One Way Maritimers can Drastically Reduce their Energy Consumption
Canada’s Maritime provinces are blustery, cold, and powered by coal. The weather is fine for most people (and lovely in the summer), but they know they need to transition to…
energy
See Through Solar Panels
The future is powered by renewables, and the more sources of electricity we have the more resilient our power grid will be. Researches at Michigan State University have created a…
Affordable electricity Decarbonization in OECD countries? Part I
After eight extensive posts about the Ontario electricity sector, I am expanding my geographic coverage to look at the electricity sectors in selected OECD countries. My focus will be on…
Peak Oil, Climate Change, and Human Fallibility
I’m just going to share verbatim a letter that I just sent to a few friends. I think it is worth giving it some thought. The letter expresses my comments…
Privatizing public dollars
The high-priced help at BC Hydro and the provincial government decided benefits of low-costs should never be wasted on consumers. To ensure it was not, the utility signed decades-long deals…
Quebec Cancels Planned LNG Operation to Protect the Environment
The waters of the Saguenay and the St. Lawerence have avoided great harm thanks to the cancellation of a massive natural gas facility in the area. People had been protesting…
Reducing CO2 Emissions by Targeting the 5% of Power Plants
Electric energy production using non-renewable processes produces an immense amount of carbon, and as a civilization we can’t afford to put more carbon in the atmosphere. Researchers from the University…
A Cheap Material for Producing Power from Waste Heat
Machines produce a lot of waste heat, and if we can capture that heat we can convert it into electric energy. Capturing thermal energy is currently inefficient because of thermal…
Resolving EV inhibitions
For personal use in urban areas, electric vehicles are clearly in our immediate future. But not everyone lives in a place where battery charging is a simple affair. Fast charging…
Home Water Heaters can Reduce Electricity Production
Across North America homes have massive tanks of hot water regardless of the outside temperature or other concerns. The energy cost to heat all this water is immense and not…
Ontario Electricity VIII: Now also going backwards on climate
There have been a number of important developments in the Ontario electricity sector since my last update when I summarized my arguments in front of the Ontario Legislature against the…
Taxpayers pay for Earth’s destruction
When an industry is on a path to extinction, private investors exit and governments often step in, spending huge dollars that merely delay the inevitable. We should not allow that…
Manage the Summer Heat in Your Home Without AC
Global warming is making our cities hotter than ever before, which has led many to turn on the air conditioning. The irony is that to keep us cool we turn…
Keystone XL is Dead, For Reals This Time
Protesting works! The absolutely foolish plan to make a massive pipeline to transport a heavily subsidized non-renewable energy source is dead. It is really dead. We’ve heard before that the…
Alberta’s Dilemma: When do we recognize that the world is changing?
Back in 2015, I started asking a simple question: is Alberta ready? Whenever I talked to politicians or entrepreneurs or thought leaders, I asked that same simple question. I asked…
Deception and duplicity
While John Horgan’s government was almost doubling the Site C budget to C$16 billion, the Biden administration was getting ready to approve a C$3.4 billion wind project off the coast…
Fuel on a fire
I understand why people gaining direct financial rewards support the Peace River megaproject. But it is harder to explain why rational and, we hope, honest cabinet ministers stay attached to…
Volte-face
Years from now, after physical frailty or political transience has ensured John Horgan’s removal from the cabinet meeting room, a political opponent or a savvy journalist will definitively explain Premier…
I See Your Red Roof and I Want to Paint it White
On solution to avoid catastrophic climate change is as easy as painting buildings. It’s known that white pain has benefits for cooling cities and on individual buildings it can reduce…
BC Hydro quandary
Unrestrained capital spending and needed write-offs of valueless items will result in major rate increases. But that presents a critical problem. Alternatives for consumers are steadily getting easier and less…