William Quincy Belle

I work in an office tower handled by one of the larger property management companies. As I was leaving work a couple of months ago, my eyes fell on a sign in the lobby that said the management company was following a policy of dimming lights as part of a green initiative. While at face value, this seems like a good thing and I'm sure the company did it with the idea of advertising itself to the public as an eco-company, I was reminded at how we all seem so focused on the little things; we miss the big picture.

A couple of years ago, I was reading an analysis in the editorial pages of the Toronto Star where the author took just this approach to looking at our green efforts. He listed off our various initiatives in North America like changing traditional light bulbs to more energy efficient ones, getting more green appliances, turning off unnecessary lights and dimming others, etc. Then he said that these types of efforts, while laudable were laughable when one took into account that at that moment, China was constructing a new coal-fired electrical power generating station every week. All of our light bulbs were dwarfed by the new developments elsewhere in the world which were leading to even higher levels of pollution.

The author wasn't saying we all shouldn't do whatever we could to economize, conserve energy, go green, etc. He was saying that only at the larger national or international level would we all see a true change which would be hailed as being truly green.

Coal
According to the World Coal Institute, coal provides 27% of global primary energy needs and generates 41% of the world's electricity.



The Institute goes on to point out that coal is the major fuel for generating electricity in the world and cites percentages for several major countries (2007): US: 49%; China: 79% and India: 69% but only 21% for Canada.

According to the Union of Concerned Scientists, an advocacy group, burning coal is the leading cause of smog, acid rain, global warming and air toxins. It further says that burning coal produces 54% of the electricity in the United States and is the single biggest polluter in that country. (I find that the percentages sometimes do not match up from one study to another but I think we get the idea.)

Ontario
According to the Ontario Power Authority, about 21% of the electricity in Ontario comes from coal while 37% comes from nuclear power, 16% from natural gas and oil and finally 26% from renewables mainly hydro. Ontario is home to Nanticoke Generating Station the largest coal-fired power plant in North America. According to Environment Canada, this station is the single largest source of greenhouse gas emissions and pollution anywhere in Canada.

Moi?
I like to have light. I like my TV. I like my computer and I certainly like my microwave. Yes, I am as guilty as the next guy but while I admit to being "addicted" to my electricity, I should be concerned as to whether I am going to end up in one of those scenarios where the assessment is something like, "Sooner or later, you're going to have to pay the piper." Sounds ominous.

The rest of the world
Canada is part of the most industrialized, most advanced countries on Earth. I have to remember that while I'm enjoying my TV, my microwave and my style of life, there are billions, yes literally billions of people out there who have less than me, much less. Sooner or later, they're going to want a TV and a microwave. Inevitably the need for electricity is going to go up. Is the system going to go bust? Or are we going to collectively figure out a way of dealing with this? Hopefully the way to deal with this doesn't turn out to be another world war to cull the herd!

What can little ol' me do?
4 years ago, my wife and I went from 2 cars to 1 car. A little over 1 month ago, we sold our only remaining car. Our plan is to use transit, walk and occasionally rent a vehicle if necessary. Admittedly, we live in the downtown core and are in a position to benefit from transit. We have also said that if we were still in the suburbs, living without at least one car would be probably impossible. Nevertheless, getting rid of 2 cars must have had a huge impact on our overall carbon footprint.

According to U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, a single car produces annually on average 5,190 kg (11,450 lbs) of carbon dioxide, 261 kg (575 lbs) of carbon monoxide and 35 kg (77 lbs) of hydrocarbons based on about 2,200 l (580 gallons) of gasoline. We've gotten rid of 2 cars. Somehow I think that is going dwarf anything we could possibly do with light bulbs. I'm not saying we're doing something about bulbs but 2 cars? Wow.

Okay, we managed to do this because we moved downtown and are either close to what we want or have easy access to public transit. What about everybody else? Is transit readily available elsewhere? Could more people do what we're doing even if those people were in the suburbs?

Canada: The Facts
I quote from Environment Canada:

Currently, we have one of the cleanest electricity systems in the world with three-quarters of our electricity supply emitting no greenhouse gases.

Hydroelectricity (energy produced from water), is the largest renewable energy source within Canada, and accounts for 60% of our total electricity generation. This makes Canada one of the top three producers of hydro power in the world!

Hmmm, it would seem we have done and are doing our part. But what about everybody else? What about China and India, 2 countries which are ramping up for one of the biggest industrialized changes this planet has seen? There are a lot of people who would like my TV and my microwave.

