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Kyoto Conference:
Saturday 8 am
College Boreal, $75,
Students $50
For more information phone Patrizia Pace
Coordinator 675-7036.
Guy Dauncey Book
Signing: Friday noon to 2 pm at Chapters
Reception:
Friday 7 pm Science North Gold Room, $15, $25 couples, $15
students
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Environmental Issues in
Northern Ontario
GREEN - Greater Renewable
Energy and Ecodesigns Now
Interview with Guy Dauncey keynote speaker for
the Kyoto Conference in Sudbury.
Guy Dauncey is author of Stormy Weather: 101
Solutions to Global Climate Change
QUESTIONS:
1.EarthCare
Sudbury has just received an award from the Federation of Canadian
Municipalities for sustainability. EarthCare has a Local Action Plan
since October 2003. How should EarthCare mobilize the community itself
or thru its community 90 partners to implement the plan to prepare for
Kyoto for example?
"I’m not coming in as an expert on how the citizens of Sudbury should
chart their future; that’s something that takes a love of the local
community, and a sense of what inspires people, as well as knowledge of
the kinds of initiative that will make a difference in reducing
emissions, and building a greener future. Sudbury has already done
extraordinary things since 1975, and the new EarthCare Local Action Plan
is really an excellent document, which shows how much work has gone into
it.
The challenge now is to take that enthusiasm and transfer it to every
household, school and business in Sudbury. Inco has shown what can be
done with real leadership, and a willingness to take it to the shop
floor. As a result of their drive for greater energy efficiency, they
gathered hundreds of ideas from employees, and managed to save $20
million in their first year alone. Overall, they have reduced their
consumption of energy by a full 10%, with no reduction in mining or
refining.
Now imagine this same impulse moving out through Sudbury, and entering
everyone’s front door. The Kyoto challenge asks every one of us to
reduce our personal household emissions of greenhouse gases by 1 tonne;
that’s an average 20% reduction, over the next six or so years. Inco had
some easy successes. In on area of the plant, they realized that they
were heating the place for 24 hours a day, even though the welders only
worked there during the daytime, repairing the tubs that transport
molten metal. So an employee offered to come in early to turn on the
heater, and Inco is now saving $20,000 a year. At the household level,
that’s the equivalent of realizing that you’re heating a room that you
never use; this could be solved by installing a thermostat and giving it
a low setting, enough to stop the room from freezing. It might also be
the equivalent of turning off an old inefficient fridge that chunters
along in the basement, keeping a few beers cold. Switching off just that
one fridge alone might save as much as a tonne of CO2, and $100 a year
as well.
Inco also had more complex challenges, such as recalibrating the
smelter’s oxygen plant. A one degree change in the mid-point setting
made no difference to its efficiency, but it is saving Inco $100,000 a
year in energy they no longer need to buy. For a household, this might
be the equivalent of opening up the wall below your shower, and
installing a new system called the “GFX” (stands for “gravity film
exchange”). Think of all that hot water going down the drain. Wasted
heat! So now picture the cold water pipe coiling itself tightly around
the waste pipe, like a snake, so that the heat is transferred into the
incoming cold water. Presto! You’ve just reduced the hot water needed
for a shower by 50%. (For all you home energy buffs, check
www.gfxtechnology.com for the details).
These are technical examples, but what I’m getting at is the spirit, a
Sudbury “can-do” attitude that embraces the challenge set out in the
Action Plan: “to become the most energy wise community in Canada.”
2. How can consumers of energy,
which now is increasingly more expensive, turn an energy crisis into an
energy opportunity both for themselves and their city?
"The first thing we have to realize is that we’ve only enjoyed the
benefits of oil and gas for the past 100 years; and there’s not much
dispute that in another hundred years time, we won’t be using either:
there just won’t be any left. I’d personally put the date a lot earlier.
I doubt if anyone will be driving vehicles that use oil after 2040, and
we may be something other than gas to heat our homes well before then.
