| Power Lunch and ... |
a Power Lunch*
and a feature story
- on you - in Backbone
and an iPhone or a BlackBerry
To enter...
Fill out a readership survey
(confidential)
*with Dave Chalk, technology expert and our editor, Peter Wolchak |
|
|
| Kyoto |
March 16, 2005 |
By Jim Harris
The Kyoto Protocol is the most significant global climate agreement ever signed, and as such, discussions of it often begin and end with environmental benefits. Too often ignored are the vast business opportunities that Kyoto offers.
The potential for revenue is huge: as a global, cutting-edge initiative, Kyoto touches research and development, industry, manufacturing, regional and national development, health care, government, and many other sectors.
The reach of Kyoto is especially relevant to Canada, as we consume more energy per capita than any other people in the world. The good news is technology available today can reduce our energy usage by up to 90 per cent without significantly changing our lifestyle, according to Amory Lovins, the world’s leading energy efficiency expert.
Here are four areas where technology can make a huge difference.
The following not only offer to create significant new industries, creating jobs and revenue for the government, but also deliver sizeable export opportunities for Canadian companies.
1 GEOTHERMAL
Members of the Alberta Association of Municipal Districts and Counties (AAMD&C) represent 68 per cent of the land mass of Alberta, but only 15 per cent of the population. The association built its new headquarters in Niksu, Alta., just south of Edmonton, and installed a geothermal heating and cooling system.
Once you get four feet underground the temperature is always 13ºC — that’s true in winter, spring, summer and fall.
This latent heat in the ground can be used to both heat and cool buildings. Pipes containing a salt solution run underground and loop back into the building, bringing the water in at 13ºC. Using a heat pump during the winter, for example, the heat is taken out of the water and put into the building, and the water returns to the earth at just above freezing.
To picture how a heat pump works, think of your refrigerator.
It’s a heat pump, removing heat from the cavity of the appliance and releasing it behind the fridge.
While touring the facility during the last federal election, I asked the executive director of the AAMD&C “Why did you go with geothermal?”
His answer was illuminating: “I would like to say it was for the environment — but it was because of the two-year payback.”
In other words, the savings generated pays for the system in just two years.
So in the middle of the Alberta oil patch, the association representing almost 70 per cent of the land mass of the province went gas free.
To understand how powerful a two-year payback is, think about a guaranteed investment in the stock market that generated a 50 per cent return every year and promised to only go up.
2 REAL-TIME HYDROGEN INJECTION
There are about three million long-haul trucks in North America burning billions of litres of diesel and spewing out particulate.
A Canadian company has an elegant solution. Canadian Hydrogen Energy Co. (CHEC) is a Bowmanville, Ont.-based firm that has developed an after-market product which increases fuel efficiency of diesel vehicles by up to 30 per cent.
When a truck is in operation its alternator is inactive most of the time, because the batteries are usually fully charged.
CHEC has designed a unit that takes the excess electricity from the alternator and uses it to split distilled water (H2O) into hydrogen and oxygen. Both are then injected into the diesel fuel stream in real time.
Hydrogen is very flammable and it burns 14 times faster than diesel and nine times faster than gas. (You may remember film of the Hindenburg burning.) So the hydrogen combusts with the diesel in the engine chambers. As a result, more of the diesel is burned in the chamber, resulting in less soot and particulate coming out of the stack. Tests show trucks using CHEC’s product are exceeding the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s particulate emissions standards for 2007.
And here’s the economic point: a typical long-haul truck consumes $5,000 to $10,000 worth of fuel per month. CHEC guarantees a 10 per cent savings and has documented up to 30 per cent in diesel-use reductions. The guaranteed 10 per cent savings on $5,000 works out to $500 a month; on the high end, $10,000 in fuel and a 30 per cent savings works out to $3,000 put back into the operator’s pocket every month.
And the substance driving this is water. A mere 3.8 litres of water will last 12,000km, about two weeks of operation for an average truck.
This Canadian technology — which increases engine horsepower by five to 15 per cent, increases fuel efficiency by 10 to 30 per cent, generates savings of $500 to $3,000 a month, is cash-flow positive from the first month it’s installed, and exceeds the EPA’s fuel standards for 2007 — is set to be a huge boon for the environment and for business. Imagine all long-haul trucks improving fuel efficiency by up to 30 per cent — what would that do in terms
of reducing carbon dioxide emissions?
Many futurists talk of hydrogen fuel cells as the solution for the transportation sector. Millions of dollars have been poured into fuel cell research, but Steve Gilchrist, a CHEC vice-president, points out its product is the only hydrogen technology making money today.
