Despite hoping to present itself as a monolithic entity in order to force change, the environmental movement is nevertheless divided on two key battlegrounds: intensification and nuclear power. These internal debates tend to take place with hushed voices and behind closed doors, as if demonstration of the slightest bit of disunity could bring the entire possibility of a greener future crashing down.

It’s really no wonder that the environmental community is a little skittish about bringing these debates into the open. Climate deniers continue to harp on the notion that “the science isn’t settled,” as if we aren’t all just discussing the degree to which climate change is going to suck.

And, since 97 percent of scientists and only 60 percent of the general public claim to believe in anthropogenic climate change, it’s not entirely wrong-headed to think that the manufactured debate campaign is working.

What is wrong is thinking that the presentation of a united front is either possible or likely to be effective. Change does not require public unanimity and in worrying about it, we’re missing an opportunity to really flesh out and improve our ideas. Better to have the debate openly.

Let’s lay these out quickly:

1. Intensification

Urban intensification leads to greater energy efficiency and sustainability, but can also conflict with another progressive favourite: livable communities.

One person’s high-density community is another person’s cramped housing. And if we’re building so densely, where will we find room for trees and green space? On the other hand, the closer we are to each other, the less energy we have to use. Such questions demand answers right across Canada.

                  RELATED: Building Better Cities

2. Nuclear Power

Cost overruns on nuclear power plants are both ubiquitous and generally in the range of billions of dollars. Plus, you know, there’s that radioactive waste issue. Cesium isotopes from the Fukushima disaster continue to drift nonchalantly across the ocean.

Still, the potential to reduce fossil fuel dependence has some environmentalists willing to overlook the risks. Intense nuclear power plant production could entirely offset fossil fuel use within 25 years, if we wanted to go down that road. With Ontario’s plants nearing the end of their useful life, the debate will only pick up from here.

                  RELATED: Nukes or Not? 

An Open Debate

There are layers of nuance to both of these deliberations. If we’re going to come to a consensus on either of them, you can bet it will have to be a nuanced consensus as well. But these whispered barbs – traded in the backseat where we think mom and dad can’t hear us – are not conducive to anything more than the most rudimentary of debates.

That’s partly why there is so much venom on both sides of the arguments, since stunted discourse is fertile ground for dogmatism and ad hominems to sprout.

Change, meanwhile, has never depended on public unanimity. Support for gay marriage in the US, for example, has risen to approximately 60 percent – not substantially higher than belief in anthropogenic climate change – and a wave of court rulings in favour of same-sex unions has been possible despite the lack of support from that other 40 percent.

Environmental progress does not hang in the balance between these competing goods. It’s a good thing too, because not in a million years are nuclear power proponents and critics going to decide that one of them has been wrong all along. Ditto urban density advocates and opponents. It is, however, possible to imagine a world in which nuclear and intensification can be entered into public dialogue without fear that the world will simply give up and go back to coal.

Air them out and we’ll all be better off for it.

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Any form of electric power could be considered clean and green if you only look at what happens after it enters the grid for distribution. Nuclear power is often afforded this privilege.

Reasons for this are partly political and partly biophysical. Ionizing radiation, the main medical and environmental scourge of the nuclear industry, often exerts its visible effects years, decades or generations after the original exposure, making it easy to downplay, discount or deny.

Dr. Linda Harvey says nuclear power is dangerous every day, not just when disaster strikes.

Any form of electric power could be considered clean and green if you only look at what happens after it enters the grid for distribution. Nuclear power is often afforded this privilege.

Reasons for this are partly political and partly biophysical. Ionizing radiation, the main medical and environmental scourge of the nuclear industry, often exerts its visible effects years, decades or generations after the original exposure, making it easy to downplay, discount or deny.

Radiation is not kind to living tissue. Any of the forms of radiation given off by uranium-235 (the isotope used for energy generation) and its decay products, including uranium split in a nuclear reactor or in spent fuel, can rip through a cell and damage any component of that cell, including the DNA, carrier of the cell’s genetic information. Damage to DNA can begin the process leading to cancer. Damaged DNA in a reproductive cell, an egg or sperm, can be passed on to the next generation if the offspring live. This damage is cumulative over generations if the environment remains contaminated.

