Saskatchewan Bucks the Trend on Alternative Energy

Saskatchewan Bucks the Trend on Alternative Energy

Postby Oscar » Sun May 13, 2007 1:39 pm

Saskatchewan Bucks the Trend on Alternative Energy

By John W. Warnock
May 3, 2007
http:www.actupinsask.com

Global warming and climate change has dominated political debate over the past year. If the polls are accurate, the great majority of Canadians want action to be taken by our leaders, but little has been forthcoming. The Ecologist and others have called for a “second industrial revolution”, transforming our economy and society from dependence on fossil fuels by switching to alternative energy.

In Saskatchewan we have always depended on coal and natural gas to provide our energy. We also built SaskPower, a Crown corporation, to produce and bring electricity and natural gas to all rural, northern and remote areas. The centralized system has served us well, but we now need a change of direction.

The move to distributed generation

The new trend is toward “distributed generation”, which is a shift to local generation of power and energy for local and regional consumption. This development is well on its way in Europe. The new alternative includes a range of policies to support the generation of energy by households and businesses, with the emphasis on conservation, demand management and renewable energies. The change is also seen as a requirement for protection against the dangers from the widespread power outages that we have seen in recent years. With climate change, these are expected to intensify.

However, distributive generation in Canada runs into entrenched bureaucracies and fixed political attitudes. SaskPower has a strong commitment to going slow on alternative energy. Our political leaders are calling for refurbishing our coal fired plants, spending $2 billion on a new “clean coal” operation, and holding out the prospect of a nuclear power facility. All these depend on the retention of the centrally run provincial system.

Learning from others: the example of Washington state

Saskatchewan used to be known as the most progressive place in North America. But we also have a contradictory tradition of rural conservatism and parochialism. This helps explain why we have such a poor record on sustainable energy, global warming and climate change. What can we do? There are political and individual options.

Last January I spent some time in Seattle. I looked into how the city and the state were approaching energy use and climate change. They are far ahead of Saskatchewan. To begin, a broad coalition of groups organized Initiative 937, adopted in a state wide referendum, which requires utilities with over 25,000 customers to implement conservation measures and acquire new supply from renewable energy sources. The state government has passed legislation enabling this initiative. The Seattle government has strongly supported this goal. In their new plan, adopted after wide consultation with the public, Seattle City Light, a public utility, will acquire 460 megawatts of new energy over the next 20 years through conservation, geothermal, wind, hydro, biomass and landfill gas. This move had bipartisan support from Republicans and Democrats.

The U.S. federal government, Washington state, the City of Seattle and Seattle City Light now provide individual homeowners and businesses with a variety of tax rebates and incentives which encourage them to weatherize and install solar, wind and biomass energy systems. Net metering is widely available, and in Seattle individual home owners who install energy production systems feed their surplus power into the city grid and then take back energy when they need it. The price is the same either way, and this form of net metering allows individual energy producers to avoid the cost of battery storage systems.

Examples from Seattle

On January 31, 2007 I was at the University of Washington where a group of organizations had an outdoor display celebrating wind and solar power in Seattle. On that day the American Solar Energy Society released a national plan to use conservation and renewable energy to reduce U.S. greenhouse gas emissions by 60% - 80% by 2050.

Pam Burton from Puget Sound Solar explained to me how they renovated and upgraded their large old two-storey Seattle home. They went to R-34 in the walls, R-57 in the ceiling, and R-33 in the basement walls. They replaced the standard windows with reclaimed low-E Argon-filled windows. “You can’t put in too much insulation,” she argued. “This alone reduced our energy use by 67%.”

They have added large solar collectors, as their goal is create a Zero Energy House. “Seattle has less solar potential than Germany, where solar energy is most developed, and far less than Saskatchewan,” she proclaimed. They bought a 1997 Solectria (Geo Metro) car, which was on display along with several others. “We power our Solectria from our solar collectors,” Pam stated, “and it serves us well for all our Seattle transportation needs, about 4,000 miles per year.”

I had a conversation with Robert Jones, a local organic farmer. He also maintains a house in Seattle. “If we are being serious about this issue,” he argued, “we have to look at the size of the houses we have. Families get smaller, and new houses get larger. I have an older1200 square foot bungalow. I added insulation. I put in larger south facing windows. I installed two 75 watt solar collectors, which cost me about $2000.”

He then talked about the advantages of wind power. “I also installed two small wind turbines, which I built myself, and they are connected to ordinary automotive batteries. In the worst month of the winter, my total cost for power and heat is only $30. This works well, for when the sun doesn’t shine, the wind always seems to blow.”

Wind power at the household level

In Saskatchewan we see new wind turbines in rural areas. But in Europe and Japan, small wind turbines are everywhere in urban areas. Many of these are the new Vertical Axis Windmills. In Europe it is common to see the 2.5 kilowatt hour VAWs mounted on the roofs of houses. They are now very silent, cause no noticeable vibrations and function with wind as low as 3 mph. In Seattle a small wind turbine which produces on average 400 watts of power costs $600. In Japan small wind and solar generators are widely used in urban settings. They are often a single solar panel on a pole, around eight feet tall, with a vertical wind turbine built into the pole.

Germany provides large incentives for home owners and businesses to install conservation and alternative energy. They pay around 45 cents for a kilowatt hour of energy fed into the grid. They know that alternative energy provides far more jobs than the fossil and nuclear fuel industries. Germany is now a major exporter of the new technologies.

Can North Dakota show the way?

In contrast to Saskatchewan, North Dakota is going all out for wind power. They are building large wind farms, small wind farms, wind systems for small towns, and Indian bands are now adopting their own local systems. They have introduced net metering and incentives to encourage energy production by households and small businesses. This strong commitment to the new energy has paid off. L. M. Glasfibre of Denmark has built a plant to construct wind turbine blades at Grand Forks. It is the largest manufacturer in the city, employing 700 people. D. M. I. Industries is building wind towers at Fargo. North Dakota is presently negotiating to establish a wind turbine industry in the state. A missed opportunity for Saskatchewan, as they will dominate the prairie market.

A new solar technology has been developed in South Africa. It does not use silicon but Copper-Indium-Gallium-Diselenide (CIGS), which is much more efficient than silicon in converting sunlight to electric current. Tests conducted in Europe found that the new solar panels are twice as efficient as the silicon system and operate much better in winter. This new solar technology is being installed across South Africa, and IFE Solar Systems of Germany, one of the world’s leaders in solar energy, has opened a major plant in Germany. What about Saskatchewan? Well, we have lots of coal, and the industry employs around 350 people.

John W. Warnock is a Regina political economist and long time environmental activist.

John W. Warnock
2156 Retallack St.
Regina, SK S4T 2K4
(306) 352-5282
http://www.johnwarnock.ca

"It is easier to perceive error than to find truth, for error lies on the surface while truth lies in the depths, where few are willing to search for it." Goethe
Oscar
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