still leery of compact fluorescent lights, although they will save the consumer money. We resist replacing old refrigerators and freezers, even though potential energy savings of 2/3’s or more make a compelling investment case. We can choose more fuel efficient vehicles at replacement time (although the current hybrids are not no-brainers – it depends on your typical driving missions). Low-tech solar energy collection is essentially unknown in Canada, but cost-effective if properly implemented (although anachronistic regulations still present some barriers). Electric-assist bicycles were finally legalized in Ontario in the fall of 2006 thanks to years of effort by committed activists. These vehicles provide an energy-efficient, cost-effective, low-noise, zero-emissions transportation solution that does not contribute to urban sprawl. They could help to reduce traffic congestion, especially if integrated into the public transit mix with free, secure lock-ups at transit stations and sufficient carry support (e.g., OC Transpo’s Rack’n’Roll equipment) for long journey’s where the bike is wanted at both ends of the transit network.
It’s time to stop wishing for miracles, and start making positive changes based on what we know today. It’s time to stop waiting for leadership and start providing it.
Darryl McMahon
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I replaced all the incandescent bulbs in my home and calculated a savings of 80% in electricity usage for lighting. Helping achieve that figure included only replacing 2 bulbs in a 3 bulb fixture, etc.
I've been to lazy to actually do any calculations, but I think the energy savings with compact flourescent bulbs may not be as simple as one might think.
Each incandescent bulb is a small radiant heater, deploying heat into your house. I agree that electric heat is 1)not the most efficient, 2) that the ceiling is not the best place to have a heat source, and 3) that in the summer heat is not required.
However, a radiant heater's placement in a room is not critical, more or less eliminating item 1).
If a house already has electric heat, I would venture to say that during the winter there would actually be a very slight negative savings with compact flourescent bulbs. I say this because of the "cost" of higher environmental impact and the higher cost of the bulbs.
If a house uses another heat source, then it is probably more efficient than electric heat, and hence there would be a savings with the compact flourescent bulbs. However, this would not be an outright savings, but merely transferring energy consuption from one source to another.
If a house requires cooling, then the compact bulbs would get a double payback - you won't be paying to dissipate the heat from the incandescent light/heaters in your house.
We use compact flourescent bulbs in our PV system - that choice is pretty obvious. However, in town we largely use encandescent - we don't see a clear reason why the CF bulbs are better. Our electricity comes from hydropower. Our furnace is natural gas, and we also have a wood stove. Most of the time we don't really heat the house anyhow, but the fewer incandescent bulbs we have, the more heat we will need.
Tyan in Seattle
I had some doubts regarding the significance of overhead incandescent bulbs on heating a room, and since my house has electric heat, and I decided to run an experiment.
The room I used is very well insulated and the heat control unit has a digit thermometer accurate to +/- .1 degree, located about 5' above the floor with the ceiling at 8'. I turned off the heat, and the room stabilized at 51.8 degrees for an hour. Turned on the overhead lights, which consist of three 60 watt bulbs within a frosted glass bowl. Left the lights on two hours, with no change in temperature. The bowl did get quite warm.
So as I suspected, the incremental heat from the overhead bulbs had no impact on the thermometer, and thus could save nothing in regards to electric heating. I doubt that heat from bulbs in lamps located closer to the floor would have any impact either, as heat rises.
Bottom line is that you would reduce your energy consumption by installing CFLs even if you have electric heat.
Tyan
To the extent that incandescent light goes out of your house via the windows as visible light, you are losing energy. This is not the case with a domestic heating system (which produces heat, not light).
It's also the case that the conversion efficiency of a coal fired power plant is as low as 35%, and there is transmission loss getting the power to your light socket. So it's a very inefficient way to heat your home vs. a modern gas boiler with a conversion efficiency of over 70% (90% is possible with a condensing unit).
If you heat your home electrically, this calculation doesn't apply.
You wouldn't though, just heat your home with lightbulbs. Because heat energy is wasted being turned into visible light.
There are other inefficiences:
- obviously in summer with air conditioning, compact fluorescents are an all-out winner-- a 5th or less of the heating (which has to be in turn cooled)
- incandescents have to be manufactured, transported and distributed to stores (where they occupy shelf space) and then to your house-- all of this takes fuel. CFs last up to 10 times as long, saving all that energy expenditure *plus* the extra volume of waste disposal.
