Tag: energy

Reimagine: Achieving a Sustainable Building Stock in Edmonton

A few weeks ago I attended Manasc Isaac’s Reimagine Tower Renewal Summit 4 (see my preview). John Woelfling from Dattner Architects in New York was the guest speaker, and he shared a wealth of information on the renewal of the Peter W. Rodino Federal Office Building in Newark, New Jersey.

Reimagine Tower Renewal Summit

John covered all aspects of the renewal project, from cooling & heating plant upgrades to egress improvements and façade upgrades. They were able to achieve a significant increase in the energy efficiency of the building, and it looks much nicer now too! A lot of the information was over my head, but you can download John’s presentation here if you’re interested (PDF, 10 MB).

Peter W. Rodino Federal Office BuildingPeter W. Rodino Federal Office Building

One slide in particular from John’s presentation stuck with me. To help set the context, he showed this graph:

As you can see, the vast majority of new office construction in Manhattan occurred back in the 1970s and 1980s. Why is that significant? Building codes and regulations were far less likely to consider energy efficiency at the time. An office tower built today is far more likely to be energy efficient than one built in 1970. It wasn’t until the Brundtland Report was published in 1987 that the term “sustainable development” was defined.

I have been thinking about that graph ever since, wondering if the situation here in Edmonton was similar, and trying to wrap my head around the problem of having an old and inefficient building stock. I spent some time on the website for The Way We Green, and came across this discussion paper from Klaas Rodenburg of Stantec. Titled Achieving a Sustainable Building Stock, the paper discusses the very thing I have been thinking about. Here’s a key excerpt:

Buildings are directly responsible for more than a third of all energy used and more than 50% of natural resources consumed in Canada. As a significant part of the problem, buildings also present part of the solution.

Although buildings look permanent, they are actually replaced or renewed on a perpetual basis. Municipalities can take advantage of this continual renewal cycle to significantly grow their stock of sustainable buildings by expecting higher standards for new buildings and encouraging existing building owners to engage in green renovations. Building codes are slow to change and focus on life safety, health and accessibility and not environmental performance.

The paper goes on to discuss voluntary rating systems such as LEED, and identifies strategies our city could employ to achieve a more sustainable building stock.

So what does our building stock look like? I turned to SkyscraperPage.com to help find the answer. They’ve got a pretty good database of Edmonton buildings – it currently contains 283 completed buildings. Of those, 183 have a “year built” associated with them. Here’s what you get with a little Excel magic:

Very similar to the Manhattan chart (though the SkyscraperPage data includes both residential and office buildings). Most of Edmonton’s buildings were built prior to the mid 1980s. Here’s what it looks like when you focus just on buildings that have 20 or more floors:

Yikes! All of the buildings on the right side of that graph are residential too: One River Park, The Century, The Jasper Properties, ICON I, ICON II, and Quest.

Obviously we need to ensure that any new buildings we are constructing are energy efficient. As Rodenburg says in his discussion paper, they must “exceed existing codes and standards by a significant measure.” I think that is happening to a certain extent – being LEED certified is something we hear quite a bit about now.

The graphs above suggest that perhaps we should pay more attention to our existing building stock as well. There’s a number of strategies we could use to make our older buildings more efficient, including the increasingly popular idea of reskinning.

The power cable is holding us back

power I spent some time over the weekend chatting with my friend Eric Warnke, who owns and operates the Third on Whyte Internet cafe here in Edmonton. We talked about a bunch of things, but mostly about wireless mesh networks. I’ve been writing about “wireless everywhere” for over five years now (since Imagine Cup 2003 to be exact), and Eric is one of those guys who is actually making it happen.

Eric has been experimenting with both the Meraki and Open Mesh technologies recently. There are others available as well, and we briefly brainstormed about creating our own little devices. The technology for extending 802.11g wireless is actually surprisingly simple and mature. And on the horizon of course, is WiMax and a host of other emerging technologies.

The problem with all of them, is power.

