British Columbia clean energy

Canada is being called one of the best places in the world for innovations in clean energy technology. And British Columbia in particular is said to have huge potential for creating these sources of alternative energy.

Wind and solar power are two techniques whose full potential have yet to really be harnessed by Western Canada, though they are starting to make more of an appearance.

If you drive through southern Alberta especially you can see rows of wind turbines across several fields that are known as wind farms. There are even programs in which local farmers are paid money for letting a wind company set up turbines on their property.

But often a lot of the turbines aren't turning.

In Alberta, there is a cap on how much energy can be produced from alternative sources - meaning anything that isn't fossil fuels.

This cap was put in place by the Alberta Electric Systems Operator (AESO). It focuses mainly on wind power and has placed a limit on just how much we can create. It regulates that a threshold no higher than 900 megawatts of electricity can be created by wind turbines in the province. This was suggested by Suncor, a Calgary based energy company, which deals mostly in fossil fuels.

But if western Canada is capable of creating so much clean energy, why are there limitations placed on that production?

It is because there is still oil which makes more money for energy producing companies like Suncor. If they were to invest solely in alternative energies their own profits would decrease.

And much like how oil companies killed the electric car, they are keeping the production of clean energy sources down in order to keep their profits up.

Wind power is among the fastest growing non-fossil sources of energy in the world. And as concerns about a rising climate temperature due to carbon emissions becomes more of an issue for people, the demand for this type of energy will increase.

On March 27 people all over the world participated in Earth Hour by refraining from using electricity for an entire hour. And B.C. alone saw a one per cent drop in power usage during that single hour. And though this is hopeful, most people are quick to return to their high-energy use habits. Until people begin to address the issue of their own rising energy demands, these alternative energy sources simply won't be able to support those demands. Especially when they have limits placed on them.

Hopefully our oil-addicted nation will realize the potential of these sources as a very serious alternative to the fossil fuel industry. And hopefully people will realize that not all the lights in their home need to be turned on at the same time.

ACC pulls out of Kamloops

The public opposition of the proposed gasification plant in Kamloops seemed only to further grow after last week's rally.

Upwards of 500 people turned out to the public consultation at TRU to hear ACC President Kim Sigurdson speak. But even finally addressing the questions and concerns of local citizens didn't seem to bolster their popularity among the crowd.

Sigurdson defended his reasoning for choosing Kamloops as the place best suited for the plant again and again with the crowd, but to no avail. Even saying that there were other cities in the province considered for it but they simply weren't the best choice.

But now since the rally, Sigurdson has begun considering these other locations for the plant, saying that he's disappointed but won't be building the plant at the Mission Flats site.

An article from the Kamloops Daily News further explains the ACC's decision to move the plant to another location.

And though it looks like the issue of the cogeneration plant is wrapping up for Kamloops, it didn't come without some Facebook drama. A message circulated on the social networking site stated that the ACC was being helped by the provincial government in finding a new location for their plant. The message is supposed to have been sent by Interior Science and Innovation council executive director Bill McQuarrie, though he denies that it came from him.

Canada's censorship action on climate change

Climate change is a global issue that the government of Canada has taken an aggressive stance on. Or so says their website.

But a recent news story from Ottawa says that may not be the case. And instead is far from it.

In November of 2007 the government of Canada instituted a new media relations policy regarding Environment Canada. That document was leaked this week by an Environment Canada employee. The new policy in the document requires all Environment Canada scientists to refer all media questions to the Media Relations Headquarters where they can be better directed. Or really, where they can decide how best to handle the question with an pre-approved line.

A report by Andrew Cuddy of Climate Action Network Canada, a coalition of environmental groups, says the policy limits, if not fully eliminates, media coverage of climate change.

Federal climate scientists now have to seek permission from the government before even agreeing to interviews with journalists. And often, journalists must submit their questions as written responses to be approved by supervisors before an interview can be granted.

This has all left federal climate change scientists feeling what they describe as "muzzled." Or really, censored.

Cuddy's report further says that some scientists began speaking out after the policy's inception because they felt it was blocking communication and ultimately was designed to stop them from talking to the media altogether.

Although Harper has acknowledged climate change in recent years he wasn't in support of researching it before he came to office and chances are he's not that interested in it now either.

Ultimately this policy seems like the Harper government's way of undermining climate change research while at the same time wielding a vague form of censorship over the Canadian population.