In the end, from a personal point of view, the lifetime of a CF is the best answer. Yes they cost more, but not so much more, usually, that the don't offset the cost of replacing incandescent bulbs every couple of thousand hours.
If this kind of post would be representative of the average level of either posts or even comments at TOD, that would solve many problems, because it would get real quiet around here..
i see not one original idea, not even one thing that is not common knowledge, and to top it off, the author tries to fool me into thinking that different lightbulbs and electric bicycles are the brickroad that would allow me to feel good about myself? Where are we here?
Back to the drawing board. There's not even any air in this balloon.
We don't need any original ideas. Everyone knows the answer. This world needs a maximum population of 1-2 billion people. If we had that population, then every idea thrown out would be just fine, and creating a sustainable life would be simple.
The fact of the matter is that there is no way to drop the population before the house of cards collapses. We might as well be talking about sports or britney spears on this site for all the good that this will do us.
I've been concerned about energy efficiency, population and sustainability since the late 1960's when I was a process development manager in the chemical industry. I agree that population is the elephant in the room. However, I would argue that it is part of the business-as-usual (BAU) paradigm that includes issues of governance and economics.
During this 30+ years I have walked the walk of my beliefs and concerns. I'm a non-parent, have a highly energy efficient house, lots of AE stuff, grow quite a bit of our food, etc. While CFLs might not seem like much, they might plant the seed that people need to become concerned about these issues. And, isn't this what we are hoping for?
Since I'm in the dieoff crowd, I'm not too worried about population per se. The only thing that saddens me is that it could have been avoided.
Todd
I feel you missed the point of my article. We don't need original ideas; we're not using the 'common knowledge' we already have and could bring to bear on increasing efficiency, reducing greenhouse gas emissions, etc. I picked a few that are well known to make the point. There are many more - they take up most of the second half of my book, The Emperor's New Hydrogen Economy. That's also not the issue. If we want change, it's a DIY project, not something to delegate to elected officials.
Darryl, our politicians in Scotland are dead keen on hydrogen too - still supporting reserach into H fuel cells despite all the research done that shows this is a total waste of time. However....
We have one project over here, still waiting for government support, to convert a nat gas fired power station to run on hydrogen. CH4 + H2O is to be converted to H2 and CO2, the CO2 piped offshore and "sequestered" in an old oil field (in fact used as a miscible gas flood to boost recovery) while the H2 gets burned in the power station.
I also wonder if there may be a roll for H2 to play in stabilising output from wind farms - using surplus wind electricity to make H2 that could be mixed with Nat Gas and stored for combustion at time of need. With eroei of around 20, one could afford to lose energy doing these conversions in the interest of upgrading the quality of wind electricity - i.e. stablilising the output.
Problem is our politicians don't seem capable of distinguishing between these three very different aspects of using H2 and are intent on backing the one (fuel cells) that is destined to fail.
Euan, I posted an idea/opinion on another thread about "smoothing" wind power output. It was in response to a suggestion by Expat that offshore oil and gas rigs would be simply cleaned up and then sunk after fields are depleted.
It would seem to make a lot more sense to use the exisiting structures as platforms for huge wind turbines (say 10 MW??) and also as anchorage points for an array of wave generating devices (eg Pelamis by http://www.oceanpd.com/default.html, or other technologies by Aqua Energy Group http://finavera.com/wavetech/animation or http://www.oceanpowertechnologies.com/)
The intermittency of all these technologies could be solved by using the power generated to pump compressed air into the existing pipelines to shore and then released at peak or demand surge times by driving a turbine onshore.
It would also solve a huge decomissioning risk liability currently residing on the balance sheets of offshore E&P companies.
I would be more than happy for someone to explain to me why the above idea doesn't hold water.
Edit: my point being that there seem to be cheaper ways of "smoothing" wind intermittency than through utilising hydrogen, though clearly not as scaleable. We know that we do not need long term (ie seasonal) storage to improve the quality and utility of wind power.
Bunyonhead, thanks for the links - they fill a wee gap in my ken.
As for compressed air in oil and gas pipelines. It sounds a great idea - I don't think I've heard about that before!