Even if the hardware becomes extremely energy efficient, each part still requires at least a little bit of power. The obvious solution for a mesh network with nodes located outdoors is to use solar panels, except that Edmonton’s climate is very unfriendly to such an idea (and don’t forget that solar panels are still relatively inefficient). That leaves us with either batteries or a power cable.

The main problem with batteries at the moment is that they need to be quite large if you want them to last for any reasonable about of time. Think of a laptop battery or the battery for an electric drill – each is about four times the size of the wireless components, and probably ten times the weight. Then there’s the problem of replacing the batteries when they die, or changing them when they need recharging.

So we’re stuck with the power cable. Despite all the technological progress we’ve made over the last 100 years, we’re still tethered by the power cable.

The first two chapters of Nicholas Carr’s book The Big Switch provide an extremely engaging history of Henry Burden, Thomas Edison, Samuel Insull, and the other individuals who were instrumental in making electricity the utility it is today. I like this part in particular:

Unlike lesser inventors, Edison didn’t just create individual products; he created entire systems. He first imagined the whole, then he built the necessary pieces, making sure they all fit together seamlessly.

Of course, Edison’s DC system eventually lost out to the superior AC. Still, I can’t help but think that we desperately need a modern day Edison. Just as Edison re-imagined urban gaslight systems, we need someone to re-imagine the modern electrical system.

Is wireless energy transfer the answer? I’m not sure. Maybe it’s better to start with a question – how can we eliminate the need for contact? Or at least make that contact less restrictive? For instance, instead of connecting a wireless node to a cable inside a lamppost, why can’t I just stick the node on the lamppost itself? That would be a good first step.

We need “power everywhere” before we’ll ever get to “wireless everywhere”. Unfortunately, batteries, solar panels, and other technologies aren’t getting us any closer to that reality at the moment. Surely there must be something else then?

Making an effort to use sleep mode

sleep mode Events like Earth Hour raise awareness about our “planet in peril”, but as I’ve said in the past, they don’t have a positive impact on the environment. You need to do the little things to truly make a difference. I try to do my part. I always take a stainless steel mug to Starbucks in the morning, for example. There’s always room for improvement though.

For a little over a week now, I’ve been trying to break one of my worst habits. I don’t know how it started, but I’m one of those people that never turns the computer off when I’m not using it. For some reason I just got into the habit of always leaving it running. Laptops are a different story, because you shut the lid and it goes to sleep, but I’ve always left my desktop on for some reason. I’ve always had it configured to turn the monitors off after a while, but never the computer itself.

I guess I like having the computer immediately available when I want to use it. Really though, waking up from sleep mode doesn’t take very long at all. Slightly longer on my desktop than on either of my laptops, but still not bad.

I’ve been really good about using sleep mode for a week now, and I think I can keep it up. I’m going to kick my “leave the computer on” habit for good.

Earth Hour: Lightcrime

lightcrime I thought I was done with Earth Hour-related posts, but then I came across this article at the National Post while reading Larry’s blog. You really need to give it a read, but here’s a bit of a teaser:

George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four invoked the nightmare of “thoughtcrime,” by which dictators sought to erase even the possibility of challenge to their rule. His Thought Police were based very much on the techniques actually used by the Soviets. They sought by surveillance and other methods to root out any trace of “unorthodoxy.”

On Saturday night, the awful possibility of “lightcrime” appeared on the deliberately dimmed horizon. Who among those who knew about Earth Hour did not feel an internal compulsion to turn down the lights for fear of public disapprobation, even if they believed that the whole thing was either a pointless or subversive stunt?

Author Peter Foster explains the metaphor further, and finishes by sharing this incredibly sad comment from a 12-year-old in Toronto:

“Earth Hour is important to me because my kids and grandkids will be living on this Earth,” declared Morgan Baskin, aged 12, at an event at Holy Trinity Church in downtown Toronto. “I don’t want my kids to be around for the end of the Earth.”