The nuclear industry not only digs up and distributes buried natural radioactivity while mining uranium, it renders the uranium hundreds of thousands of times more radioactive by the process of nuclear fission in currently operating power-generating reactors. The waste it leaves is fiercely radioactive and must be segregated from all biological organisms for thousands of years.

These activities, particularly the mining, milling and reactor-construction phases, are also extremely fossil fuel intensive – there is no substitute for diesel-driven heavy machinery – releasing copious amounts of greenhouse gases when the climate can least afford it.

And uranium, just like fossil fuels, is in finite supply. Reasonably assured reserves of uranium in the world as of 2013 are at 3,698,900 tonnes, and estimated annual reactor requirements worldwide are 59,270 tonnes. At this rate of usage, reserves will last a little over 60 years – less if we ramp up nuclear power generation.

Radioactive contamination has not been responsibly contained by the industry. When uranium is removed from ore, 85 per cent of the radioactivity in the original deposit is left behind as tailings. Since these are now on the Earth’s surface in finely crushed form, they are free to migrate, to leach through water, blow away, be absorbed by plants, be eaten and find their way into human living spaces. Containing tailings is not easy and the list of documented spills and dam failures is long. After the Serpent River was diverted by a breached containment wall at a mine near Elliot Lake for a period in 1975, an official report found “no living fish in the entire river located downstream from the mining wastes.”

Levels of tritium, a radioactive by-product particularly of Canadian CANDU reactors, have been increasing in Lake Ontario and elsewhere. Increases in childhood leukemia have been detected near some European reactors. Lung cancer is well-known in uranium miners, and more recently hints of genetic damage have also been found.

Both tritium and plutonium, another reactor by-product, are required for making nuclear weapons and carry a proliferation risk.

Then, there are the accidents that come with the nuclear industry. Apart from innumerable poorly publicized “incidents,” the major ones are Three Mile Island, Chernobyl and Fukushima. Chernobyl has by some estimates resulted in up to 800,000 premature deaths. It has left parts of eastern Europe heavily contaminated and contributed to serious health issues among people living in these areas. Fukushima is on a similar track and has released unprecedented volumes of radioactive water into the Pacific Ocean.

There is nothing sustainable about destroying an element (uranium-235), damaging the human genome and contaminating parts of the globe for centuries.

Asthma Society president Robert Oliphant says nuclear lets us wean ourselves off fossil fuels.

The OECD, Scientific American and NASA’s James Hansen have argued that the world must add nuclear capacity if it wants reliable, sufficient, carbon-free energy. It’s also the healthier way to go.

Air is necessary to life, but fossil fuels turn it into a health hazard. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), 3.7 million people die annually from outdoor air pollution, mainly from the burning of fossil fuels. “Few risks,” Dr. Maria Neira of the WHO has said, “have a greater impact on global health today than air pollution; the evidence signals the need for concerted action to clean up the air we all breathe.” The Canadian Medical Association estimated that air pollution cost Canada $8-billion in 2008 – an annual cost adding up to over $250-billion by 2031. With hotter, muggier conditions, people with asthma and other respiratory problems will suffer more and die earlier.

In Ontario, however, air quality has improved. The province experienced zero smog days in 2014, compared to 53 in 2005. Some credit goes to a cooler-than-usual summer. But while in 2005 coal supplied nearly 30 per cent of Ontario’s electricity, it now supplies none. Instead, nuclear stations generated 58 per cent of the province’s power in 2013. A consultant’s report to the province estimated in 2005 that dropping coal from Ontario’s power-generating mix would eliminate roughly 1,000 ER visits and more than 900 hospital admissions a year, at an annual savings of $2.6-billion in healthcare costs.

It takes fossil fuel to build a nuclear plant but virtually none to operate one. A research review funded by the Canadian Nuclear Association concluded that lifetime emissions from nuclear power were on par with those from wind.

Uranium is a finite resource, but unlike other non-renewable fuels, it can be reprocessed and reused. Additionally, it is fear, not the engineering challenge, that blocks waste disposal in secure geological sites.

The spectacular meltdown of the primitive Chernobyl nuclear plant may, by the most inclusive reckoning, have contributed to as many as 800,000 premature deaths since 1986. Air pollution causes that many deaths, worldwide, every three months.

