Canada’s winter sports threatened by climate change
March 31, 2009
First it was the natural disasters, then it was the polar bears and now a shorter skiing season? This time climate change has gone too far…
U.N.’s global climate change plan would cause economic earthquake
March 31, 2009
What kind of quake are we willing to endure, the earth kind or the economic kind?
Full Story [The Heritage Foundation]
Biofuel sources are getting a little fishy
March 31, 2009
If fish lived on land, which country would they live in? Finland.
Jokes aside, Finland is looking at ways to turn fish waste products into fuel. Biofuel. Finland’s Technical Research Centre and a Vietnamese seafood producer recently launched a three-year project to turn fish waste into biodiesel.
It turns out fish waste is a good feedstock for biofuel. Companies and local governments in Canada, Alaska, Honduras and other places have been experimenting with fish-based biodiesel for years. A few commercial enterprises are even using and selling it profitably. And it may come as no surprise to those who remember that before petroleum, whale oil was used for light and heat. So using waste oil for fuel is resourceful since one kilogram of fish waste equals one litre of biodiesel.
Fish waste, if not processed immediately, degrades rapidly and quickly loses its value. Dumped into the sea in high concentrations, the waste can also disrupt marine ecosystems, so finding sustainable uses for it is just plain smart.
Most of the activity in fish biodiesel has been centered in Alaska and Canada, where isolated coastal cities provide fish oil which is the most abundant feedstock for biodiesel. But in a market which consumes 5 million litres of diesel daily, the Vietnamese are quickly seeing the value of casting this particular line.
So if fish keep their money in the river bank, these days, inventive companies are banking their money with fish waste.
Fish oil in cow’s diet could help clear the air
March 31, 2009
Here’s a fishy little remedy for cow gas and methane emissions
Libin: More smoke and mirrors
March 31, 2009
Oil sands versus coal fire plants? If it wasn’t so fashionable to protest oil sands, environmentalists would pay more attention to the real heavy emitters
Full Story [Financial Post Magazine]
Climate change message heard around the world
March 30, 2009
WWF looks back on Earth Hour 2009, saying it was “the biggest environmental demonstration in history!”
CCS technology – smaller pieces of Canada’s big green puzzle
March 30, 2009
While some are still puzzled by carbon capture and storage (CCS), increased funding is allowing industry to test various pieces of the technology in order to get a clearer view of the big, emissions-reducing picture. Various projects underway throughout Alberta, BC and Saskatchewan represent a broad spectrum of CCS applications and, this week, after receiving funding from Natural Resources Canada, eight of them got a little closer to realizing their vision.
On March 26, the Honourable Lisa Raitt, Minister of Natural Resources, came to Alberta to announce a government investment of $140 million towards eight CCS projects chosen out of 39 proposals submitted last year for the $230-million ecoENERGY Technology initiative.
The eight winning proposals were selected to represent an array of different CCS approaches, from CO2 storage in geologic formations to using CO2 in enhanced oil recovery (EOR) projects. According to Raitt, each proposal demonstrated a different, complementary piece in the greater challenge of bringing CCS to wide-scale commercial use.
Understanding the viability of capturing and storing carbon emissions was a particular topic of concern in 2008 when the Alberta government announced it would invest $2 billion toward CCS technology. Concerns ranged from the feasibility of implementing such an expensive technology on a mass scale, to the environmental impacts of burying CO2 without getting to the root of problem and reducing fossil fuel use all together.
“I don’t think it’s possible to overstate the importance of this technology,” said Raitt during Thursday’s announcement at Calgary’s SAIT Polytechnic. “We can’t turn our backs on the energy and the wealth that our fossil fuels generate, but we have the responsibility to make sure it is generated sustainably.”
The investments were also touted as a supporting initiative to Canada’s Economic Action Plan, which will include $2.4 billion worth of new measures to support Canada’s climate change objectives.
“While we’re doing better than a lot of others, we’re certainly not immune,” said Raitt, of Canada’s economy as it compares to the rest of the world. Raitt was forthright in her belief that Canada’s robust fossil fuel sector is largely responsible for Canada’s more salubrious economic position on the global stage.
“Without energy, economies do not grow. They don’t even move… we’re still far from replacing the energy fossil fuels provide [so] we need to find a cleaner way to produce it and consume it.”
Successful proposals were submitted by partnerships led or co-led by ARC Resources, Enhance Energy, Spectra Energy Transmission, TransCanada, TransAlta, Husky, Enbridge and EPCOR. Each of the projects will receive between $3 million and $30 million of federal money, but Raitt stressed the federal funding is only one part of the larger equation. “We need to have collaboration between governments and between government and industry,” Raitt said.
Among the eight winning companies present at the announcement was Alberta’s Enhance Energy Inc. whose project proposes to capture CO2 from a large fertilizer plant as well as an oil sands upgrading operation. The CO2 would then be transported and injected into mature oil reservoirs in central Alberta for EOR and permanent sequestration.