Like Peter says, this is child abuse. Instead of being taught to learn about the environment, to read and to think, children are being taught that unless you turn your lights off for an hour along with everyone else, the world is going to end.

Read: Lightcrime

One hour is just 0.01% of a year

earth hour From Wikipedia:

Earth Hour is an international event that asks households and businesses to turn off their lights and non-essential electrical appliances for one hour on the evening of 29 March at 8 pm local time until 9 pm to promote electricity conservation and thus lower carbon emissions.

I’ve written about this already, and I don’t think there’s much else to be said. If you’re participating in Earth Hour, that’s great, I’m glad you have an interest in making the world a better place to live.

But next time you feel the need to be green, pick an activity that will actually make a difference. Replace your lights with energy efficient ones. Turn the thermostat down in the winter. Buy a fuel efficient car, or better yet, switch to transit. Reduce, reuse, and recycle.

You don’t lose weight by going on a diet for an hour, so don’t be fooled into thinking you’ll make the Earth more green by turning the lights out for an hour.

Anyone else sick of this global-warming-event bullshit?

lights Have you heard of Earth Hour? Sharon sent me a link for it today, pointing out that the City of Edmonton is participating in the “global movement” that aims to “take a stand against the greatest threat our planet has ever faced”. Cities around the world are pledging to turn off the lights for one hour on March 29th. From the about page:

On 31 March 2007, 2.2 million people and 2100 Sydney businesses turned off their lights for one hour – Earth Hour. This massive collective effort reduced Sydney’s energy consumption by 10.2% for one hour, which is the equivalent effect of taking 48,000 cars off the road for a year.

With Sydney icons like the Harbour Bridge and Opera House turning their lights off, and unique events such as weddings by candlelight, the world took notice. Inspired by the collective effort of millions of Sydneysiders, many major global cities are joining Earth Hour in 2008, turning a symbolic event into a global movement.

Reminds me a little of Live Earth. Remember that event? The worldwide concerts that did so much for the “climate in crisis”? Yeah, I remember that.

I don’t know about you, but I’ve about had it with this event bullshit.

  • Can we really say the current warming trend is “the greatest threat” the Earth has ever faced? What about the ice ages of the past? Or periods of space bombardment? Or World War II and nuclear weapons? I mean, come on.
  • At best, these events come out neutral in terms of net energy consumption/reduction. More than likely, they probably have the opposite of their intended effect. Think of all the TVs and computers tuned to the Live Earth concerts last year. The same thing will happen with Earth Hour.
  • Do these events really inspire change? I would argue that they actually make people complacent – “I don’t need to walk today, I participated in Earth Hour!”

Instead of turning the lights out for an hour, I’d rather see the City of Edmonton do something that would actually make a difference, such as replacing all our old street and traffic lights with new, energy efficient ones.

Read: Earth Hour

Energy is the new dot-com even in Alberta

Ten years ago it was fashionable to say that you worked for a dot-com company, or better yet, that you had started a dot-com. These days, it seems dot-com has been replaced by anything related to the environment, especially clean energy. Perhaps the title of my post should read especially in Alberta, as it should be no surprise that energy is a big deal here. Clean energy (read: not oil) is still somewhat unique though.

A number of investors who made lots of money during the dot-com boom are now turning their attention to the environment. Vinod Khosla is perhaps the most high-profile of these investors, but he’s certainly not the only one. Here is a VentureBeat article on Khosla specifically, and a great Economist article on the trend in general.

Shane and Evan Chrapko are two Alberta boys that have followed the now predictable path from dot-com millionaires to clean energy entrepreneurs:

The one-time Brosseau farmboys are co-CEOs at Highmark Renewables, a new biofuels company based near Vegreville.

They were impressed with the technology developed by feedlot owner Bern Kotelko and the Alberta Research Council to convert cattle manure and other waste to a biogas that produces electricity, ethanol or plain heat, Evan says.