So lets assume 100 windmills of 5 MW each, a load capacity factor of 30%, and a further 30% loss of energy compressing air and reconverting that to electricity on-shore (that's a wild guess).
100*5*0.3*0.3 = 45 MW, 24 hours / day = 1080 MW hrs per day
1 MWh = 1.834 bbls of oil (approximatlely)
So that would give a nominal energy production of 1,980 BOE pd.
If I've done my sums right (and there's less than 50% chance of that) I'd say this is too small to fund refurbishment and maintenance of large off shore facilities - but it could be worth looking into further.
The main problem with a lot of offshore infrastrucure is its age - but funding refurbishment may be preferable to decomissioning. I'm pretty sure that deferment of decomissioning lies behind Tallisman's wind farm on the Beatrice Field - and there in lies the TOD Canada link.
I have to wonder how air tight oil pipelines are likely to be. This problem is especially significant if the pipelines are old and have been immersed in salt water for long periods of time.
No idea on the compression and reconversion loss, although intuitively 30% seems high.
I would assume a higher load factor than 30% for far offshore wind. Near-shore wind sites in the UK (North Hoyle, Scrobie Sands, London Array, et al) are assumed to have average load factor of, I think, 38%. Further offshore I think the factor would be higher. I have made a few visits offshore and even on the most pleasant summer day there's still a stiff breeze 300 feet above sea level even just 20 miles out in the North Sea. The same is true of ocean swells for wave generation (bigger and more consistent offshore than nearshore). I'd guess a 30% average load factor is very conservative.
Remember that wind farms are not sited that far out due to the water depth (ditto wave farms where the problem is to anchor them) and the consequent negative economic effects of "planting" them - using an exisiting platform would resolve this.
Each offshore jacket would be unlikely to be able to accomodate more than one or two wind turbines, though the potential for wave farm anchoring is significantly higher in my opinion. I'd be more inclined to go with point absorbers (eg AquaEnergy or Ocean Power Technology) than the Pelamis which needs to face into oncomming waves to "ride" them (difficult to predict wave direction offshore). Out of the two, I'd be inclined to go with the OPT Power Buoy, as it has discrete centralised generation, whereas the Aqua Buoy has a Pelton Turbine within the buoy itself. Obviously an offshore platform can be used to house a central generator which otherwise OPT envisage placing either on the ocean floor or onshore.
Another thought that strikes me is the with lateral mooring to an offshore platform, as opposed to vertical mooring to the seabed, there is further opportunity to generate electricity from lateral movements in the same way as the technology is designed to benefit from vertical movements.
As to air compression within existing pipelines, I agree that there is a question of infrastructure age and the question of leaking. I assume that both oil and gas pipelines are designed to operate at relatively high pressure (presumably considerably higher for gas than for oil) which would be accomodative to the concept. The upside being, clearly, that an air-leak is not going to be at all environmentally damaging.
I came up with the idea of air compression within the pipelines to overcome what I saw as a potential issue of power transmission loss from far offshore platforms. The ability to store power as compressed air and generate at peak times was an additional benefit. However, if the energy loss through compression and reconversion were significantly higher than the simple transmisison loss, it would probably not be worth it.
Your last point is the most significant - decomissioning costs sit as a huge liability on E&P balance sheets. The present value of even simply deferring these costs for 10 years is of significant value to these companies. I am pretty sure that these companies would accept a breakeven on wind/wave projects just for the benefit of the deferred costs, so the question simply becomes one of how much wind/wave you can load on to each platform, and what is the most efficient way of transferrring that energy to shore.
As a side issue, I imagine that companies like http://www.excelerateenergy.com/ will also bein the frame for deferment of decomissiong costs in the future for similar reasons.
That's a great idea, Bunion.
But I've thought of a potential problem : Transmission of gas (whether NG or air) has an energy cost too, because of friction with the pipe.
This needs to be carefully modelled to see if compressed air is viable... The techniques of compression, transport and storage are mature, because they are applied to NG. Whether they remain viable with compressed air, which has a much lower energy content, is the question. Or would you need much greater pressure in order to obtain a viable energy medium? In which case, new types of infrastructure would be required.
I am not at all technically minded and wouldn't even know how to start modelling this.