There is no perfectly “safe” energy. Renewable technologies – hydro, solar and wind – create environmental impacts and suffer intermittent output. But the costs of nuclear power need to be weighed with a more honest appraisal of its benefits.  

The post Nukes or Not? appeared first on A\J.

There are many excellent arguments to be made in favour of solar power and against nuclear. Unfortunately, Jim Harris [“The UnAtomic Age,” A\J 40:4] has made none of them. Moreover, there are gaps in the author’s logic large enough to hide a lifetime of nuclear waste.

No Favour

There are many excellent arguments to be made in favour of solar power and against nuclear. Unfortunately, Jim Harris [“The UnAtomic Age,” A\J 40:4] has made none of them. Moreover, there are gaps in the author’s logic large enough to hide a lifetime of nuclear waste.

Harris seems to conflate electricity and energy (an important distinction) when talking about solar vs. nuclear. The ësolar vs. nuclear’ thrust of the article is also puzzling, since there’s no particular reason to think – nor does the author present any arguments – that one would come at the expense of the other.

And not to belabour the point, but the comparison of solar power and cell phones is, frankly, a little bizarre. Cell phone use may have grown exponentially, but it’s a major leap from pointing out that technologies can make exponential gains to arguing that a particular technology will make such gains.

A well-researched piece may well reach the same conclusions, vis-à-vis solar’s rise and nuclear’s decline, but I don’t think Harris is doing either the anti-nuclear or pro-solar crowds any favours with this article. An environmental magazine is always at risk of becoming an echo-chamber in which authors wrap popular conclusions in loose arguments, adding nothing to the conversation.

Stu Campana
Ecology Ottawa

Harris responds

If Ontario’s government proceeds with nuclear refurbishment – it will lock Ontario taxpayers into the most expensive form of power for decades.

Deutsche Bank predicts that solar power will be at grid parity in all 50 US states by 2016. This means solar will be cheaper than nuclear refurbishment by 2016. Energy efficiency is already dramatically cheaper – and so is wind power.

Spending billions of dollars of taxpayers’ money to refurbish aging nuclear plants will inhibit Ontario’s ability to invest in cheaper solar, wind and energy efficiency – given Ontario’s deficit.

Solar is growing exponentially. Google “Swanson Effect” to see a 100-fold fall in the price of solar power from 1977 to today. With such dramatic costs declines we’re experiencing explosive growth of solar power installations globally. Facts are facts.

Campana can take his argument up with Deutsche Bank, Bloomberg and the International Energy Agency. All predict the explosive growth of solar. 

The post Letter to the Editor appeared first on A\J.

Or at least, a very specific kind of invention.

In October, American defence contractor Lockheed Martin Corp. announced that it had made a nuclear fusion breakthrough.

Submarines: the mother of all invention.

Or at least, a very specific kind of invention.

In October, American defence contractor Lockheed Martin Corp. announced that it had made a nuclear fusion breakthrough.

Fusion as a power source is a technology that has been perpetually 40 years in the future, ever since scientists first began butting their heads against the challenge in the 1950s.

I’ve written previously about how the field’s cumulative concussion has made it less than realistic about the timelines attached to their research.

Fortunately, the possibility of nuclear propulsion for an enclosed capsule filled with humans appears to be such a big, lucrative carrot that submarines can push nuclear research – of any kind – to delirious heights.

On May 31, 1953, Vice-Admiral Hyman G. Rickover had the awe-inspiring hubris to test the first nuclear-powered submarine (to be clear: the first nuclear-powered anything) in the middle of Idaho.

What truly boggles the mind is that these engineers in the middle of the desert, wrestling with forces no one had ever previously dreamed of controlling, were making their own lives exponentially more difficult by building the reactor to match the exacting technical requirements of an underwater vessel. In God’s name, why?

The telling line in Rickover’s account comes after the daring story of success in the desert:

A month after nuclear power was first produced, the most doubting among those who had participated in the STR project knew that atomic propulsion of ships was feasible, that it was only a matter of time before the technology developed for Mark I would bring about a revolution in Naval engineering, strategy and tactics. We knew, too, that industrial nuclear power could be built on the same technological foundations.