The dot-com they founded was called DocSpace, and they sold it for a cool $568 million USD, which gave them about $75 million each. If you do a search for DocSpace now, you won’t find much, and that’s hardly surprising. I attended a talk that one of the brothers gave at the University of Alberta a few years ago, and I simply could not fathom how they sold their company for that much money. They definitely made the most of the boom.

It’ll be interesting to see how successful Highmark becomes. The brothers took on another company back in 2003 called Time Industrial, and had this to say at the time (careful – Word document):

“But Time Industrial has a very real possibility of being 10 times or even 100 times bigger than DocSpace. It’s a second once-in-a-lifetime chance. You don’t get too many of those.”

That company went public in 2005, for far less than DocSpace, and the brothers have now moved on to Highmark (to be fair the company was bankrupt when they took it over). They have (thankfully) toned down the hyperbole, and they’re operating in a really hot sector, so maybe they’ll find success once again.

The Chrapko brothers no doubt got this article in the Journal because of their success in the past, but I’d be willing to bet there are dozens of similar stories to be told here in Alberta. Perhaps not with numbers as large as DocSpace, but certainly entrepreneurs transitioning from high-tech to energy.

Read: Edmonton Journal (Archive)

Should GM really produce the Chevy Volt?

Post ImageBack in November I saw the documentary Who killed the electric car? and I remember being less than impressed, as my comments at the time confirm:

The movie could have been better. It felt like an extended commercial, and the people involved seemed like fanatical environmentalists. Oh, and when they realized they couldn’t answer the question properly, they just blamed everyone.

Essentially the filmmakers didn’t present a very strong case for why, exactly, electric cars should rule the roads. They seemed ticked at GM more than anything. According to a post over at Engadget today, GM is dabbling in electric cars once again, this time with the Chevy Volt:

Those of you as taken with GM’s Chevy Volt concept vehicle as we are may want to take a minute to reconsider any impending car purchases, as the car is now officially headed into production — in two different versions no less. According to Autoblog, that could put the car on track for a roll out in 2010, although GM isn’t quite ready to get that specific.

Apparently there will be a plug-in gasoline model, and a fuel cell model (though the latter will be too expensive for mass production). The plug-in model should deliver a gasoline savings of 500 gallons per year on average.

Do we really want plug-in automobiles though? Sure they result in some gasoline (and emissions) savings from the cars themselves, but what about on balance? Over 70% of the electricity generated in the United States comes from fossil fuels. With that in mind, plugging a car in is a lot like filling it with gas. The environment doesn’t really benefit. It might have more of an impact in Canada, where just 28% of our electricity comes from fossil fuels, but most of the Volts will be sold in the US.

Another thing to consider is the return on investment. GM claims they are willing to lose money on the Volt initially, but I’ll believe it when I see it. Besides, losing money on something doesn’t mean it’s cheap – just look at the PlayStation 3. Consumers will ask this question: will the price premium of the Volt be recouped in gasoline savings before the car is discarded? In most cases, I bet the answer will be no.

The last thing I’ll mention here is technology. New car technologies will not rule the industry for decades like the combustion engine has. What happens if someone perfects the fuel cell a few years after the Volt is produced? So long Chevy Volt, that’s what. This is another big reason that cars like the Volt need to be inexpensive. Otherwise, justifying their purchase is difficult at best.

I’m not sure plug-in cars like the Chevy Volt are a good thing at all. In the best case scenario, consumers love them, GM sells a lot of them, they last for more than ten years, and they really do have a positive impact on the environment. I think that’s really unlikely though. The more probable scenario is that only GM wins by charging a premium for the Volt. Consumers pay more to get a car with a short lifespan, and little to no positive effect on the environment.