Why would the energy content of compressed air be lower than the energy content of compressed NG? I would have thought that compressed air would have a higher energy content than compressed NG (at the same pressure) simply by virtue of being a heavier gas.
This site (http://www.doc.ic.ac.uk/~matti/ise2grp/energystorage_report/node7.html#S...) suggests that air is pressurised to about 75 bar. I know that the National Transmission System (onshore) in the UK operates at up to 85 bar, and a rudimentary Google search suggests that offshore NG pipelines operate at higher pressures, so I don't see any direct issues there.
It seems that there is already a company planning to work in this direction in Canada(http://www.energybulletin.net/11252.html) - interesting to note a direct reference to in-pipe storage.
I also know of a company in the UK that plans to install mini-turbines within the onshore system to decompress gas from the high pressure system to allow it to flow into lower pressure networks and indutrial facilities. Frustratingly I cannot remember the name of the company and am having difficulty finding it by Google search. Off the top of my head, they were suggesting something like 2000 MW of generation potential just in the onshore system alone, simply by using turbines to decompress the gas through deceleration, rather than decompressors which consume energy.
If anyone has the technical ability I would be very interested to see if this idea warrants further investigation.
Oil pipelines are usually not pressurized. There is no point because it is a liquid and is pretty well incompressible.
The gas pipelines probsbly date back to the 1980's with an expected life of 30 years ...
I was right - I got some bad news and some good news:
My 30% energy loss should of course lead to a factor of 0.7 (not 0.3)
I've also had some debate with Luis (which is on-going) about converting MWh to BOE
http://zfacts.com/metaPage/lib/zFacts-e-calculator.php
This link says 1MWh = 0.58833 boe, which is in line with what Luis says - different to the figure I used above which came from Heading Out.
I'm also happy to incorporate a higher laod factor of 0.35
So the new sum goes like this:
100 turbines * 5 MW * 0.35 load factor * 0.7 conversion efficiency * 24 hours * 0.58833 boe = 1729 BOE pd
It still seems a big number to me, and despite a myriad of potential difficulties (leaking pipes etc) is IMO worth exploring a bit further. Compressed air always sounded off the wall to me, but it seems to make more sense compressing it in a long steel pipe than in a cavern.
WRT to wave power, there was a big splash on the front of yesterday's Press and Journal with the go ahead for a wave farm in Orkney - 3MW - this will be the world's biggest.
That was Pelamis I guess? OPD based in Edinburgh (sort of your neck of the woods, I believe)
Pelamis is one of several companies to receive funding from the Scottish government for innovative ocean power development work described here.
A new 500 MW wind farm in the outer Thames estuary was approved on Monday as part of the second round of proposals for offshore wind power in England. The first round of approvals should produce 1,100 MW and the second round an additional 5,000-7,000 MW. More information here.
I don't see any mention in these two news articles of using abandoned O&G platforms, which does seem like a good idea. I have this recollection that undersea power transmission lines are pretty expensive to install, but no idea how much of a consideration that might be.
Euan, I have serious concerns about any of the industrial CO2 sequestration initiatives I have seen to date. I address this in my book (starting p. 42). Just a couple of questions to get started. How do we make sure the stuff stays sequestered? (We're generally using holes to pump the stuff in, what if the hole lets the stuff out again?) How long is an acceptable sequestration period, and how do we guarantee it? The experiments at Weyburn SK and in the North Sea are pretty recent, so I don't think they constitute a reliable track record.
I tend to agree - its easy to say "lets bury it", and equally easy to come up with a handful of flagship projects applied to ideal cases. Much more difficult to scale this up to the real world.
Euen I think BP's project at Petershead has been ditched, they couldn't get the government support they needed to make it economic.
Oh fudge, we are all going to die...especially us Canadians if our answer to 'all of this' (AOT) is compact light bulbs and Tom Swifts electric bicycle. If Daryle had mentioned rail (streetcars,light rail, rapid transit,heavy rail diesel,heavy rail electrified) I wouldn't post this. To expect people to use the bicycle (even electric) in the numbers, that would make much difference is inconceivable. I regularly bike and have been for 30 years. I have lived with my wife even longer and there is no way, and I have tried till blue in the face, to get her to bicycle (and she is a vegetarian and recycles and composts but by damn won't just plain cycle). I have come to the conclusion that that bit of energy is better spent pestering my local, provincial and federal politicians with letters about issues, which to answer they have to at least think a little about the problem.