Time Magazine in their 2007 article The World's Most Polluted Cities, listed 2 cities in China and 2 in India; the 2 most populous countries in the world. Is this very fact alone a premonition of the future when these two countries strive to attain a level of development currently accorded to the industrialized countries which collectively represent a smaller number of people? From what I understand, India and China may not be known for the strictest of emissions standards. - By the way, 4 other cities listed above are in either Russia or former Soviet states. Hmmm, sounds meaningful in thinking about emission standards.

Of course, I can find several reports which list the United States as the biggest polluter in the world. The list of countries by carbon dioxide emissions in Wikipedia puts China in 1st place followed by the U.S. Canada is #7 but what's really important for the first 2 spots is that China accounts for 22.3% of the world total while the U.S. accounts for 19.9%. Every other country and I mean every other one is 5.5% or less of the total. China and the U.S are so far out in front of the pack!

The Kyoto Protocol
This United Nations agreement aims to fight global warming. It sets out targets in the reduction of various pollutants known to contribute to this phenomenon. As of November 2009, 187 countries have ratified the agreement with one very notable exception: the United States, a country ranked by several reports as the biggest polluter on the planet.

Clean Coal
I thought I would throw a mention of this since many coal fired operations have switched or will switch to this newer technology. While I can't say I fully understand the details of this technology, it seems to burn cleaner and reduce pollution to a certain degree. But, is this an oxymoron? I can't help feeling that the idea of clean coal is like clean garbage. It may be "clean" but it's still garbage.

An Inconvenient Truth
Al Gore's Academy Award winning film was either lauded or criticized. You either believed it or you didn't. However, I have a personal story which certainly underlines for me that something is going on, something radical.

I grew up during the 1950's in Niagara Falls, Ontario. I remember that by Christmas time, we had shovelled out the driveway so much that we had banks of snow on either side. As a child, this was a great source of playtime for building forts and for serving as a barrier for impromptu snowball fights.

By the 80's and especially now, I note that we as a general rule do not have anywhere the quantity of snow we had then. In fact, I would say no snow is no longer a rarity; it has gotten to be something of a general rule.

Gore showed several well known world landmarks during his film comparing photographs from 40 years ago with today. The snows of Kilimanjaro are no longer there. The mountain is barren. Makes you wonder. When I think of my boyhood home and a driveway mostly devoid of snow during the winter and if there is snow there is nowhere near enough to see banks beside the driveway for building forts, I have to see some truth in the phenomenon of global warming.

Final Word
Exchange those light bulbs for LEDs. Turn off unused lights. Turn down the temperature a degree in the winter; turn it up a degree in the summer. We can all do our part. But as we move into the future, we must make sure we all do our part. This means the U.S. needs to ratify Kyoto. This also means those emerging nations whose populations are going to want a TV and a microwave sooner or later need to modernize but not at the expense of doing it wrong. I don't think the planet has run out of resources but we had better get cracking on figuring out a better way of conducting our business before we cross the "tipping point". Hint: 350.


References

BBC: China is building about 2 coal fired electrical plants every week - June 19, 2007
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/6769743.stm

Chart of U.S. / China coal-fired plants
http://ecopolitology.org/2010/08/26/chinas-massive-coal-fired-power-plant-boom-visualized/

Wikipedia: Environmentalism
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmentalism

World Coal Institute: Coal Statistics
http://www.worldcoal.org/resources/coal-statistics/

Union of Concerned Scientists: Environmental impacts of coal power: air pollution
http://www.ucsusa.org/clean_energy/coalvswind/c02c.html

Wikipedia: Union of Concerned Scientists
A non-profit science advocacy group based in Cambridge, Massachusetts
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Union_of_Concerned_Scientists

Environment Canada: Canada moves to reduce emissions in the electricity sector
http://www.ec.gc.ca/envirozine/default.asp?lang=En&n=5AE042C9-1

2010-10-13

On July 5, 2010, at 4:42pm, an explosion at a Toronto power facility caused a blackout which darkened the centre of the city and touched over a quarter of a million people. While electricity was restored 4 hours later, a somewhat minor inconvenience, the ensuing end-of-day dinnertime chaos saw many of us either scrambling to get out of downtown to get home or trying to figure out what to have for dinner which didn't require power. This was a gentle reminder of how all of our lives are very much connected to electricity: the glue which binds us together, the light which keeps the bogeyman at bay and the force which keeps our civilization humming along.

Of course, the papers the next morning had to make mention of the big blackout of 2003. The summary of that story is that on August 14, 2003 at 4:11pm EST, the largest outage in North American history cut power to 50 million people. While some people had power back the next morning, many had to wait 2, 3 even 4 days to have it restored. I was personally without power from that Thursday at 4:11pm until Saturday afternoon.

