Green Economy Conference in Vancouver April 7th

I might go this, though I do not have the time to go......

Date: April 7. 2009
Time: 8:30am – 7:00pm
Location: 181 Roundhouse Mews, Downtown Vancouver

Green Economy Conference Agenda

8:30-9:30		Registration
9:30-9:45		Introduction and Overview - Tzeporah Berman
9:45-10:30		Keynote: Mark Jaccard
10:30-11:15		Expert panel A: Stimulating a green economy in BC
11:15-12:15		Participant working groups: What can local and provincial governments do to stimulate the green economy?
12:15-1:00		Lunch (onsite)
1:00-1:45		The Bill Good Show Live: guests Vaughn Palmer and Keith Baldrey discuss green energy
1:45-2:30		Expert panel B: Green Energy in BC: The public policies we need
2:30-3:30		Green energy case studies: Haida Nation & NaiKun Wind; Klahoose First Nation & Plutonic Power
3:30-4:15		Participant working groups: What can local and provincial governments do to stimulate green energy development?
4:15-4:45		Review working group findings
4:45-5:00		Conclusion
5:00-7:00		Reception

Article in the Telegraph

There is an interesting article in the Telegraph the other day. It is clearly a climate skeptic article and I have no problem with that. I believe that a greater debate on climate change will give us more knowledge and this will allow us to craft the solutions that will make the most sense economically, environmentally and socially.

What concerns me is the degree of closed mindedness on both sides of the debate. In the comments on the article there is a person seriously suggesting that arguing against climate change should be a criminal offense. At the same time the climate skeptics depict the other side as the new 'communists'. It is unhealthy not to have a debate with both sides conceding the other side has validity.

I am not at all convinced that climate change is a catastrophic problem for us at this time. I firmly believe that we can spend the next ten to twenty years doing more research on the issue and work towards developing an approach that will make the most sense.

It seems to be clear that large scale greenhouse gas emissions are not a good thing for the world, but the timescale of the changes are not pushing us to dramatic and costly action now. We have time to develop new approaches and develop new technologies to deal with fallout of problems.

There are things that we can do now that do not cost us anything and therefore make sense no matter how serious climate change is. One of the changes is more fuel efficient cars. Growing our own food has many more benefits than reduction in CO2 production.

The biggest thing we can do that will not cost us anything is to develop a lot more run of the river hydro. It is competitive with coal and gas fired power, it needs no subsidies to be built. It also has no measurable environmental impact if it is done as we do it in BC. This is a industrial solution that makes sense now.

Carbon taxes also make sense because it moves taxation to an output that should be reduced in any case. Externalities such as waste are not regularly costed in our society and it means that we all bear the costs. By tax the carbon we will push companies to develop solutions that will lower their tax costs.

The Economist On Carbon Capture and Storage

This is from this week's Economist. They are the single best media outlet in the world, they are never swayed by the idea of the moment. They look at the whole world each and every week.

This week that are taking a close look at Carbon Capture and Storage. I have 'borrowed' their editorial from the issue which has links to more inside the newspaper.

___________________________________________________

Climate change
The illusion of clean coal

Mar 5th 2009
From The Economist print edition
The world is investing too much cash and hope in carbon capture and storage

“FACTORIES of death” is how James Hansen, a crusading American scientist, describes power stations that burn coal. Coal is the dirtiest of fossil fuels, producing twice the carbon dioxide that natural gas does when it is burned. That makes it a big cause of global warming.

But some of the world’s biggest economies rely on coal. It provides almost 50% of America’s and Germany’s power, 70% of India’s and 80% of China’s. Digging up coal provides a livelihood for millions of people. And secure domestic sources of energy are particularly prized at a time when prices are volatile and many of the big oil and gas exporters are becoming worryingly nationalistic. It is hard to see how governments can turn their backs on such a cheap and reliable fuel.

There does, however, seem to be a way of reconciling coal and climate. It is called carbon capture and storage (CCS), or carbon sequestration, and entails hoovering up carbon dioxide from the smokestacks of power plants and other big industrial facilities and storing it safely underground, where it will have no effect on the atmosphere. The technologies for this are already widely used in the oil and chemical industries, and saltwater aquifers and depleted oilfields offer plenty of promising storage space. Politicians are pinning their hopes on clean coal: Angela Merkel and Barack Obama, among others, are keen on the idea.

But CCS is proving easier to talk up than to get going (see article). There are no big power plants using it, just a handful of small demonstration projects. Utilities refuse to make bigger investments because power plants with CCS would be much more expensive to build and run than the ordinary sort. They seem more inclined to invest in other low-carbon power sources, such as nuclear, solar and wind. Inventors and venture capitalists, in the meantime, are striving to create all manner of new technologies—bugs for biofuels, revolutionary solar panels, smart-grid applications—but it is hard to find anyone working on CCS in their garage (although some scientists are toying with pulling carbon dioxide directly out of the air instead of from smokestacks: see Technology Quarterly in this issue). Several green pressure groups, and even some energy and power company bosses, think that the whole idea is unworkable.

With the private sector sitting on its hands, Western governments are lavishing subsidies on CCS. Some $3.4 billion earmarked for CCS found its way into America’s stimulus bill. The European Union, which already restricts greenhouse-gas emissions through a cap-and-trade scheme, unveiled further incentives for CCS last year. Britain, Australia and others have also vowed to help fund demonstration plants partly because they reckon the private sector is put off by the huge price-tag on a single CCS power plant, and also in the belief that the cost of CCS will fall with experience.