To repeat: one of the greatest leaps in human engineering of all time was intended to increase the USA’s relative advantage in oceanic warfare. And, as an afterthought, power the world through clean energy.

If that sounds like satire, best not to laugh too hard before examining Lockheed’s rhetoric around their latest advance.

“A small reactor could power a US navy warship, submarine or aircraft carrier, but take up less space than the current fission reactors in use,” according to a Lockheed spokesperson.

Is it happening again?

There are a couple reasons to think it might, including the fact that Lockheed Martin is not known for its sense of humour. If they’re waist-deep in this project, then it’s probably for a good reason.

Journalist Gwynne Dyer certainly thinks so:

Lockheed Martin is not a fringe player hyping some technological fantasy in the hope of raising enough capital to build a prototype. It’s the biggest player in US defence-related technology, and it has a reputation to protect. It would not have invited Aviation Week in last week unless it was pretty confident that the project will succeed.

Confidence isn’t the same as a working reactor, but it’s a step.

The other big step is showing that the physics works. The fusion problem has never been just about technological know-how; rather, scientists have very real doubts that the necessary physics are even theoretically possible.

It sounds like Lockheed really feels they can put that question to rest. Once theoretical plausibility has been shown, it’ll be a mad dash to the finish between anyone willing to invest billions to make trillions.

RELATED: Nuclear Fusion and the Great Global Gamble

Maybe it’s just a coincidence that both fission and fusion breakthroughs have been about submarines and military advances. An alternate theory is that such precise applications are useful in focusing research. Either way, the world could have a source of unlimited clean energy within the next decade.

And more importantly: really really nice submarines.

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Since the 2011 Fukushima catastrophe, the global decline in nuclear power has steepened. More than 20 countries are phasing out nuclear plants, have stopped the construction of new reactors, or passed laws prohibiting nuclear power. The number of reactors and nuclear electricity output is falling worldwide.

Illustration by nik harron.

Since the 2011 Fukushima catastrophe, the global decline in nuclear power has steepened. More than 20 countries are phasing out nuclear plants, have stopped the construction of new reactors, or passed laws prohibiting nuclear power. The number of reactors and nuclear electricity output is falling worldwide.

Japanese citizens are still feeling the horror of Fukushima. Some 400,000 people were evacuated – and a staggering 100,000 people are still displaced three years later. In all, 800 square kilometers of land is too radioactive for human habitation. More than 225,000 tonnes of radioactive soil sits in plastic bags about the area, and 272 tonnes of radioactive water still flow into the Pacific Ocean every day.

The cost of the damage caused by the Fukushima Daiichi power plant meltdown is estimated at US$250-billion and could end up doubling. And guess who is going to bear that cost? Japanese taxpayers.

The fact that no company will insure nuclear power suggests that it is a financial catastrophe in waiting. In Canada, the Harper government has passed legislation that will limit the nuclear industry’s liability to $1-billion. So if a Fukushima-scale catastrophe happened in Canada, the nuclear industry would be responsible for less than 0.4 per cent of the cost. Taxpayers would be on the hook for the other $249-billion. Certainly the financial burden of catastrophic fallout would be unaffordable.

The real message is that we just cannot afford nuclear energy.

While the federal government obviously doesn’t have a grip on adequate liability, the nuclear industry also consistently and dramatically underestimates the costs of construction, operation and decommissioning of nuclear plants. In the United Kingdom, the decommissioning costs of Sellafield nuclear site have hit £70-billion (CAD$128-billion). If, for instance, the cost of decommissioning the Darlington nuclear reactors in southeastern Ontario were the same, every Ontario resident would have to bear $10,000 in additional taxes. The real message is that we just cannot afford nuclear energy.

Nuclear power has never been profitable when all costs are included. No private corporation will agree to construct and operate nuclear reactors without government guarantees of paying for construction cost overruns, covering or capping accident liability, and paying for the long-term disposal of nuclear waste.

