Federal ministers champion coal, nuclear power and biofuels to cut emissions
Byline: Don Martin Dateline: VICTORIA VICTORIA -- Gary Lunn waves off the offer of coffee from the breakfast server at the historic Empress Hotel. "Never drink the stuff. Don't want it to stunt my growth," he grins. To see the federal natural resources minister, you'd get the self-deprecating quip. Let's just say the vertically challenged Lunn does not stand head and shoulders above a crowd. There's also not much doubt he's got the smaller political profile in a climate-change plan being crafted and carried primarily by Environment Minister Rona Ambrose. However, Lunn wants to project a green image and midway through his orange juice he gets a bright, albeit slightly risky, idea. He, the minister in charge of energy, would cold call on a local solar-lighting manufacturer, the better to showcase the potential of homegrown B.C. green technology to a visiting journalist. The risk, of course, is that the low-profile Lunn wouldn't be recognized, his identity would be doubted and he'd be told to buzz off at the front door. When we arrived at the company, known only as Carmanah, his name didn't ring a bell to the receptionist, who aspires to a career in journalism, but the plant manager gasped at the sight of Lunn and dropped everything to give us a tour. There's something odd about having a world leader in solar power located in Victoria, which can be a city the sun forgets for weeks on end in the winter rainy season. But this is one of those niche operations that have collectively turned energy-glutton Canada into an incubator of globally exported environmental technologies. Carmanah invented, patented and now assembles tens of thousands of small box-shaped solar LED lights for open sea buoys, traffic warning lights and airport runways visible from up to six km away. Given that boats, cars and planes rely on their product for critical navigation guidance, the failure rate must be close to absolute zero. The airfield at Kandahar Afghanistan, for example, uses its lights on the runways. Just 15 years old, Carmanah sold 90,000 units in 110 countries last year and sees only massive growth ahead as solar panels become increasingly efficient and economical. But Lunn is frank about solar power's limitations and Ambrose echoes his views. Solar is a slice, and a small one at that, in the overall drive to wean Canadians off a steady diet of oil. "It's on the fringes along with wind power. To be considered a world leader we have to deliver clean energy, but fossil fuels will be the biggest piece of the pie," Lunn says. "We all like to think solar and wind are going to be the next big thing, but they're not going to be for a while," adds Ambrose in a later interview. "We need to face the fact that fossil fuels are here to stay and we need to learn to burn them more cleanly. We can't ignore that and pretend we're going to run Canada on wind energy tomorrow." Both ministers champion 'clean coal' (a gasification process that could turn one of nature's dirtiest fuels into clean-burning energy), nuclear power and biofuels as key parts of the plan to clean up Canadian air and reduce the greenhouse-gas emissions from oil and gas production. "But the largest source of untapped energy in Canada is the energy we waste," Lunn says. In the days to follow, I'll be visiting green technologies across Canada that, if the government backs up its talk with policy, will be encouraged through tax or other incentives to expand into the mainstream. They all share a common thread. They are all made-in-Canada steps to increase energy efficiencies or reduce pollution that dovetail with the Conservative government's domestic-technology agenda. And they reflect what is increasingly ingrained in public thinking -- that with or without the Kyoto accord, the time to think green has been overtaken by the need to act green. "Now is a crucial time," Ambrose says. "The public is on side, the prime minister has made this a priority and industry is doing it and not just as a public relations exercise. "Their shareholders are demanding that corporations take notice of environmental opportunities and invest in environmental technology and are even asking companies to publish on the Internet what they've done for the environment. It's a real grassroots movement and a great opportunity to push this thing through and forward," she says. HOW GLOBAL WARMING AFFECTS CANADA Canada as a whole has warmed by 0.9 degrees C since 1948. There is a big difference between eastern and western Canada -- eastern Canada has warmed at about the same rate as the global average (about 0.3 C over 50 years), while western Canada is warming at over twice the global average (about 1.3 C over 50 years). Some of the fastest warming on earth is in the Mackenzie River Basin, where some regions have experienced more than a 2 C increase. BRITISH COLUMBIA - Winters are no longer cold enough to kill the mountain pine beetle infesting more than eight million hectares of B.C. forest, an area the size of New Brunswick. There is concern the epidemic will spread east across northern forests as temperatures climb. - Skiers from around the world arrived at Whistler last Christmas to find much of the mountain covered in slush, not snow. A degree or two of warming can - and is expected - to make a big difference in ski country. THE PRAIRIES - Alpine glaciers feeding prairie rivers, including the Bow, South Saskatchewan and Athabasca, have shrunk by 25 per cent in the last century and the prairies could soon face severe water shortages. - The incidence of forest fires in Alberta increased to five times the 10-year average in 2002. - Most rural residents in Manitoba and Saskatchewan depend on groundwater, which could run dry as climate warms. One federal report warns aquifers in Manitoba's Red River valley could become too salty to drink. ONTARIO - Since 1980, Canada has lost an average of 2.4 million hectares to forest fires each year, a 140 per cent increase over the previous 30 years. More than 300 fires were burning in northern Ontario this fall. - On Aug. 19, 2005, a line of severe thunderstorms swung eastward across southern Ontario from Kitchener to Oshawa, dumping 80 to 180 mm of rain across the northern half of Toronto, leaving a trail of damages totalling over $500 million--the greatest insured loss in the province's history. - Toronto had 70 per cent more extreme heat days in the last 10 years -- 16 days over 30 C between 1995 and 2005, compared to just 9.5 days from 1961 to 1990. - The Great Lakes are expected to drop by up to a metre this century, compounding problems already faced by the cities, power utilities, shipping companies, and cottagers and campers. QUEBEC - As the level of the Great Lakes drops there could be impacts in Montreal, where there may not be enough water to bring ocean liners into the city's harbour. - The 1998 ice storm was unprecedented in its magnitude and impact. It was directly linked to 28 deaths in Canada, over 900 injuries and $5 billion in damage as communication towers and power lines collapsed. It caused a massive power failure that left 3.5 million Canadians without power, more than 10 per cent of the country's population. ATLANTIC PROVINCES - The north shore of Prince Edward Island, the Gulf coast of New Brunswick, much of the Atlantic coast of Nova Scotia, and parts of Charlottetown and Saint John are highly sensitive to sea-level rise and prone to flooding. Multi-million-dollar floods are expected. THE NORTH - Summer Arctic sea ice has decreased in extent by 30 per cent over the past 30 years. Close to two million square kilometres of sea ice has been lost since 1979, an area roughly twice the size of Ontario. The fabled Northwest Passage could soon be open for summer shipping traffic. - The polar bear's range is shrinking with the Arctic ice, which scientists predict could disappear in summer by 2050. Some scientists say the polar bear could be doomed to extinction in the wild. Sources: Environment Canada, Natural Resources Canada, Canadian Climate Impacts and Adaptation Research Network, Institute of Catastrophic Loss Reduction. _______________________________________________ Biofuel mailing list Biofuel@sustainablelists.org http://sustainablelists.org/mailman/listinfo/biofuel_sustainablelists.org Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Search the combined Biofuel and Biofuels-biz list archives (50,000 messages): http://www.mail-archive.com/biofuel@sustainablelists.org/
