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THE EUROPEAN EXAMPLE
Note: This is the first instalment of a two-part article. I am a rowing enthusiast. I enjoy one of the few "low impact" sports which also provides an excellent workout. While North Americans usually associate rowing with racing, to most Europeans rowing centers around long distance cruising. It is this last aspect of rowing which a group of us in Ontario are trying to popularize here. Last year, my wife and I spent two weeks rowing in Finland and Germany. Last month, my daughter and I visited Europe to row in Denmark's southern Baltic Sea. During this trip, I was struck by the great gulf between Europeans and North Americans. Both enjoy the highest standard of living in the world, but express this very differently. The effects of this on energy consumption are prodigious. It all started on the drive to Toronto's Pearson Airport. Whether you take a bus or a car, you are a potential victim of traffic congestion. Accordingly, you must budget extra time to ensure that you do not miss your flight. The airport bus deals with this by picking you up 3 - 4 hours before flight time for the one hour journey from Barrie. The two extra hours represent around 30% of your flight time to Europe! Within 20 minutes of touching down at Dusseldorf, my daughter and I were waiting on a train platform right in the airport. We were expecting to board a train for Cologne - a 30 minute, 70km journey - at 6:33am. At 6:25, a train arrived at our platform. We got on and it pulled out at 6:30 - three minutes early. Suspicious, I asked the conductor whether this was the train for Cologne. It was not! He directed us to get off at the next station (Dusseldorf Hauptbahnhof) and take the train immediately behind this one. In striking contrast to the 5 daily trains between Canada's two largest cities, many of the 2 dozen or so platforms at Dusseldorf Hauptbahnhof have trains leaving at 3-5 minute intervals, and even at 6:30am, all are fairly full. In fact, the train stations themselves seem to be among the busiest shopping "malls" in Europe, serving crowds of travellers. Most European trains are electric, contributing little to urban pollution, although emissions are (of course) produced at the power stations themselves. Electric traction makes for rapid acceleration, allowing trains to maintain high average speeds despite frequent stops. Our train averaged around 140 kilometres per hour, far faster than any car. This must contribute to their popularity. In Germany and Denmark, almost any time you look out of a train window, you can see windmills turning slowly in the breeze. I believe that Germany has the largest installed wind generation capacity in the world. I know that Denmark derives 10% of its electricity from the wind - more than any other country - and aims for 50% by 2030. So Europe's response to high energy prices has been increased reliance on renewables with their enviably low operating costs. Wherever you look, compact fluorescents are the light source of choice in train stations, offices and shops. Unlike sodium vapour and metal halide lamps, their colour balance is excellent. Five times more efficient than incandescents, their 10,000 hour life also saves on maintenance. Probably the most important efforts Europe has made to conserve energy and the environment are related to transportation. In most of Europe, urban car parking is hard to find, automatically limiting the number of people who can drive to work. Of course, suburban shopping centres provide ample free parking, and one presumes that modern industry located on the outskirts of towns also provides free parking for employees & visitors. Peter Bursztyn is a CFRE member and an environmental activist who lives in Barrie.
Wow! The lowest interest rates in 40 years! Banks are just craving to lend money to investors-especially small businesses. People should be flocking to their lenders and taking out loans to start a business-the business of generating their own electricity-an investment that is guaranteed to save money so you can pay back that loan! It's so exciting I can hardly contain my enthusiasm! Start with a solar water heater system-Toronto Hydro is offering them at a great discount: only $1,900 for a $2,500 system installed! Just imagine how much you can save on your hydro bill with the free renewable energy from the sun heating your water! Homeowners with those unshaded south facing roofs can go further and install PV solar panels which could generate a good part of their power needs-again a win-win combination by securing their up-front investment giving them a secure pay-back in face of rising hydro rates from conventional generation! Of course anyone's house needing a new roof would be miles ahead with those new solar shingles bringing a residence with conservative power needs close to self-sufficiency and that "powerful" feeling that I have enjoyed now over the last 8 years with my solar / wind power hybrid system! Our board members and myself were busy bringing the good news to people at a number of events during the last 3 months. George Wright staffed a display with the help of Kerry MacMullin at the Ottawa Natural Life Expo where he also conducted a seminar; Lisa Chupa with partner Jeremy Lane helped out the at the great Feast of Fields organic event in Milton, I arranged a display at the Leading Edge Conference in Burlington. I also facilitated two workshops in October, one in Owen Sound and one in Hamilton with inspiring presenters