So this is the opportunity: we know that this change is coming, and we
also know that climate change is giving us the same message, but in a
lot more urgent way. So let’s get to it! The communities that pioneer
the new future, beyond oil and gas, will be the first to reap the
benefits of green economies, green businesses, clean air, and community
pride."
3. Is this new energy crisis,
both for oil and electricity a watershed event signally that the world
is realizing that it must turn towards conservation, renewables and
hydrogen futures?
"Yes. There’s a lot of fascinating debate about hydrogen, because
hydrogen is not a source of energy; it’s a carrier of energy. You’ve got
to use energy to split it off from whatever the molecule is attached to.
If it’s from fossil fuels, which is the current way is done, then you’ve
still got greenhouse gas emissions. If its by using renewable energy to
split water, or to harvest it from algae, then we’re talking real
solutions. But that brings up another question, which is if you’re using
electricity to split water to make hydrogen to put into a fuel cell to
make electricity, why not just use the electricity in the first place?
So that gets us straight into the whole question of how we travel, since
electric vehicles don’t have the range that we expect. And her again,
the EarthCare Local Action Pan has really covered the bases well;
they’re looking at everything from more support for cycling, to the use
of biodiesel, to using the “Upass” system for transit, that is proving
itself so successful on college campuses across North America. I
personally think that the future of transport involves a mix of more
walking, cycling, and teleworking, much more use of transit, the use of
the small, smart urban vehicles such as the new 2-seater diesel Mercedes
Smart CDI that’s coming out this September, which does 83 mpg, and is as
long as our regular cars are wide: you can park them sideways on, three
to a parking spot. Now throw a community car sharing cub into the mix,
so that people no longer feel the need to own their own vehicles, but
share in the use of a fleet of vehicles instead, so that you can use the
Smart cars for local travel, and just use a pickup or SUV for special
occasions, and you’re looking at the potential for a 90% reduction in
the amount of oil needed for our personal travel.
Renewables are another very exciting story. The global capacity for wind
and solar energy is enormous. It makes total sense to get into wind
energy, as the Local Action Plan calls for, and it also makes sense to
plan ahead for the solar revolution, which is just around the corner.
The Japanese are going gung-ho on solar, and they’ll drive the price
down through mass production. Once the price comes down, so that solar
pays for itself, it’ll make sense for every house to have a 2kw solar PV
system on its roof. Remember, solar used to cost $100 a watt in 1980,
and $10 in 1990. Today its down to $4, and heading lower. It’s all to do
with the benefits of mass production. And there are other fascinating
renewable forms of energy too, such as groundsource heart, deep rocks
geothermal, biomass, and wave and tidal energy (for communities by the
sea)."
4. What is the job creation and
economic potential for implementing Kyoto at the local level especially
in areas like northern Ontario where in Sudbury 10,000 mostly younger
people have left in the last 6 years, therefore putting stresses on the
community to maintain services with declining wage earners from the
significant 24-35 age group?
Lots. Just think how many jobs will be needed crawling through every
attic, and fixing up every home to make it twice as efficient. If you
can leverage the advantages of taking an early lead into attracting
clean energy companies and other environmental technology companies to
come to Sudbury, to cash in on the technical traditions of your
workforce and the loyalty of a town where there’s such strong community
spirit, you could develop a green technology cluster: as the Local
Action Plan calls for.
5. Can zero net energy houses be
built that are affordable?
I am thinking of architect Jorg
Ostrowski’s sustainable house project in Calgary.
"Habitat for Humanity, who build affordable houses using voluntary
labour, have been pioneering an affordable zero net energy house. The
technology is known: you combine passive solar design, super efficiency,
ground source heat, solar hot water, efficient appliances, and heat
recovery. If you roll the cost into the mortgage, which is geared to a
long payback, and rig your energy bills so that the savings from your
reduced bills go into the mortgage to pay for the additional cost of the
systems, it all begins to make sense. I hope this makes sense!
There are so many possibilities; the real key is unlocking the energy of
the community. That’s the challenge. "
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