The other use often touted for hydrogen is as the sole fuel for vehicles, but there are problems with that vision. First, you have to somehow make hydrogen, which is an energy-intensive process. Second, you have to store it — and it is highly flammable.
And third, the infrastructure to distribute it across North America doesn’t currently exist.
All of which makes CHEC’s solution very elegant: hydrogen is produced from the idling alternator, it’s only created as needed, and it is injected into the diesel stream in real time so it doesn’t have to be stored.
Less than 0.1 per cent of trucks on the roads are currently using this technology. With its adoption by just 10 per cent of the trucks on the road, not only would hundreds of millions of litres of diesel fuel a year be saved but thousands of new jobs would be created, while enabling individual truckers to each save between $6,000 to $36,000 a year.
3 WIND POWER
Denmark was the early leader in wind-power technology. The country has a goal of generating 20 per cent of its power needs from wind by 2020. In the process, the government has created more than 20,000 jobs in the sector.
The Canadian Wind Energy Association’s goal is to have this country build the capacity for 10,000 megawatts by 2010, providing five per cent of Canada’s electricity.
Wind energy is the fastest-growing energy sector in the world. Germany is now leading the way, producing more power from wind than B.C. does from hydro.
In Canada, only the Quebec government has taken a leadership role in this field. In October 2004, the Quebec government announced a $1.9 billion wind energy program to develop 1,000 megawatts of wind power. Globally, this is the largest such contract ever and will more than double Canada’s wind power.
Ontario should create a leadership role in this field. Ontario can create 25,000 new jobs and add at least $9 billion to its economy by 2010 by focusing on renewable energy, according to a report by the David Suzuki Foundation released in October.
By focusing on conservation and energy efficiency and developing renewable energy, the province can: 1) create tens of thousands of new jobs; 2) become a world leader in this fast-growing energy sector; 3) create a more reliable electricity system; and 4) increase cost effectiveness. According to the Suzuki report, if Ontario installed 8,000 megawatts of wind power, by 2012 it would generate about nine per cent of the current electricity demand while producing $14 billion of economic benefits and creating 5,000 new jobs.
This is especially important as Ontario has committed to closing its five coal-fired electricity power plants by 2007.
These are spewing 2.7 million kilograms of known carcinogens into Ontario air every year, making the province one of the three worst jurisdictions in all of North America for polluted air. It’s estimated this results in a billion dollars in healthcare costs and absenteeism due to illness every year.
Why leave the leadership role in developing, manufacturing and exporting wind turbine technology to German and Danish firms? Canada could take a leadership role in this field, creating tens of thousands of jobs.
4 HYBRID CARS
Hybrid cars — which reclaim energy from braking — reduce gas consumption by 50 per cent over traditional autos of the same weight and size.
The first group that should get these cars is taxi drivers.
Taxis cover 10 times as many kilometres per year as do average cars, so converting the 25,000 taxis in Canada to be more fuel efficient would have a huge impact. I’ve done the calculations: this would save about 500,000,000 litres of gas a year. And it’s good for business too. At current gas prices a hybrid taxi pays for itself in gas savings in just 1.5 years.
On Oct. 29, 2004 the government of Canada was investing $100 million of taxpayers’ money to support the production of old auto technology. Two weeks later, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger was over in Japan, wooing Toyota and trying to get the first North American hybrid plant built in his
state. So while the Canadian government is investing in the past, the Californian government is investing in the future. Why leave the jobs that will be expanding in the long term to California?
We should work to locate a hybrid production facility right here, right now in Canada.
POLITICAL WILL
Kyoto represents the biggest business opportunity of the century.
And it’s an opportunity that is passing Canada by. When John F. Kennedy gave his famous speech on May 25, 1961 committing the U.S. to put a man on the moon, the technology didn’t exist that would allow it, and scientists didn’t know how to do it. Kennedy’s contribution was to make it clear there was
an unwavering, unshakable political will to make it happen.
We need the same today in meeting our Kyoto commitments.
We have the technology, which we know creates jobs, reduces waste, cuts pollution and drives profits. What is lacking is the political will from the federal government.
Web energy
AAMD&C http://www.aamdc.com
Canadian Hydrogen Energy Co http://www.globaltech.ca
Canadian Wind Energy Association http://www.canwea.ca
|
|
|
| Top 300 Issue |
 
|
| Gadget of the Week (Canadian) |
|
Where did I put that darn headset?
Cardo S-800
Bluetooth headsets are very useful - until you misplace them. When you lose the attractive little S-800, you use your phone to signal the headset to start buzzing.
more>>
|
| Gadget of the Week (Japanese) |
Sounds of Japan
Why record just the visual when you can capture the sounds as well.
more>> |
| Backblog RSS feed |
Click to subscribe  |
|
sponsored by 