If there is a politician who ignores GW and PO there is another who out of self interest, if nothing else, will be happy to hop on that vehicle to personal power. Use your politician before he uses you.
I haven't read Darryles book but if it sheds light on the fallacy in hydrogen as a vehicle for energy transmission I would give it a yes.
Black Bald.
Yes, we are all going to die, at least based on all historical evidence available to me. There are lots of solutions available to us, but I didn't see the value in trying to list dozens in the article - I thought a few were sufficient to make the point that we are not embracing what we already know works. I think we ought to ignore our politicians on issues of such importance, and solve the problems ourselves.
Approximately the first half of the book deals with the hydrogen economy, and reviewers to date think it does a pretty good job of listing the issues with the paradigm.
Stoneleigh, thanks for posting this.
Below is an open letter I just sent this week to my local MP as well as the cc list attached. I hope ASPO Canada can lead a non-partisan movement on PO and that everyone gets involved the same way with climate change. I have not had any acxknowledgment from any of the recipients yet.
Mr. David Tilson
MP Dufferin Caledon
711 Justice Building
House of Commons
Ottawa ON
K1A 0A6
(By e-mail)
Cc: John Tory MPP
David McGuinty MP (Liberal Party of Canada )
Nathan Cullen MP (New Democratic Party of Canada )
Bernard Bigras MP (Bloc Québécois)
Mike Nagy (Green Party of Canada )
Laurel C. Broten MPP (Minister of the Environment of Ontario )
Linda Jefferies MPP (Brampton-Centre)
Orangeville Banner
Dear Mr. Tilson,
It is encouraging that the Government of Canada is showing a greater understanding of the seriousness of human induced climate change. Your recently announced initiatives indicate that your government wants to take steps towards decreasing the rate at which Canada emits “green house gases”.
The first and most important thing you can do is to remove this issue from partisan politics. It would send a positive signal to Canadians and help to ensure success. One approach is to immediately form a Parliamentary caucus on climate change consisting of the Minister of the Environment and the environment critics from each of the other political parties represented in Ottawa . This group should be mandated to consult with the provinces, propose policy, create programmes and bring forward legislation to Parliament. In my view this would reflect the urgency that should be given to our response to climate change. Baring the above formal effort at least you could seek out MPs from all of the other federal parties, beginning informal discussions on solutions. Sadly, we have made the conservative, mainly symbolic, Kyoto targets a partisan issue. Embracing these and moving to meet them in a non-partisan way would be an encouraging beginning. It would be wonderful to be able to say to my grand children that “we started to fix what we broke”. However, this will require the vision and courage of politicians to make hard, sometimes unpopular decisions in order to provide real leadership. There is very little time left to make a change.
I would like to remind you of some widely accepted measures that would help to reduce green house gases.
The most cost effective measures are those leading to the reduction of fossil fuel consumption through conservation and efficiency, especially for individual Canadians. Your EcoEnergy programme is a step in this direction but it is narrowly focused upon business. The recently abandoned but effective Energuide programme was aimed at the broader target of the space heating of our homes. A similar effort should be started leading to much greater energy savings as well as stimulating retail sales and employment at the local level. I can not stress too strongly that the most effective efforts of all types will be locally focused, bottom up activities. This requires leadership from the federal government to stimulate and unify initiatives through provincial and local governments and citizen organizations. Coupled with this the standards of the National Building Code should be made law across Canada through negotiation with the provinces. No house should be built in Canada that doesn’t at least meet the R-2000 standard as a minimum.
In terms of electricity consumption there are many opportunities. A coordinated education programme should be created using the already excellent material compiled by Natural Resources Canada, Environment Canada, CMHC and other ministries, departments and private groups. Simply buying every Canadian household half a dozen mini-florescent light bulbs would be money well spent. Much of this could be delivered through our high schools yielding the four way impact of educating young people, allowing them to apply community service hours, educating the general population and achieving energy savings. In the public realm, working with the provinces and municipalities to require that all exterior lighting be of the “full cut off” type that requires less energy and reduces light pollution. The City of Calgary is a leader in this progressive approach although we see many examples right here in Dufferin County .
