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A subject we only think about when the power goes out, the heating bill goes through the roof, or prices at the pump are escalating. The truth of it is, we need a lot more energy if our economy is to expand, our business grow and our leisure activities expand. The problem is that the demand for oil and natural gas is straining the delivery systems, keeping the prices up and supplies are dwindling.

What are we going to do about it? One energy source can pretty much be substituted for any other source. That is, electricity could be generated by nuclear as well as coal. Automobiles could just as easily be propelled by electric motors as gasoline engines. Heating can be electric, natural gas, oil, or coal. It would seem that we are overly dependant one one commodity, oil. Maybe we should be looking for ways to minimize our dependance on oil and plan to use more electricity? That would mean we need substantially more electricity, about double what we are using now.

Canada is only one of many countries struggling with this problem so if we can find good solutions to the energy shortages, perhaps we can lead the world in implementing solutions and developing new technologies for export.

   

emission free coal plants? since when is a coal burning plant emission free? I saw we stick a sattelite it orbit that collects the suns energy, beams it down to us canucks in the form of a micro-wave beam. it works when we harvest the micro-waves in a dish and focus them onto water. The water boils, turning a turbine.

   

Have you ever watched 'The End of Suburbia'? It is esentially about this subject matter as it pertains to the states. Basically we are starting to run out of oil, on a global scale. Well, that's not true. We are eitehr at or near the maximum production capacity that we will ever see, according to several experts at least. Once the production levels off and starts to drop prices will rise dramatically due to the relationship between supply, demand, and price. As a result we will need an alternative source of energy. However, there are several problems with this given current technology. Hydrogen and ethanol fuels for cars are impractical because they are forms of energy storage, not sources. So, we need electicity sources. Nuclear could deliver sufficient energy but it is somewhat expensive and there is too much opposition. Hydroelectricity has esentially been taped out. Coal causes too much pollution. Wind, you need an extreme amount of land. Similar for solar, which works better for heating than electricity. Heavy fuel oil, pollution. Geothermal? not enough sites and works better for heat than electricty like solar. Biomass? we don't produce enough waste or have enough trees to burn. Tidal? Canada has the second largest tidal power plant in the world and it can barely power a small town. Running low on ideas here. About the only thing left is natural gas, it is fairly abundant still but is has many uses besides being burned for electricity.

So, all that being said, what's the solution if there is noting that exists to single handedly solve our increasing energy needs? Well we need to think smaller, and act smaller. First we need to reduce the amount of energy we consume. That will help alot, easily resulting in a 10% reduction in the amount of electricty needed. And this isn't just for home owners, business and industry use up alot of juice too. Mainly this reduction will be in reducing the amount of wasted energy we have. The second thing that we can do is to become more self reliant for energy. A solar water heater or a wind turbine at your house will have quite an impact on the energy you need from 'the grid'. Similar things can be done by industry. For example many lumber mills burn waste sawdust and other wood byproducts for heat and electricity. My University has the largest geothermal heating and cooling system in Canada. Methods such as these increase our total energy capacity while saving individuals money (smaller electricity bills) in the long run while reducing our dependance on fossil fuels. It is also a very good long term solution because it relies on renewable and sustainable resources. We will never run out of oil but it will get more expensive

Oh and CanadianMind, you've played Sim City, haven't you...

   

Canadian_Mind Posted:

It is possible to capture 90% of the emissions from coal-burning power plants and we should be doing it. Emissions Capture

Do you rember twenty years ago when we saw news clips from any oil field in the world? In the background was a dramatic flare; they were burning off a useless by-product, natural gas. That isn't done much anymore; natural gas is too valuable now. What we are still doing is dumping valuable chemicals into our atmosphere when we burn coal. Yes, carbon dioxide has some value; it's quite useful when it is pumped down exhausted oil and natural gas bore holes because it is heavier than either; it get's under the product and pushes it up out of the porous structure thereby extending the recovery. When recovery is complete, the boreholes can be sealed at about the same pressure as the original field pressure and the CO2 is sequestered several thousand feet underground. The Weyburn Project is the largest in Canada that is doing this now.

There are other emissions too; sulphur being one of them, in fact, the sulphur must be removed first. It is quite a valuable chemical, especially to the pharmeceutical, fertilizer and plastics industries. There are other chemicals that can be captured, sold, and reused. All of this will not pay for the cost of retrofitting our coal-burning plants with emissions capture technology, but it will offset some of the expense. What could more than pay for the cost of retrofit is the reduction of health care costs.

The air pollution that causes smog was found to be the cause of 822 deaths a year in Toronto, 818 in Montreal, 368 in Ottawa and 258 in Windsor. Killer Smog A good bit of that smog is from coal-burning power plants.

I added it up 822 + 818 + 368 + 258 = 2268
Not an abstract number but 2,268 Canadian people! That's almost as many as died in the attack on the World Trade Center.
No big headlines about this though, no war on terror declared, it just happens slowly and quietly in emergency rooms where young children, and old folks die because they can't breathe anymore. Aside from the human misery, can you calculate the health care costs involved?