Because whether you agree or disagree with climate change, researching it should not be an arguable matter. As even polar bears are experiencing the rise of the global temperature firsthand and I'm sure they would appreciate someone looking into it.

Air quality

If the case of formaldehyde in Prince George last week is any indication of how the enforcement of air quality and monitoring is handled in British Columbia, then the doubts many Kamloops citizens are harboring about the proposed creosote incineration plant may have certainly grown.

In 1998 the city of Prince George created a non-profit society called PGAIR (Prince George Air Improvement Roundtable) after concerns about the air quality in the city were raised due to local industry. PGAIR is a community organization that has a variety of members including some government representatives, with a plan to reduce the amount of pollution in their local airshed. And though the society keeps a careful watch on the city's air quality, tests that were gathered 18 months ago showed formaldehyde, a carcinogen, at levels nearly 20 times that which is acceptable. But those results weren't made public until just last week.

It's examples like this that MLA Rob Fleming says illustrate our government's mishandling of environmental matters.

Prince George's case is an example of what can go wrong when industry is already a local fixture. And it probably only helps to solidify in many Kamloops citizens mind's just how much they don't want this gasification plant in their city.

The plant, which has already been issued an operating permit by the provincial government, is a incineration plant to burn old creosote railway ties. It will release harmful gases into the atmosphere that have already garnered attention from local doctors as they are known carcinogens that will be harmful to citizens health. But the plant isn't just harmful to people. Ultimately, it will affect both the air and water quality of the immediate area. Kamloops' carbon footprint will even increase from the plant alone.

But whether people want it or not government has basically given it a green light.

The plant itself that is proposed is where a lot of people's concerns are coming in, as it is basically making Kamloops a laboratory for testing. This type of plant has been tested in labs but only on a small scale. The size of the plant proposed for Kamloops is larger than anything tested before. And now this experimental type of plant is being transfered from a unversity setting straight to the banks of the Thompson River.

So what could our government do? Fleming says that the province needs to stop blocking the federal government's environmental report from being done. If the federal government were to do an environmental report on the project it would created a window of time that citizens could use to voice their concerns so that the federal government would actually hear them. It would also open the project up for new scientists to study and give feedback on the plant.

But along with the cuts to environmental funding in the latest provincial budget, the outlook of stringent government monitoring on the incineration plant looks less hopeful.

"Government doesn't generally follow up on [air quality] readings on plants of this type," Fleming said. "Enforcement of environmental monitoring in B.C. has declined 50 per cent against environmental violators."

The case in Prince George is a perfect example of government's lack of action and followup concerning environmental issues, making the chance that a similar lack of action could be seen with the Kamloops incinerator forefront in people's minds.

"If the people don't want it why are we still talking about it," said Derek Cook, a Political Sciences teacher at Thompson Rivers University.

With the provincial government giving this project a go ahead against citizens wishes, what does that say about our democracy?

People are against this, and yet government is letting it happen.The Kamloops city council even voted unanimously not to support it. But despite all the resistance this project is getting by local citizens, it doesn't look like it's slowing it down.

With things of this nature we have to ask ourselves what the risk we are willing to live with here is? And more importantly says Fleming, what risks are the government willing to take concerning both it's citizens and the environment.

No deal

In a previous blog, Making deals with big industry, I had posted an article from the Globe and Mail about British Columbia's forestry industry making deals with their protestors. The article talked about how Alberta's tarsands industry should follow their example and find some common ground with their own protestors. Namely Greenpeace.

Greenpeace has a long history of putting themselves into the media spotlight to make their point. And whether people agree with them or not, in cases like Alberta's tarsands it's pretty difficult to refute what they are fighting for. Greenpeace Alberta has a branch called STOP (stop tarsands operations permanently) working out of Edmonton that is focused solely on the environmental destruction going on in northern Alberta.

The destruction happening in Alberta is huge, and though the clear-cutting that was going on in B.C. was just as much of an environmental problem, the tarsands are a very far-reaching issue that are creating long-term and irreversible damage. The destruction is more than just the immediate area, affecting all of the surrounding communities and citizens.

So whether the solution to the problem is as easy as an agreement with Greenpeace protestors seems questionable.

"It's definately not something we would sign on to," said Mike Hudema, head of Greenpeace's STOP campaign. "The only ethical choice is a full phase out. Anything less would sell out the communities we are trying to protect."

