By Senator Colin Kenny
Where are we humanoids headed on renewable energy? We’re supposed to be headed toward Windmill Heaven, of course. Any moral Canadian agrees that an ecologically irresponsible world must shake off its criminal dependence on non-renewable resources, and pronto.
As noble as this concept sounds, I suspect that there is a lot more tilting at windmills going on these days than there is genuine movement toward widespread use of these whirlybirds – and their cousins – as a global source of energy. I am also talking about solar power, fuel cells, tidal power, oil tankers with sails – the whole gang.
These widely-worshipped angels of nature may be a major factor in responding to the energy needs of six to ten billion people around the world, some day. Some day far, far away. But don’t expect to see it in your lifetime – even if you’re a lot younger than I am.
That’s the kind of prediction, of course, that gets a person branded as one more Neanderthal from the Senate. But – wait a minute – even if I don’t subscribe to every word of the mantra of the ecologically pure, my environmental credentials aren’t too bad.
I did manage to stun a few people by steering the Alternative Fuels Act through Parliament as a private member’s bill back in 1995. By mandating that 75% of the federal government's fleet of 39,000 vehicles run on alternative fuels (ethanol, methanol, propane, or natural gas) by 2004.
We’ll just see how well the federal bureaucracy manages to adjust to this mandate. The mandate itself is worthy: the Act is designed to accelerate Canada's use of alternative fuels in order to reduce the emission of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, and thus reduce dependence on petroleum-based fuels for transportation.
So, I am all for nibbling away at our gluttony for destructive fuels wherever feasible. But that’s the idealistic side of my brain talking. The realistic side says that very little happens in this world unless it makes hard, economic sense to people.
Rich people really groove on economic determinism – that’s how they stay rich. And poor people are forced to gravitate towards what’s cheapest and most practical. When you have half the world living on less than a few dollars a day, you’ve got a lot of people who don’t have a lot of time to think about sustaining the ecosystem.
And the middle-class? Some drive SUVs, some of them do their share of recycling. But the polls show that even the middle-classers who say they care deeply about the environment get nervous really quickly when it is suggested to them that it may cost them a chunk of money.
Unfortunately, those polluting, non-renewable fuels are still relatively cheap, and much more plentiful than we thought they were back in the scary ‘70s. It costs peanuts – $1.50 a barrel –to lift a barrel of oil in Saudi Arabia, and there is plenty still under the sands. Oil and gas recovery technology is becoming more and more clever, and a lot less costly. Canada has 300 billion barrels of recoverable oil in Alberta’s tar sands that have yet to be exploited. You can bet that most of it will be It appears that the world’s oil reserves will last for more than 400 years, even in the unlikely event that no more is discovered.
Our current estimated supply of natural gas in an around North America is 261.3 trillion cubic feet. It’s pretty cheap. Canadians consume 2.7 trillion cubic feet of natural gas each year, and Canadian companies export 3.8 trillion cubic feet of natural gas to the United States annually.
Meanwhile, as striking as all those fields of windmills in California are (and I have personally witnessed them whirling in their majesty), the technology remains expensive and its practicality remains iffy.
Fuel cells for automobiles look promising, and a couple of Canadian companies are part of moving us toward this brave new world. But Ballard vehicles are 4 or 5 times more expensive to build and more expensive to operate than their gas-guzzling buddies. Will the gap ever narrow to insignificance? We’ll see. Well, I won’t. I hope my children will. But I have my doubts.
Solar power is an option in tropical climates, but so far it has proven to be a far more marginal technology than enthusiasts predicted when I was young and impressionistic.
I say, let’s keep working on every imaginable alternative. Why not? What we’re doing to despoil our ecology is scary, and we have to fight the good fight for humanity’s future. But what will push the world into a massive shift away from fossil fuels and toward a more sane and renewable global energy strategy? A NAFTA report saying that the way North Americans are depleting their resources is unsustainable? A report like that came down in mid-January. My bet is that most Canadians have already forgotten about it.
It may be a sad aspect of human nature, but it’s a real one: energy consumption patterns for most people aren’t going to change until going with renewable alternatives means more money in their pockets. Renewable Energy may be a concept so far ahead of its time that its proponents will be as extinct as dinosaurs before it comes to widespread use.
We can’t give up the fight. But we aren’t going to be the ones to raise the victory flag – none of us, alive today. So sad. But so true. Hope I’m wrong. Don’t think so.