Enerstar appliances are readily available, thanks to American standards, but we should find ways to encourage people to choose these more efficient units. There are too many specifics to cover in this brief letter. In general there must be a combination of incentives on one hand and penalties on the other to encourage reduced consumption. To this end, multi-tiered pricing for electricity and natural gas should be implemented nation wide as well as a blended tax on home heating oil. These should be punitive above a reasonable level of consumption but set intelligently to give the average citizen achievable targets for savings.
This approach must be applied to our largest personal source of green house gases - transportation. Some ideas in this area involve applying added taxes above a certain level of consumption. For instance, all vehicles with 6L/100km or less consumption could be tax free and a sliding scale of tax could be applied to purchases of less efficient units. As well, business claims for expenses should be based upon a set efficiency standard for appropriate vehicle types and any fuel consumed above that standard would not be eligible to be written off. The present structure only encourages the use of large inefficient vehicles for business and also makes it practical for individuals to commute at excessive speeds in large heavy company supplied, taxpayer subsidized, work vans and trucks.
A very unpopular but most effective measure would be a carbon tax on motor fuel. In the past few years we have seen how sensitive we users are to fuel price. This is the strongest single initiative to reduce consumption and emissions. However, along with this measure it is necessary to improve transportation alternatives to the personal vehicle. The carbon tax could help pay for these improvements as well as encourage many of us to live closer to our workplaces. The communications infrastructure is already in place to support “telecommuting”. Measures should be taken to encourage employers and employees to take advantage of this.
Dufferin County, especially, has a major problem. We are a distant suburb of the GTA with the majority of residents commuting up to 100km to work. We are very vulnerable to increases in fuel costs as well as a weakening economy. If we are to hope to retain our population in tough economic times we need to improve transit alternatives to the GTA and adjoining municipalities. Even though the large cities have the greatest need for mass transportation improvements we are more vulnerable. Improving bus service, car pooling facilities, and perhaps upgrading the present rail connection to Mississauga would both help to reduce green house emissions and give us some local economic security. Stimulating local economic activity such as food production as well as renewable electric generation through wind and photo voltaic sources of all scales would also help to reduce fuel related emissions. There is also some potential for electricity generation and other energy recovery from biological sources.
This leads me to a part of your government action that is very disappointing and is taking Canada into a blind alley. Fuel ethanol is not the answer to either pending oil shortages or to reducing emissions in any great way. We can not grow enough corn to make more than a small percentage of our motor fuel. Even the best estimates show that for every unit of energy we use to make ethanol we only get about 1.2 units of energy back so there is only a marginal gain. Some studies suggest a loss of energy. Also ethanol only has about 60% of the energy of gasoline so if we burn 10L of gasoline now we need to burn 16 L of ethanol to go the same distance. Ethanol production requires diesel for farm equipment and trucking, natural gas for fertilizer and either natural gas or coal energy to process the product. Just making and delivering the ethanol creates a lot of green house gases and other pollution. Natural gas is a fast diminishing resource and we might want to use it more wisely than to make motor fuel. In 2005 Canada had eight years of natural gas reserves. Our production has been in decline since 2001 in spite of drilling just under 16,000 new gas wells in 2005. The recent lower price for natural gas has reduced drilling so we will probably have fewer reserves by the end of this year.
Another very serious effect of making ethanol is the increase in corn and other grain prices and the diversion of resources from food production. The world has about fifty seven days of grain reserves. This is a decline from 115 days over the past seven years. With drought devastating Australia and the USA diverting huge amounts of land to ethanol production there may well be a world wide food crisis in the near future. At the very least the increase in grain prices will cause a large increase in the price of meat and all grain based food. There is no alternative for reducing carbon emissions from vehicles other than to reduce the number of kilometers traveled. No technology will allow us to continue our happy motoring ways. Hybrid cars, hydrogen, bio-fuels or electric vehicles all have issues that make them non-solutions or so far into the future that they will have little impact. I know that most people want to be told that we can carry on as usual, but the hard truth is we must change how we behave.
This is where innovative brave leadership is required. I hope you and all of our other elected representatives will work together and meet the challenge.
Hi jografy ,
A+ for your letter, unfortunately any expectation of receiving an answer in under 3 months is unlikely. I once received a next day answer from the Prime Minister's office but that was unusual and was about Afghanistan at a time when he was very sensitive to that issue.