Read: Engadget

The Green Hummer

Post ImageThat’s green as in “environmentally friendly” – not the color. The last vehicle you’d ever expect to undergo a clean energy makeover just has. Well sort of. The Hummer O2 concept vehicle just won the L.A. Auto Show Design Challenge and has some impressive features:

Yes, you read that right: this Hummer-branded vehicle, made of 100% post-consumer recycled materials, pulls double-duty as a mobile algae cultivation farm, whose photosynthetic waste provides oxygen for both the O2 itself and the surrounding environment; what’s more, used algae are employed as biomass to provide partial power. The main power sources, though, are the fuel cells built directly into each wheel (wrapped in adaptable Active Tread tires, naturally), which drive independent hydraulic motors when fed hydrogen from a central holding tank.

Pretty intense! Don’t expect to find one at a GM dealer near you though.

Read: Engadget

More on the oil sands

Post ImageA week ago today I wrote a post explaining how I think Canada should be making a greater effort to develop and benefit from the oil sands in Alberta. Naturally, I’ve been keeping my eyes open for any news regarding the oil sands, and I’ve actually come across a couple things.

First is The Oil Sands of Alberta which aired on 60 minutes on Sunday. A couple things stood out for me:

There are 175 billion barrels of proven oil reserves here. That’s second to Saudi Arabia’s 260 billion but it’s only what companies can get with today’s technology. The estimate of how many more barrels of oil are buried deeper underground is staggering.

We know there’s much, much more there. The total estimates could be two trillion or even higher,” says Clive Mather, Shell’s Canada chief. “This is a very, very big resource.”

Very big? That’s eight times the amount of reserves in Saudi Arabia.

Clearly, there’s a lot of oil there. We just need the technology to be able to get it out of the ground for a reasonable cost! That’s key to my argument – we need to work on ways of fostering that research and development.

“I think it’s bigger than a gold rush. We’re expecting $100 billion over the next 10 years to be invested in this area – $100 billion in a population that, currently, is 70,000 people,” says Brian Jean, who represents the region in Canada’s parliament.

There’s a lot of money coming in too. More than I expected, to be honest. However, I am still not convinced that big corporations are going to be the ones who find a way to improve the technology and thus the ROI. Sure companies make progress in a lot of areas, but more often than not, it’s an individual or smaller group of individuals that find a way. Corporations then either copy or acquire.

For more commentary on the piece, The Oil Drum has a very good post with a ton of interesting comments too.

The 60 Minutes episode makes it seem as though China currently doesn’t have much interest in the oil sands, though not for lack of desire. A press release I found yesterday though tends to suggest that the country is starting to make investments:

What is certain is that global demand for oil – especially from Asia – is far outstripping the ability of companies to meet current demand and replenish their diminishing reserves. These factors are being exacerbated by global political uncertainty. The oil sands are increasingly on the U.S. radar screen as they focus on reducing their reliance on oil producing countries outside of North America. The Chinese have become increasingly involved in the oil sands with the China National Offshore Oil Corp., recently investing $150 million in MEG Energy Corp., a private company engaged in the oil sands.

In a different press release, I learned that Purvin & Gertz, an independent energy consulting firm, made available a study that analyzes the challenges and opportunities presented by development in the oil sands.

Producers face issues of growing existing and new markets for oil sands crudes. The need for diluent to transport heavy crude will increase with bitumen production. Upgrading in Alberta could reduce diluent demand, but requires major capital investment and does not eliminate the market risks associated with marketing SCO.

I’d have thought that with the increasing demand for oil there would be little or no risks associated with marketing synthetic crude oil! I’m not an expert though, so maybe I’m missing something. You can find out more on the study at the Purvin & Gertz website.

I need to dig around a little more, but I would not be surprised if much of the $100 billion that has been announced turns out to be nothing more than a foot in the door for the companies making the investments. If you’re in the oil business, you don’t want to miss out on the oil sands. In order to benefit though, we need to get better at extracting and refining the oil!

I guess one reason Canada wouldn’t be all that interested in sponsoring research and development is that so much of the oil sands has been sold to foreign investment (at least that’s how it appears). Like I said, more research is needed, but if that’s the case, it’s potentially a major loss for Canada.