The Darlington reactors went 4.5 times over budget, costing provincial taxpayers $14.3-billion. Every Ontario electricity user pays a global adjustment charge on her or his hydro bill, as well as a debt retirement charge. Much of both charges are associated with nuclear power. A study by Navigant showed that 42 per cent of the global adjustment charge is due to nuclear. When Ontario Hydro was broken up in 1998, its $19.4-billion nuclear debt was called “stranded debt” and has been paid for by Ontario taxpayers. As of 2010, Ontarians had paid $19.6-billion to retire this debt – and $14.8-billion was still owing. In other words, the total debt payments have already exceeded the original value of the debt!

Energy efficiency is the cheapest form of power generation because it creates more usable energy within the grid – someone somewhere can use every kWh of power that I don’t. Ontario can secure energy efficiency in homes and buildings for 2.3 cents per kilowatt-hour (kWh). Homeowners that insulate their attics and walls, install weather stripping or energy efficient lights, or swap out an old 150-litre hot water tank for an on-demand system to lower their home energy use. A staggering 24 per cent of electricity in North America is used simply for lighting, and LEDs reduce usage by 80 per cent compared to incandescent bulbs.

Alternatively, Ontario could source cheap hydroelectric power from Québec for three cents per kWh, or install combined heat and power (CHP – also known as cogen or cogeneration) for 6 cents per kWh.

Ontario’s residential utility customers currently pay 8.6 cents per kilowatt-hour (kWh) for the first 750 kWh per month, then 10.1 cents a kWh thereafter. Homes that use electricity on “time-of-use rates” pay 7.5 cents per kWh during off-peak hours (7pm to 7am); 11.2 cents per kWh for mid-peak (7am to 11am and 5pm to 7pm); and 13.5 cents per kWh from 11am to 5pm.

By contrast, Moody’s Credit Rating puts the cost of electricity generated by new nuclear power plants at 15 cents per kWh. According to Jack Gibbons of the Ontario Clean Air Alliance (OCAA), refurbishing Darlington’s four nuclear reactors will cost 19 to 37 cents per kWh. The Ontario Power Generation (OPG) lowballs the cost at eight to 14 cents per kWh.

But it’s notable that Ontario’s past nuclear decisions have followed a predictable pattern: lowball costs are used to secure project approval, and then overruns are simply passed on to taxpayers. Nuclear projects in Ontario, on average, have gone 2.5 times over budget – so it’s reasonable to multiply OPG’s 8 cents per kWh by 2.5 and 4.5 (Darlington’s overruns) and get a more realistic range of 20 to 36 cents per kWh, in line with Jack Gibbon’s more accurate and trustworthy estimate.

A wise saying applies here: Never ask a barber if you need a haircut. Given that 50 per cent of Ontario’s electricity comes from nuclear reactors, perhaps we shouldn’t ask the OPG or Ontario Power Authority (OPA) about the province’s energy future. It is particularly telling that no company anywhere in the world will build a nuclear reactor unless it is shielded from liability and can pass cost overruns on to taxpayers.

Why then are both the Ontario Liberals and Conservatives advocating spending billions of dollars refurbishing old nuclear reactors? The NDP supports it too because of unionized power workers, but its party leaders are cagey about categorical statements. Only the Green Party of Ontario remains steadfastly opposed to nuclear refurbishment.

OPG admitted in June 2014 that the Darlington refurbishment project is already $300-million over budget – before any actual construction work has begun. Will Ontario’s new Liberal majority government continue to pursue nuclear refurbishment or stop throwing good money after bad?

McKinsey & Company, one of the world’s preeminent management consulting firms, has identified $2-trillion worth of energy efficiency initiatives not currently being pursued worldwide, which have an internal rate of return of 17 per cent or better. Government and business leaders should be aggressively pursuing these highly profitable opportunities rather than embarking on nuclear refurbishment.

But even smart people have problems predicting the future. In the 1980s, AT&T commissioned a study by McKinsey & Company that predicted the market for cell phones by the year 2000 would be 100,000 users. That year, 107 million phones were sold.

How could the leading phone company and management consulting firm have been so off? For the same five reasons that we should be investing in renewable energy and energy efficiency projects instead of refurbishing nuclear reactors.