Those communities are the one's seeing firsthand the damage that Alberta's oil addiction is causing. Communities near the tarsands are concerned about drinking the water or eating fish that comes out of local rivers. They even say that the pollution in the air makes them sick. At one point, a study was even done looking at whether the industry was responsible for increases in cancer rates of citizens in adjacent communities.

It is communities like these that are apart of why an agreement is not what Greenpeace wants. The tarsands are environmentally destructive but it isn't about just slowing or changing the industry, because this isn't a problem that can be solved in the same way as B.C.'s clear-cutting.

It's like a loose form of a gambling addiction

As Canadians, environmentalism has become much like a way of life for us. We take our reusable bags to the supermarket, we meticulously separate our recycling and we refill our water bottles.

But despite how green-minded people may be, they don't hesitate to throw away their environmental values when Roll Up the Rim cups come back at Tim Hortons. It seems like the coffee giant has an even tighter grip on the already devout Canadian population during this time as more and more people flock to their lineups for a chance at winning.

But this creates a problem. And the problem is in the cup.

The Tim Hortons cup itself looks pretty simple: cardboard and plastic, both of which are recyclable. But pouring a hot drink straight into a cardboard cup could only result in disaster, and more likely, lawsuits. So the cup is coated with a substance that makes it better stand up to both liquid and temperature.

Polystyrene is a a polymer created from petroleum and is one of the most widely used kinds of plastics in the world. It is also among the most abundant sources of environmental pollution in the world.

Polystyrene is more commonly known as styrofoam and is recognized by the Society of Plastics Industry as plastic number 6. But the product is far from being environmentally friendly, it can take anywhere from 50 to 75 years to fully break down. And many municipal recycling facilities do not even recognize it as a recyclable item.

Polystyrene is light, it floats on water and blows in the wind, meaning it is very easily dispersed. It, and other similar and as widely used plastics, even encompass the largest landfill in the world located in the center of the Pacific Ocean, called the Great Pacific Garbage Pitch.

And the so highly-coveted Roll Up the Rim cup is no exception to this pollution.

The cup itself is about 90 per cent recyclable and can be turned into products like carry-out trays, egg cartons and various tissue products. But the waxy polystyrene coating on the inside of the cup makes it's recycling a much more involved process. Polystyrene must be incinerated at extremely high temperatures, and in the case of the Tim Hortons cup different processes again are used specific to its materials.

And though it is not biodegradable it is recyclable where facilities exist. But in the case of the Tim Hortons cup, those facilities currently exist nowhere west of Toronto.

The only way for the cups to be recycled is if Tim Hortons offers in-house recycling, which means they would have to deal with all the recycle themselves. Before they can do this they must find an appropriate recycling parter in the area who will recycle the plastic number 6. And pending that appropriate parter, British Columbia Tim Hortons restaurants hope to have the in-house recycling by the end of 2010.

But despite the coffee giant's efforts at being environmentally friendly they are far from it. With the number of customers increasing during Roll Up the Rim time so too is the number of single-use cups being handed out. Even those who generally use travel mugs, and actually receive a small discount on their coffee for doing so, will accept an unused cup simply for the chance to play. That means that along with all of the coffee cups hitting the landfill are some that were never even used.

Tully's, a coffee chain based out of Seattle, was the first coffee company to change it's cup in late 2007 to be environmentally friendly. Their cup is biodegradable as it uses a bioplastic made from corn to line their cups rather than the traditional petroleum based one. But as with most things of this nature, it tends to be more expensive and therefore less popular.

But even if Tim Hortons is falling behind on the environmental front they are still colonizing almost 80 per cent of the Canadian market and selling nearly 300 million cups every year, most of which end up in the landfill. And they even seem to have become a Canadian national identity, making it difficult for anyone to take on the company, even government. In New Brunswick, a Tim Hortons focus group has emerged in which local government is embracing the coffee house's popularity, finding it to be the best place to engage citizens.

And though it's doubtful that Tim Hortons will make any dramatic changes in the near future, especially about their Roll Up the Rim contest, consumers are the ones who have to power to demand some change from the company. Starting with the recycling of the coffee cup using in-house recycling. And even though people seem to love the chance to win some of the 31 million prizes, the impact on the environment is staggering. Because when you think about it, using a cup only once and throwing it away is absurd, whether it comes with a chance to Roll Up the Rim or not. Because at this point it doesn't even seem like it's the caffeine that's addicting anymore.