This all reminds me of 2 things.

First of all, on that Thursday, August 14, 2003, once my family had settled in to dealing with our lives without power, we carried on as best one can under those circumstances. While our stove was electric, we did have a gas barbecue so meals were not always cold. Around 9:30pm, my wife and I took our dogs out for a walk around the neighbourhood as we always did at that time. It was oddly dark or should I say eerily dark? In any city area, there is always ambient light, actually a great deal of ambient light. I don't think we realise how much of it there is as it is never really dark per se in a city. Only when you head up north to the cottage does anybody see what "dark" truly is.

It was during this walk with the dogs I had an amazing moment. I looked up at the stars and saw the Milky Way. I was surprised. I had never seen the Milky Way in Toronto before. The quantity of ambient light is always so great that one can only see the brightest of stars in the sky but you certainly can't see that magical twinkling dust of tiny far off stars which spreads across a swath of the sky. For that moment, I realised I was looking at a phenomenon I would classify as a once in a lifetime experience. I would probably never again have the circumstances of being in the middle of Toronto, a major metropolitan area and all the electricity would be cut so that all ambient light from the city was turned off. That was quite a moment; something I always remember when I go up to the cottage and once again have that opportunity to clearly see the Milky Way.

The second thing which comes to mind is my preparedness for an emergency. A couple of years after the big blackout, somebody at a company staff meeting brought up the idea of us all being prepared for a crisis. Such preparations would cover various basic necessities anyone would need to "ride out the storm" so to speak. We should have bottled water for a couple of days, flashlights, possibly candles, food which would not require refrigeration, etc. Yes, it does sounds a tad apocalyptic but I realized that it's not until I have an actual emergency I think of even needing a flashlight. I'm not being a very good boy scout which is odd in that I actually was a boy scout. Obviously I have completely forgotten everything I learned about the scouts' motto "be prepared".

The web site below from the federal government offers tips and ideas about being prepared for the usual sort of emergencies any of us might be faced with. When I think about it, this is all common sense. A rule of thumb on the site is that we should be self-sufficient for at least 72 hours. When I think back on the big blackout of 2003, this seems like an appropriate period of time to be living "off the grid".

As I tuck this morning's paper about yesterday's blackout into the recycling bin, I consider making a stop at Canadian Tire to see about getting a flashlight. That might be a good first step in turning me back into a good boy scout.


References

Government of Canada: Is Your Family Prepared?
http://www.getprepared.gc.ca

Electricity
http://wqebelle.blogspot.com/2010/06/electricity.html


2010-07-06

I am now sitting in the dark. Well, sort of in the dark as I do have the glow of the screen of my laptop to guide my way. A few minutes ago, the power went out. After a couple of moments of reflection as to whether this was a quickie blackout or something lengthier, I carefully made my way down the hall to have a peek off of my 8th floor balcony to see how extensive the outage was. A preliminary assessment would see this cut in services covering about a four or five block square. I looked at the people walking around in the dark which was more of the dark one has in a city where even black is bathed in the ambient glow of the surrounding urban areas. I can hear some sirens getting closer.

As I sit here typing in the glow of my screen, I am thinking of how dependent we all are on this wonderful commodity called electricity, the source of light to keep the boogie man at bay. We may read and discuss newspaper articles on coal fired plants and the associated air pollution, the dangers of nuclear energy, the loss of land due to hydro-electric installations, the unsightliness of windmill farms, but in the end, what ends up at our door step is electricity, the glue which binds us together, keeps the dogs of anarchy at bay and provides that light of hope in the longest of nights.

A few interesting facts:

North America as well as some northern parts of South America (parts of Brazil, Venezuela, Ecuador, etc.) plus some of Japan have systems of 100 volts with 60 hertz. The rest of the world is pretty much 220 Vs with 50 Hz.

There are apparently 13 different types of plugs in use throughout the world. Other areas of the world preferred for some unexplained reason to create their own style of plug rather than adopt the U.S. standard. This U.S. standard is in use throughout North America, parts of Central America and in a few countries in the northern part of South America plus Japan.

Canada is the world's largest producer of hydro-electricity.

Nuclear power accounted for 6.3% of the world's total primary energy supply.

The US consumes 25% of the world's energy.


I got tired and went to bed. 15 minutes later, before I had fallen asleep, I heard the telltale click of various appliances coming back on with the return of the electricity. Somebody somewhere had done their job and restored power. Society, as a group working together, made life better for all of us: the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.

2010-06-19