Faster, Better, Smaller, Cheaper

In 1965, computer tech pioneer Gordon Moore predicted that a CPU (central processing unit – the ‘brains’ of a computer) would double in power every two years while the price point to produce it stayed the same. Practically, this means that transistor-based technologies – computers, tablets, cell phones, etc – get faster, better, smaller and cheaper. The same is true of solar photovoltaics (PV), the cost of which has fallen 100-fold since 1977, and 80 per cent since 2008 (see the chart below).

More solar energy can fall on Earth in a single hour than all the energy used globally in a year. 

Nobel Laureate and former US Secretary of Energy Steven Chu predicted in 2011 that solar power will be at grid parity by 2020 – meaning solar power will be dramatically cheaper than nuclear power. Renewable energy (excluding hydro) currently represents only 8.5 per cent of the world’s generating capacity – causing some critics to dismiss it. But in 2013, renewables created a staggering 44 per cent of new global energy capacity.

Here’s another stunning fact: more solar energy can fall on Earth in a single hour than all the energy used globally in a year. On June 9, 2014, Germany produced a record 50.6 per cent of its electricity in the middle of the day from solar power! Germany is not noted for a sunny climate, and 90 per cent of the world’s population lives in countries with substantially more sunlight – so the potential of solar power in the future is fantastic. The annual solar energy that Earth receives dwarfs all remaining fossil fuels.

 By 2030 renewable energy – primarily wind and solar power – will make up 66 per cent of the power supply according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance. But I believe the timeline for renewable dominance is actually closer at hand than that. In 2013, 29 per cent of the electricity capacity added in the US was solar. In fact, more solar was installed in the US in 18 months from June 2012 to December 2013 than in the prior 30 years combined.

But according to Ontario’s Long Term Energy Plan, the Darlington nuclear reactor refurbishment won’t be completed until 2025. If it proceeds, Ontario taxpayers will be locked into the most expensive form of electricity for the next 40 years. So while other provinces, states and countries will be basking in the endless supply of low-cost solar power, Ontario businesses, manufacturers and homeowners will be burdened with billions in high costs to pay for nuclear power.

As the famous energy consultant Wayne Gretzky said, “I never go where the puck is, I go to where it’s going to be.” The critical question seems to be: Where is the world’s energy future going?

A Crowdsourced Power Grid

Back when AT&T commissioned McKinsey to study cell phones, the technology was horrifically expensive and therefore ownership was very exclusive – only a small group of wealthy individuals or corporations could afford them. But as the technology plummeted in price – driven by Moore’s Law – millions of individuals became buyers. This completely revolutionized the industry.

The same thing is happening in the renewable energy sector. Feed-in-Tariff (FIT) programs around the world are driving the adoption of wind and solar power. FIT programs ensure that homeowners, farmers, private investors, community and Aboriginal groups are paid a fixed price for the electricity they generate and feed into the grid. Rather than the governments or electric utilities laying out billions of dollars of capital for big, expensive centralized power plants (as with coal, nuclear or gas operations), individuals, communities and local groups are investing in small-scale renewable energy.

As of 2010, more than 50 countries have FIT programs, which also have some ancillary benefits. They increase consumers’ consciousness about energy and as a result those people become more efficient at using and conserving it. Homeowners who are being paid a premium for electricity generation become conscious of the value of electricity and use less.

The resulting energy consciousness thereby lowers demand. FIT programs also reduce transmission line loss, which can reach as high as 22.5 per cent at peak demand because locally produced electricity does not have to be transported hundreds or thousands of miles from a centralized facility. Likewise, the FIT approach increases grid reliability because generation is distributed over a wider geographic area and is therefore more fault-tolerant.

Developing Economies of Scale

Nokia rose to dominance in the cell phone industry by producing inexpensive phones. In fact, Western nations have developing nations to thank for cheap cell phones. China, India and other developing nations in Latin America and Africa couldn’t afford the wire line infrastructure required to provide billions of landline phones to emerging middle-class and poor consumers. So these heavily populated areas leapfrogged the West and moved directly to cellular mobile technology. Their massive economies of scale dramatically reduced the price of mobile technology.

China has announced it will triple its current installed solar capacity to 70 GW by 2017. China already has the second-largest installed capacity of solar – by 2017 it will be the leading country globally.

And solar’s potential is already huge: A PV farm in the Sahara covering just 0.3 per cent of the desert could power all of Europe.

