Canadian Construction Starting Up Green Operations

http://www.officialwire.com/main.php?action=posted_news&rid=37469&catid=1062

While Stephen Harper's government stalls and denies and talks about "modest" cuts to carbon emissions and says nothing about how they will be achieved, other jurisdictions are taking real, meaningful steps to confront the problem of climate change. The European Union has moved closer to achieving energy neutrality within a decade. In November, legislators agreed to introduce tough new energy-efficiency regulations that will make it mandatory for all buildings to achieve nearly zero energy use by 2020. The move is intended to ensure that the EU meets its Kyoto obligation to cut carbon emissions by 20 percent of 1990 levels by the year 2020. Buildings, it is estimated, account for about 40 percent of all carbon emissions.

In the United States, Congress is considering a national building code that would force builders to conform to a minimum standard of energy efficiency in new building construction. As in Canada, US builders now operate under local rules and voluntary standards. The National Home Builders Association opposes the national code but supports a voluntary 30 percent increase in energy efficiency over the International Code Council's 2006 guidelines. In June, the House of Representatives passed a climate bill that would mandate net-zero-energy buildings by 2030.

At the local level, the city of Seattle is being challenged to become the first carbon neutral city in North America by 2030. Alex Steffen of Worldchanging made the challenge as a concrete step toward creating the "bright green model of prosperity" that the world must have if it is to solve the problems of poverty and environmental destruction. Make the pursuit of carbon neutrality the organizing principle of municipal policymaking, he urges. He admits that he doesn't have a "plan" to bring this about, but argues that what we are doing now "just isn't good enough." The point, he says is that "we need to stop accepting modest (or even lame) goals as sufficient."

Contrast that with Stephen Harper's "modest"vision of a 17 percent reduction in emissions over 2005 levels by 2020.

In England, the government has set 2016 as the year when zero carbon homes will be required by law, making England the first country in the world to set such tough new standards. Public sector buildings have until 2018 and new commercial buildings until 2019 to be zero carbon. The Housing Minister, John Healey said that the momentum was there to reduce energy bills and carbon emissions and "to change and radically re-think how we design our homes and buildings for the future." He added that new homes in Britain were already 40 percent more energy efficient than in 2002, "but we must and can do more. The green movement is growing from the grand designs of a few to a national movement."

Is anyone talking this way in Canada? Does anyone in Canada even know what zero-carbon means?

An Energy Efficiency in Houses Workshop sponsored by the Ontario Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing was held on January 22, 2009. In a summary of the day's events (minutes) we find, at the very end, this sad little note, under "Broader issues":

Zero-net energy buildings were mentioned (my italics) as a long-term goal for Building Code energy conservation policy.

Mentioned. Not discussed, not proposed. Mentioned. And forgotten, one assumes.

The government of Canada's official web site is even more depressing. The Natural Resources Canada page entitled Energy Efficiency has not been updated since 2005 and cites statistics only concerning Canada's energy increases until that date. There is not a word about energy conservation, never mind "zero energy" or carbon neutral..

A look at the Energy Policy page reveals no vision. It is as if sustainability, global warming, international interdependence and responsibility for the environment were concepts that had never been heard.

Energy is critically important to the Canadian economy. As the fifth largest energy producer in the world where oil production is increasing, Canada also is one of the highest per-capita consumers of energy in the world, reflecting our geography and climate, an energy-intensive industrial structure and a high level of income.

A look at the overview of Canada's energy policy is revealing. In the list of "principles, agreements and accords" that have shaped Canada's energy policy, Kyoto is not even mentioned. Top of the list is "market orientation." Energy is discussed only in terms of pricing and taxation.

Is there any hope? Perhaps. An organization called the Net-Zero-Energy Home (NZEH) Coalition, a group of "forward looking home builders and developers" has set 2030 as its goal for making all new homes built in Canada Net-Zero-Energy. Here is what they say about their purpose:

The group recognizes that Canada has an opportunity to go beyond, and build upon, early adopter programs in Europe, the United States and, Japan that supported specific renewable energy technologies or specific energy efficiency technologies to develop a program that delivers a total integrated solution - the Net Zero Energy Home . . . In pursuit of its vision, the Coalition is helping advance the benefits of the more efficient use of zero or very low impact resources including cleaner air and healthier homes, climate protection and, economic development opportunities resulting from the expanded manufacturing and deployment of energy efficient technologies and appliances and onsite renewable energy generation in Canada’s residential marketplace.

One of their goals, set in 2007, is for each Canadian province to have 1500 NZEH homes within five years (2012). This is a non-governmental organization so their clout may be limited, but one can hope that their efforts to raise awareness will do some good.

Another sign that clean and efficient energy is on the radar can be found in a new National Research Council building in Vancouver. The facility houses the NRC Institute for Fuel Cell Innovation and incorporates new fuel cell and hydrogen technologies in the building's design and construction. Photovoltaic cells installed throughout the building power a hydrogen electrolyzer to produce hydrogen on site without emitting greenhouse gases. Good work, but practical applications?

And the province of Ontario passed a much-vaunted Green Energy Act in May, 2009. The act has been praised by Governor Schwarzenegger of California among others, as "historic" and "paradigm-shifting." The act makes Ontario a "world leader" in renewable energy development and climate protection. One result of the act's local procurement proviso is the repatriation of a Chinese-Canadian company that builds solar panels. It's setting up a $24 million manufacturing facility in Kitchener, Ontario so it can take advantage of preferential pricing given to suppliers who use local materials.

We can only hope that Stephen Harper will realize that his obligations go beyond pleasing the oil interests in his adopted home province of Alberta, and finally see that where energy is concerned, Canada, at this time, is more problem than solution.

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