October 19, 2005
Can you pick up my bit of black lung for me? Thanks
Reading my daily Green Car Congress today, and I came across a bit of a disturbing news. At first it seemed like good news, that Klein nixed building a Nuclear power plant in northern Alberta to power the Oilsands project, but then when you read a bit further down, Klein also rebukes usage of Natural Gas (ok, that's fine, it's non-renewable and costly), but THEN he goes on to say he would prefer to see the oil sands companies use coal, hydroelectricity, coal bed methane or the bitumen itself as “much better alternative than using natural gas."
Currently over 70% of Alberta's electricity is produced from Coal-fired plants and there's been a 6% decline of oil production every year for the past 5 years. Most of the oil that is produced is bound for export, just like the new 7 billion dollar refinery they are planning in Redwater (northern Alberta) which is mostly producing diesel for export to Asia.
Using an asthma-inducing, dirty burning, (I won't say greenhouse gas producing because that term has been used too much), non-renewable resource in gigantic quantities to extract another non-renewable resource that is quickly disappearing seems ridiculous to me. Truthfully they are just scrambling for ways to delay the inevitable, and that's the obvious looming economic crisis in Alberta. The only real way to reverse this is to quickly switch gears onto other energy sources and get their asses out of the past.
You can see the resistance to change in car dealerships here too, you go to a Toyota dealership in Europe and they're all about the slick little cars that burn very little gas and are low on emissions. You go to a Toyota dealership in northern Alberta and you see trucks, 4×4s and way less cars than there should be. You see Hummers in GM dealerships, and on the roads Envoys used as a commuter car with one occupant.
Folks say that things won't change until it becomes affordable to buy nice looking fuel efficient vehicles. Well those vehicles are here, and they cost 60% that of an Envoy and are 400% more efficent and friendly to this world we live on. A great way to create change in behavior would be for the wealthy to buy vehicles such as these, or pimped out fancy-assed versions of them, that way the little people would follow suit. I mean c'mon, just because you have 1 child doesn't mean you need a minivan, get with it people.
On the brighter side there are companies such as these Australian ones that are working on a way to convert coal to liquid fuel, and Toyota who is showing a Hybrid Minivan and Hybrid Fuel Cell concept vehicles at the Tokyo Motor Show. I cheer when I see things like this, it renews my faith that some folk are forward thinking and not just concentrating on filling their baskets with mana from the sky.
Posted by Oorgo at October 19, 2005 02:30 PM Permalink - Category: Environment | TrackBack|
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