An Explosion of Exponential Growth

Imagine a pond that starts with one lily pad, and the number of lilies doubles every day. At the end of day two there are two lilies, then four lilies after three days, eight after four days, 16 after five days, and so on. However, on day 14, one day before the entire pond is covered, 50 per cent of the water will still be open. On day 13, 75 per cent of the pond will be uncovered, and on day 11 nearly 95 per cent is visible.

If you began warning people on day 11 that the pond was about to be covered over with lilies, they’d look at you like you’re crazy. The key lesson is that most people – most strategic planners, most OPA and OPG energy planners – cannot see exponential growth until it overwhelms their plans.

Solar power might only be a small percentage of the global energy mix at the moment. But global solar capacity has been growing by 40 per cent a year, compounded annually for the last 20 years!

People really don’t understand the power of exponential growth. The amount of computational power in a wristwatch is greater than all the computer power on the first lunar landing module. The average computer notebook today has more raw computing power than IBM’s largest mainframe 15 years ago.

Exponential growth is a game-changer. Whole industries are blindsided by it. The exponential growth in bandwidth resulted in Netflix blindsiding Blockbuster into bankruptcy. More than 33 per cent of all international long-distance calls are now facilitated by Skype, which blindsided the telecom industry’s traditional profit. The exponential growth of social media has vaulted the valuation of Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn into the billions. The exponential growth of digital music compression transformed music consumption.

In industry after industry, exponential growth of a new technology or trend has dramatically changed the playing field.

Jobs, Jobs, Jobs

In 2013, 1,350,000 Canadians were out of work and another 914,000 were underemployed. At a time where we need to create two million jobs for Canadians, government policy should be focused on job creation as a first priority.

In 2011, EnergySavvy.com produced a study about the value proposition of expanding US nuclear capacity versus household-scale energy efficiency, summed up by the infographic below. If Canada’s political leaders cared about jobs, they’d get busy promoting energy efficiency, building retrofits and mass transit.

Green Party of Ontario leader Mike Schreiner points out that energy efficiency could create 14 times more jobs than building new nuclear plants. You’d think all political parties would favour an overriding focus on energy efficiency, because it creates jobs in every community and insulates homeowners and businesses from inevitable rises in energy prices.

By pursuing the lower-cost options of energy efficiency and buying power from Québec, Ontario can assure taxpayers better electricity rates going forward without the threat of debt, provide better environmental choices and less risk, and create more jobs. To defeat nuclear refurbishment in Ontario, we need to delay the decision to proceed, and leave it to market forces and the falling price of solar power to eliminate this unneccesary and overly expensive option.    

The post The UnAtomic Age appeared first on A\J.

Just ask Green Party leader Mike Schreiner. “The year 2007 was a great electoral climate,” he told me in a June 2012 interview on how his party’s electoral fortunes would play out in the next election, now about to happen on June 12.

The past decade has taught environmentalists a hard truth about voting patterns, one that many have been trying valiantly to change: the environment takes a backseat when issues surrounding jobs and the economy are front and centre.

Just ask Green Party leader Mike Schreiner. “The year 2007 was a great electoral climate,” he told me in a June 2012 interview on how his party’s electoral fortunes would play out in the next election, now about to happen on June 12.

“Al Gore just won the Nobel Prize, the issue of climate change and the environment for the first time ever was at the top of public opinion polls — even ahead of healthcare,” he said. “People felt secure that they could support the Green Party and we almost broke through and won a few ridings. We came extremely close.”

But Schreiner’s party lacked the organizational capacity and the money to truly capitalize on the shifting tide, though he was optimistic the time would come again.

The 8.02 per cent of the vote the Greens received under then-leader Frank de Jong in 2007 would not be repeated next time. The massive economic downturn in 2008-09 and slow recovery that followed meant jobs and jobs alone dominated the 2011 campaign, reducing the greens to just 2.94 per cent of the vote in the first election with Schreiner at the helm.

Unfortunately, green issues, if they’ve been making a comeback at all, have never fully rebounded in the public consciousness. And in the lead up to Thursday’s provincial election, with jobs and jobs alone again the deciding factor, environmental issues have been all but forgotten.