Never-the-less, I do think we must continue burning coal to produce electricity. Coal is cheap and it has been estimated that we have a 200 + years of coal reserves. For those two reasons, we will continue to use it, maybe even double or triple our usage of coal. I don't see that as a problem as long as it is done with strict emissions capture technology.

   

Canadian_Mind also posted:

It sounds like a great idea, do you have a link or more information on it? I recall reading something about this idea years ago in Popular Science but I don't know if anyone has done anything with it.

   

Dgthe3 posted:

I totally agree that we need to be building alternative energy generating systems. Not talking about and finding excuses for not doing it, but actually building units. That's the best way to pioneer a technology, engineer and do, then correct mistakes and build more. The first automobiles were lousy but we kept building them until they are pretty darn good now.

Please don't dismiss any of the new energy technologies coming on-line now. If we must have massive, centralized power plants, then nuclear power plants or massive new hydro dams may be the only options. I favour a multitude of smaller, local power producing methods. They are more secure from terrorist attacks and much less energy is lost in transmission and they also provide local employment. Almost every region of every country has a local wealth of energy to be harvested. Some methods of power generation are intermittent in nature (wind, tidal, solar) but could be efficiently exploited with a good energy storage medium. I think that vastly cheaper and more efficient batteries would be ideal for this too.

One method I favour is run-of-the-river hydro generation because water has far greater energy density than wind. This type of hydro generation needs no dam and utilizes only part of the river flow for power generation leaving the riverine ecology relatively intact. This is the method used at Niagra Falls by the US and Canada to generate electricity while preserving the tourist attraction. This method is rarely used and could be exploited to a far greater degree.

   

You guys are smart....

1. The idea of conserving carbon dioxyde to extract every last drop of oil and natural gas and then stock it is good. The only thing is we should do that for the already existing coal industry and not build other coal plants just because we have this technology... After all, stocking the carbon dioxyde is a good idea if we don't raly on it too much...I mean this is like stocking nuclear waate...the things just don't disappear like that and we don't know what could happen over decades...

2. I think our best option to produce energy with time is hydroelectricity because it is renewable, safe, we have plenty of water to make our dams or whatever facilities to be highly effective ...

3.Besides, air pollution ia another big problem because it cannot be solved by bulding more hydroelectric facilities because it comes from cars and industries... I think that's where we need to find a solution to stock the electricity we can produce so well and make it useful for cars...

We HAVE to think about pollution when we talk about energy because it wastes our energies to deal with pollution....

   

I agree that pumping CO2 back underground seems like a good way to kill two birds with one stone and indeed it is. But it is expensive and so it is not done untill it becomes cheaper to do it that way compared to alternatives.

Oh we have lots of water in Canada, more than anyone else in the world. But it doesn't count when it's sitting in the Great Lakes and St Lawrence barely moving. In order to generate electricity you need energy in one of 2 forms, heat and/or kinetic energy (energy from movement). Hydro-electric relies on kinetic energy as does wind. Water has more energy, more momentum, because it is alot heavier. But there are only so many places with fast moving water or even moderately fast water. And there are only so many places that you can build a dam to create a sort of artificial waterfall to get the water moving faster. As a result, large or moderate scale hydro electricity has esentiall all been utilized in Canada.

One form of truly alternative energy that i have heard of came from my environmental prof last year. he suggested a sort of device that works like a solar panel, but us radioactive wast that is locked away as the energy source. May not be too practical but it may be possible.

But i think that the only large scale option for energy is the nuclear option. It is clean and fairly limitless. And if we find a way to build a fusion reactor that has a net yeild energy yeild, we'd be all set

   

dunno. i got the idea from sim city. i just spend a week trying to figure out how it would work. for total coverage we'd need 6 or 7 sattelites in polar- geocentric orbits.

   

We are shutting down coal burning plants and still haven't made much inroads into tapping our hydroelectric potential. Biofuels are being ignored. Nobody is doing anyhting to reclaim the heat from factories. It's all a joke to make silly people pay more.

   

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20051201/wl_ ... e_cows_col

   

IceOwl Posted:

You are right about that! So much so that new dam construction faces serious environmental opposition fron DFO (Department of Fisheries and Oceans). However, the kinetic energy of fast flowing water can still be harvested by constructing small, partial diversion dams that only direct a portion of the riverflow to a canal or tunnel. The canal or tunnel will transport the water at a gentle grade to some point downstream where it can be directed steeply downward through turbines and back into the river.

The partial diversion dam does not have to protrude above the water and need not even be visible. It would not interfere with fish migrations and the whole system would have a minimal ecological footprint. To visit an existing system, check out the one at Niagra Falls. I believe international agreement states that the parties to the treaty must leave a flow of 100,000GPM in the river to maintain the tourist attraction. Both countries divvy up the rest to run Hydro plants.

I envision a series of these diversion-dam systems along fast-flowing rivers such as the rapids immediately downstream from Niagra falls. I've heard that the Niagra River is quite steep for a long ways below the falls. Does anyone know if that is true? Another great location would be along the precipitious Fraser River here in BC.

   

You should be looking for ways to save energy, not generate more of it. Alternative sources always seem great until they become mainstream and start causing the same problems they were supposedly ment to alleviate.

   

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