The private sector, however, is reluctant to fork out not just because of the upfront cost of power plants, but also because, tonne for tonne, CCS looks like an expensive way of cutting carbon. The cost of it may fall, but probably not by much, given the familiarity of the technologies it uses.

Politicians should indeed encourage investment in clean technologies, but direct subsidies are not the way to do it. A carbon price or tax, which raises the cost of emitting carbon dioxide while leaving it up to the private sector to pick technologies, is the better approach. CCS is not just a potential waste of money. It might also create a false sense of security about climate change, while depriving potentially cheaper methods of cutting emissions of cash and attention—all for the sake of placating the coal lobby.

East Toba/Montrose projects get Fed Eco Funding

A press release came out this week announcing the federal government is providing support money to Plutonic Power for their Toba Inlet projects that are under construction.

In BC there are total of 48 projects registered, of which 38 are hydro, 6 are wind, three and biomass and one is goethermal. There are numerous run of the river projects in BC that have signed agreements with Federal Government under this program, though I am not sure that all of them will be built within the timeframes suggested.

The Naikun Wind and Meager Geothermal projects both have signed agreements but I would very surprised to see either one functioning anytime soon.

Of the 58 largest projects listed by MW, only 2 of them are run of the river hydro and both of them are connected to Plutonic Power. Almost all of the rest are wind power projects which have a much lower amount of power they will actually produce in a given year.

Plutonic Power Corporation Signs ecoENERGY Agreement for Funding of the East Toba River Montrose Creek Run-of-River Project

VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA--(Feb. 23, 2009) - Plutonic Power Corporation is
pleased to announce that the Toba Montrose General Partnership has signed a Contribution Agreement with the Government of Canada for funding of the East Toba River and Montrose Creek Hydroelectric Project under the ecoENERGY for Renewable Power program.

Under the ecoENERGY for Renewable Power program, the East Toba River and Montrose Creek Hydroelectric Project will receive a $10 per MWh incentive over the first ten years of operations, in accordance with the terms of the agreement. Net annual electrical generation from the Project is expected to be 726.95 Gwh per year. Payments will commence once the Project is commissioned, which is on schedule for completion in mid 2010.

"The development of clean, renewable energy projects is instrumental in achieving both Federal
and Provincial governments' initiatives on climate change and Federal support through programs like ecoENERGY are important to the industry's success," said Plutonic Power Vice-Chair and CEO Donald McInnes.

Once completed, the East Toba River and Montrose Creek Hydroelectric Project, a partnership with GE Energy Financial Services, will potentially displace an estimated 455,000 tonnes of greenhouse gases (GHG) annually. This is the equivalent of taking about 80,000 cars off the road per year or planting about 60,000 hectares of trees. With an estimated capital cost of $660 million, this 196 MW project has been under construction since July 2007 and is on budget and on schedule for commercial operation by mid 2010.

About Plutonic Power Corporation
Plutonic Power's vision is to provide leadership and create a legacy through the development of renewable, reliable, clean energy. Its proposed Green Power Corridor(tm), comprised of 39 facilities, including the flagship $660 million, 196 MW East Toba River/Montrose Creek run-of-river project currently under construction, have the design capacity to generate enough energy to meet the annual needs of about 630,000 homes and create approximately 5,500 person years of employment. Once built, the Green Power Corridor(tm) could offset an estimated 4 million tons of CO2 emissions every year - the equivalent to taking as many as 650,000 vehicles off the road. Plutonic is committed to working in partnership with First Nations, stakeholder groups and local communities in the development of all its run-of-river projects. By developing its suite of projects, Plutonic Power will help British Columbia realize its goal of becoming electricity self-sufficient by 2016, meet demand utilizing 90% clean domestic generation sources and will play a significant role in the fight against climate change.


For additional information please contact:

Elisha McCallum
Office: 604-669-4999
elisha.mccallum@plutonic.ca

Western Renewable Energy Zones

I found out about this from an article in the Tyee.

The Western Govenors Association in the US has developed the Western Renewable Energy Zones to quantify the potential for renewable energy in 11 US states, BC, Alberta and Baja Norte. They are seeking input into their project at the moment.

In their plans they clearly see BC as the source for a significant portion of the renewable energy in western North America. In total they see 11.4% of the power coming from BC, closer to one fifth of the total when solar is factored out. This table shows that they potential they assign to BC a majority of the hydro power in western North America, a total of 69% of all of the hydro power.

In the wind category they assign 14.6% of the total to BC. The document calls for 118 790 MW of power to come from wind in the west. This is a huge expansion of wind power, a scale I had not imagined at all.

They have nothing apportioned for BC based solar power, though I doubt this would ever be a major source of electrical power.

The geothermal potential in BC is also barely touched, there are some very significant possible geothermal sources in BC.

The renewable energy sources they map out does not include any bio-mass generated power. We already have a number of bio-mass operations functioning here in BC already.

Interesting Report from Greenland

As more and more data comes in, I am being pushed more and more into the category of someone that believes we need to take actions with respect to global warming. This report from Greenland is interesting.

There is now a suggestion that Greenland should be wrapped to keep it from melting.....

Generating Power for the Public Water Supplies

The provincial government in BC should require all municipal water systems to have turbines built into them to produce electrical power. We have dozens of domestic water supplies in BC that are gravity fed and could easily turn a turbine. At the moment that energy is not captured.

Where this has been done by some of the mountain towns in the US, the sales of the power go a long way towards covering the costs of the water system.