But politicians ignore the ways in which environmental well-being underpins everything from job growth to healthcare at their peril, according to the Green Prosperity Coalition, an alliance of concerned green groups.

No party has managed to wrap their heads around the fact that a healthy environment makes for healthier people, lower healthcare costs and increased productivity.

“There are big issues at play in this election — from the alarming decline in pollinators to the uncoordinated rush to develop numerous mines and other resource projects in one of our last great wilderness areas,” said Tim Gray of Environmental Defence in a written statement.

His organization, along with the David Suzuki Foundation, the Canadian Environmental Law Association, the Pembina Institute and many others are lamenting the fact that no party has managed to wrap their heads around the fact that a healthy environment makes for healthier people, lower healthcare costs and increased productivity.

“We need a clear plan to build a healthy and prosperous province and a strong green economy,” added Anna Baggio from CPAWS Wildlands League. “That’s the challenge of our time and we want to give voters the information they need to understand where the parties stand on that question.”

To that end, the 20 environmental groups compiled 19 questions on various environmental topics. They sent questionnaires to each of the four main parties and combed through platforms for supplementary details all to answer a single question: Which political party is proposing to do the most for the environment?

On issues from transit funding and nuclear power to protecting endangered species, developing a carbon pricing system, orchestrating a regional environmental assessment of the Ring of Fire and containing urban sprawl, results proved what many could have predicted at the outset.

Get a question-by-question breakdown at GreenProsperity.ca

The Green Party supports the largest number of environmental initiatives, while the Progressive Conservatives support the least; the Liberals show promise, racking up the largest movement in partial support, while the New Democrats are a healthy combination of fully and somewhat supportive of a majority of environmental issues.

The Liberals do best on reintroducing key pieces of environmental legislation that died on the order paper while the New Democrats do best on curbing urban sprawl. The Greens score well on almost everything, but achieve only partial success on using development charges to pay for transit and shutting down the Pickering Nuclear Generating Station by 2015. The Tories, with not a single ‘Yes’ or even partial score to their name, fare badly across the board on the environment.

The previous legislative session wasn’t much kinder to the environment. While the Liberals introduced many interesting environmental bills — reducing coal burning, improving waste diversion, protecting the Great Lakes, etc. — none of them came close to becoming law. And the government put nothing substantial on the environment in their May 1 budget which became their de facto campaign platform.

In an effort to shore up their traditional supporters, the NDP included a handful of green goodies in their platform, including money to conduct environmental assessments of pipelines like Line 9 and Energy East which flow through Ontario and create cycling networks between cities. But even these issues have been lost in the larger campaign rhetoric and focus on employment.

There is almost across-the-board silence on basic environmental issues.
– Mark Winfield

The Green Prosperity coalition isn’t the only one lamenting the lack of awareness on environmental concerns. York University professor Mark Winfield, in a widely read op-ed in the Toronto Star and Hamilton Spectator that ran earlier this month, called this the “not-so-green” election.

“There is…almost across-the-board silence on basic environmental issues like air and water quality, waste management, the protection of biological diversity, parks and protected areas, and endangered species,” Winfield argued.

“Economic transitions, the impacts of climate change, and shifting demographics present enormous environmental, economic and social challenges for Ontario in the coming years. So far, none of the major parties have offered a compelling vision of how they will meet these challenges.”

But it’s not all doom and gloom. On Tuesday, TD Bank chief economist Craig Alexander issued a report praising the economic value of Toronto’s extensive tree canopy. He claimed it provides over $7 billion in value to private companies and homeowners in everything from absorbing pollution and cooling homes to soaking up excess rain water to cut back on flood risks.

He estimated each tree in Toronto alone is worth $700, providing a $3.20 return for every dollar spent on planting and maintaining 70 million trees in the city. “It’s money well spent,” Alexander said. “I think people value trees, but they probably don’t go around thinking about them. They take them for granted.”

We are quickly learning that we can’t take the environment for granted anymore. With just two days to go before voters hit the polls, the 2014 campaign will be another wasted opportunity to address pressing environmental concerns unless you use what time there is left to tell candidates what green issues matter to you and why they should matter to everyone.

The post Where Do Ontario Political Parties Stand on Environmental Issues? appeared first on A\J.