but, in spite of low registration fees, we had disappointing attendance! I was invited to speak to the Hamilton-Burlington chapter of the Canadian Organic Growers and the Link Inventors Club in Brantford and had a great turn-out at both events and positive feed-back-so why not better response to our well-publicized workshops? Abby Hartman and Andrea Chappell did a fine job informing people at the Kitchener Natural Life expo of all the great opportunities using "people power" And Vitold helped me the last day of the Exp while I was giving a well-attended one-hour seminar there. Other chances to promote our awareness campaign came with me attending the Ecological Farmers Association's AGM at Parkhill near London and at the Green Power Trade Show in Richmond Hill. On the other front we are quite involved with commenting on nuclear power licensing, especially on the Bruce Nuclear plant, leased by British Energy. A number of our members attended "Open Houses" put on by Bruce Power for information on their proposed restart of two of the old shut down reactors at Bruce 'A'. I took part in a stakeholder's interview and recently in a workshop to glean information on the Environmental Assessment process necessary for this project. It's becoming obvious that Bruce power is aiming to supply the lucrative market south of the border with this electricity from mothballed reactors refurbished with minimum investment and staff transferred from the operating 'B' section. It needs a concerted effort to convince the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC) and the Environment Minister that an undertaking like this has to undergo a high level Assessment with an independent scientific expert panel instead of just a "Screening" done by the proponent and rubberstamped by the CNSC! That's why we call on all of you to become involved showing your concerns by signing the enclosed letter (don't forget to include your address!) and sending it to President Linda Keen, with a copy to Minister Anderson. Add your own comments if you want! My best wishes to you all for a blessed Christmas and a peaceful New Year with lots of Renewable Energy!
QUOTABLES...from The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientist, July/August 2000
Come and see us and our display at the Organic Conference and Trade Show, at the University of Guelph in the last weekend of January (26 - 27, 2002). Our AGM and workshop has already been booked for Sunday, May 26, 2002, at our favourite location, the Environmental Learning Centre, YMCA, Paradise Lake, in St. Clements, near Waterloo. We'll have exciting new speakers to make it a worthwhile event to attend. Please mark it on your calendar!
SPOTLIGHT ON....GERMANY'S WIND ENERGY DEVELOPMENTAccording to the latest news from Europe, Germany has pulled far ahead of other countries in its quest to generate clean and safe electricity from wind. A new project of 60 wind turbines in Nordrhein - Westfalia produces 105 Megawatts, enough to power 70,000 homes. The wind power in the whole state combined is enough to make the shutdown of a nuclear plant possible. Germany as a whole now counts more than 10,000 wind turbines dispersed over the whole country, with an output of 6,900 Megawatts. There are almost twice as many workers employed in the wind energy industry now than in the nuclear industry! Several off-shore wind farms are in the planning stage. The power produced from this new, clean renewable source would be enough to displace the output of all of Germany's nuclear plants!
LOOKING FOR COMMENTS ON "A CLEAN ENERGY PATH FOR ONTARIO"An "Alternative Fuels Committee" was struck by the provincial government. This committee was to provide an opportunity to give input into how renewable energy fits into the deregulated market. Please provide any comments you have on this to Ziggy ASAP; he will pass it along to the Toronto Environment Alliance, which is compiling the comments from various organizations. These comments will be submitted to the "Alternative Fuels Committee". The Clean Energy Path for Ontario is a suite of policies to increase energy efficiency and the use of renewable energy. It will save consumers money, provide security and jobs, and leave a heritage of clean air, clean water and freedom from dangerous climate change through: Energy Conservation and Efficiency
Green Power
GREAT NEWS!Our organization has matured to the point where we can offer dedicated members a life membership like other organizations have. For CFRE, a life membership would be pegged at $300, with all the discounts and benefits that sustainable memberships bring. We're happy to announce our first members hailing from Waterloo, Sue Wahl and Bob Wildfong. Thank you so much for your great dedication and support. With the arrival of their first child, the realization of a clean livable future for our children and grandchildren makes our work to promote safe, renewable energy so much more important.
NOTABLES...The CFRE website is reaching more people since the summer. The number of hits on the website has increased to almost 1,000 per month again this fall. Be sure to check it out at http://www.web.ca/~cfre , and let your friends know it's there, too!
QUOTABLES...Ethiopian proverb quoted in Living More with Less
FOR THE LAST-MINUTE CHRISTMAS SHOPPER...Great gifts from CFRE: Our acclaimed publication, "CFRE: You Asked Us" at $5 plus $2 postage and/or a gift membership $12 per year, and we'll include a Christmas Gift card.
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