I think their staff usually piles and counts by issues and replies en mass. I keep my letters short so that I can 'vote' often.
For instance if everyone would write a short note about the need for public transport the individual letters may not be closley read but they would be influential.
I am sure you know that in Canada we can send mass quantities of letters 'On her Majesty's service' (marked OHMS) postage free.
On a cynical note I think politicians only work together when all their necks are on the same block.
Black Bald
Thanks Black Bald. Tilson probably never heard any of this in detail and I know it is unlikely he will ever see the letter but I decided to make it complete. The others are our local MPP and the enviro critics for the other parties. I do have a little credibility at the local paper and even tho this is long some of it might get published. I am at the stage where I want to be able to say "you can't say I didn't tell you". If the paper publishes it at least the local politicians might feel a little public interest and where do you start when 95% of your audience hasn't heard any of it? I am hoping ASPO on the PO side can get some pressure going but so far they aren't doing much. With climate change I am afraid we will have to wait fdor the next election before much happens, if anything.
Good letter. I hope someone in the office reads it, and it makes some impact.
I think the easiest way to make these issues non-partisan is to take them out of the hands of the politicians. Let's stop pretending they are relevant or part of the solution. For example, the feds are currently downsizing the group within CMHC that pertains to these matters. They have stopped funding the InfraGuide program (National Research Council and Federation of Canadian Municipalities) that addressed ways to improve things at the municipal level by sharing best practices. And so on.
As for giving every Canadian household compact fluorescent lights, such programs have been put in place, e.g., Project Porchlight in Ottawa, and expanding to other cities. Little or no government funding for that, AFAIK. Similarly, Hydro Ottawa and other utilities have initiated bounty programs on old refrigerators and freezers to help with reducing electrical demand. Minimal support from senior governments for this program. Ontario does have a feebate program to penalize gas guzzlers and reward fuel-sippers. However, the amounts involved are so trivial that almost no one knows the program exists.
Personally, I would support a carbon tax, but not just on motor fuel. If the issue is CO2 as a greenhouse gas, let's actually shoot at the target, not a subset or proxy. While we're at it, let's use it to replace the GST - one consumption tax for another, but with the advantages that it can be applied at source (not point of consumer sale), it will reduce a paperwork burden for every retail business in the country, and it encourages reducing consumption of fossil fuels.
Hi Darryl, part of the political game is to pressure politicians into a place where they can not ignore an issue. That is why I sent an open letter. Sending something to one politician just gets you an "atta boy" pat on the head from some flunky. I disagree that politicians are not part of the solution. Our political system is our reality and these folks can cause something to happen in a broad way. Unfortunately most of this is to serve vested interests. As you read, I do believe that bottom up solutions are going to be the real sustainable solutions. Unfortunately this wont happen ubntil the crisis is well upon us. We must, in the mean time try to make what progress we can.
I do understand the political game. I play it as necessary at municipal, provincial and federal levels. Recently I was part of a protracted effort to get the government of Ontario to legalize electric bicycles. I'm currently doing the research on a related subject that should be resolved at a technical level, but based on appearances to date, we'll have to go the political route to get action. It's a terrible process, skewed in favour of inertia and those with substantial resources. If the view of the political system I have is anyone's reality, we're in worse shape than I thought. Our governments do have the ability to do things in a broad way, frequently with unforeseen and undesired consequences.
Motor fuel tax is a bad idea from a greenhouse gas/ global warming point of view.
Motor fuel is the most price inelastic form of energy consumption: there are no real substitutes, there is not much the motorist can do about it, and people and businesses value transport highly.
Empirically, motorists don't respond much to increases in fuel prices. A 10% increase in price has about a 1% reduction of consumption in the short run, and a 3 to 5% reduction in the long run. this is why it is such a great way of increasing government revenue: like cigarettes, increases in taxes don't have a huge impact on consumption.
By contrast, CO2 emission in electric power generation and industrial applications is likely to be price *elastic*. There are lots of alternatives (eg gas, wind, nuclear over coal), increased energy efficiency is easy to achieve.
This is also true of household heating and cooling and commercial HVAC in general. There is lots consumers can do to reduce costs, and if costs go up, they will.