“The funding will allow us to accelerate implementation of the project,” explained company president and engineer Susan Cole, adding that the Alberta Industrial Heartland based project, has been in the working for four years. “The added financial support will allow the company to bring this initiative to commercialization faster,” said Cole. (diagram above: Enhance Energy)
To date, the most notable example of CO2 being used for EOR, is Saskatchwan’s Weyburn-Midale CO2 project in southeastern Saskatchewan, which is home to a depleted oil reservoir containing deep underground rock formations called saline aquifers. Transported via pipeline from a plant in Beulah North Dakota, pure streams of CO2 left over from the coal gasification process are injected into these underground formations to increase the recovery rates of sticky, stubborn oil in hard to reach places.
So how does Enhance Energy’s project complement projects already using CO2 for EOR? According to Cole, it will demonstrate the feasibility of a single network to collect CO2 from a large number of industrial emitters. It is projected that within five years, this project could capture and sequester up to 1.9 megatonnes of CO2 annually, equal to taking 358,000 cars off the road each year.
“Each of the projects really is quite different,” said Doug Bloom, President of Spectra Energy Transmission West. The company’s Fort Nelson, B.C. project presents yet another challenge of CCS technology – testing the injection of sour CO2 into these deep saline formations for permanent storage. “In our case, we’re a natural gas pipeline. Raw natural gas contains high levels of CO2 and sulphur dioxide and we want to test the feasibility of permanently storing it in deep underground formations.”
As various parts of the CCS puzzle come into sharper focus, industry and governments across the world remain aware that the technology represents only one part of the even larger puzzle of environmental sustainability. As one environmentalist said in an earlier FLOW article about CCS technology, “there is no one green bullet.”
When asked by one reporter if Canada has a “plan B” for meeting reduction targets, Raitt replied that she doesn’t view CCS support in terms of a plan A or a plan B, calling it a scientifically viable solution in fossil fuel emissions mitigation. “We’re well on our way,” said Raitt adding that the ecoENERGY Technology initiative includes funding research on renewable energy and energy efficiency.
The funding announcement also coincided with the province of Alberta being recognized for its great strides in CCS research by The Aspen Institute, a U.S. energy and environment organization. The Aspen Institute awards recognize organizations for excellence in innovation, implementation and communication of energy and environmental solutions.
We get questions
March 30, 2009
The Centre for Energy’s portal is loaded with factual and statistical information about Canada’s energy system. But we still get questions, like this one.
Q: I caught the last few minutes of a documentary on TV about a Canadian mining town that uses water from an abandoned mine for geothermal heating. Can you tell me the name of the town?
A: The city in question is Springhill, Nova Scotia. Springhill had a long history of coal mining, beginning in 1830; however following disasters in 1891, 1956 and 1958 the mines were closed in 1962. In the late 1980s, interest in using the mine water as a heat source resulted in the development of the Springhill Geothermal Industrial Park. Natural Resources Canada, talks about this on its website.
The technology used in Springhill is actually a geothermal heat pump system, also known as earth energy or geo-exchange, which operates at lower temperatures than true geothermal systems.
True geothermal systems use super-heated water from deep within the earth to provide heat, such as in Iceland and parts of Western Canada and California. With these types of systems, the water is generally hot enough that heat pumps are not required. They are often found in tectonically active areas and are associated with geysers and hotsprings.
Another city in Canada contemplating the use of mine water as a geothermal heat source is Yellowknife in the Northwest Territories. The city contracted the University of British Columbia to perform a feasibility study (448KB PDF).
Got a question?
Send it to infoservices@centreforenergy.com – we’ll answer it and might even publish it on Flow.
Nunavut Arctic College photovoltaics
March 27, 2009
A key challenge for solar power is that power production grinds to a halt when the sun isn’t shining – say, for example, at night. An obvious problem, one that seemingly can’t be avoided.
But what about moving solar power generation to where there is no night? It makes sense. Photovoltaic systems that convert solar energy into electricity work better in sunnier locations. Cloudy condition or shortened days diminish solar power generation capacity. Where better to take advantage of solar energy than the land of the midnight sun?
Iqaluit is the capital of Canada’s newest territory, Nunavut. Near the Arctic Circle (63° 45′ North latitude), it receives about 20 hours of sunlight per day in midsummer, and about five at winter solstice.
In July 1995, an advanced photovoltaic system was installed on the campus of Nunavut Arctic College. The project had two principal objectives. First, to publicize photovoltaic as a viable power source, especially in the Arctic.
Second, to document the long-term performance of a photovoltaic system in Canada’s northern territories. There had been fears the harsh (namely, very very cold) climate would be too hard on solar panels.
To that end, the University of Waterloo has closely monitored every facet of its operation. System output and efficiency can be measured down to the hour. The results are in. Not only has the system earned a pass, but flying colours – appropriate in the land of the northern lights.
During its first nine years of operation, the system has worked consistently and reliably. It has generated approximately 2,000 kilowatt hours of electricity each year. That’s not a lot; the average American uses 600 – 800 kilowatt hours every month.
But the system has served its purpose – solar energy is irrefutably viable up north.
Your footprint won’t vanish when the lights go out
March 27, 2009
Viewing earth hour and carbon footprints in a different light