sustainable energy Archives | Research & Innovation

Post-election sustainable energy debrief Oct. 26

fmaquito — Tue, 25 Oct 2011 08:00:00 +0000

91��ɫ’s Faculty of Environmental Studies Sustainable Energy Initiative (SEI) will hold a post-election debrief with five panellists on Wednesday. Join the SEI for an interactive discussion on the results of the 2011 provincial election and the future of sustainable energy in Ontario.

Future Directions for the Green Energy Act and Sustainable Energy will take place Oct. 26, from 11:30 to 2:30pm, beginning with lunch at 280N 91��ɫ Research Tower, followed by the seminar at 120E Stedman Lecture Hall, Keele campus. The event is part of the Sustainable Energy Initiative Seminar Series.

The panellists are: Faculty of Environmental Studies (FES) Professor Mark Winfield (left), co-chair of the SEI along with FES Professor José Etcheverry, Marion Fraser, president of Fraser & Company, former senior policy adviser to the Ministry of Energy and member of the SEI Advisory Committee, FES adjunct Professor Tyler Hamilton, Toronto Star clean energy and technology columnist, and Kristopher Stevens (MES ’08), Ontario Sustainable Energy Association executive director.

Winfield, Master in Environmental Studies-JD Program coordinator, is currently teaching and researching in the areas of environmental policy and governance, sustainable energy and sustainability of urban communities. In 2007, he was awarded the Metcalf Foundation Leaders in the Field Fellowship.

Right: José Etcheverry

Etcheverry’s work is focused on developing practical policy solutions to climate change through collaborative efforts. He is particularly interested in strategies to develop all renewable energy sources to their full potential and in finding new ways to communicate effectively about solutions to climate change and energy problems.

Left: Marion Fraser

With 30 years of experience in the Ontario energy sector, Fraser has worked for and consulted with a wide range of energy companies, associations and energy consumers. She has earned a reputation as a leader in the energy sector with a strong record of participation on boards and committees at the national, provincial and municipal level.

Hamilton is widely recognized as one of the leading clean energy reporters in the country. After a research trip to Iceland, where he investigated work being done on geothermal resources, hydrogen-powered vehicles and hydroelectric facilities, he decided to shift his focus to clean technology.

Right: Tyler Hamilton

Stevens is a frequent speaker on sustainable energy and community power with experience on three continents in the corporate, public and non profit sectors. He was the founding chair of the Green Energy Act Alliance, which led the successful campaign for Ontario’s Green Energy and Green Economy Act.

Left: Kristopher Stevens

The event is free, but registration is required as space is limited. To register or to find out how to access the live webcast of the event, e-mail tarob@yorku.ca.

Republished courtesy of YFile– 91��ɫ’s daily e-bulletin.

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Professor Rod MacRae co-authors study that finds organic farms are more energy efficient

fmaquito — Tue, 12 Apr 2011 08:00:00 +0000

Organic farms can be more energy efficient than conventional farms that mass produce crops using unsustainable practices, a surprising result from a study co-authored by a 91��ɫ professor.

Researchers analyzed 130 studies to compare the energy use and global warming potential of organic versus conventional farming. They concluded that organic farms were more energy efficient on both a per-hectare and per-product basis, with the exception of fruit farming and poultry production, where data is limited.

“These findings shake up the concept that ‘bigger’ is always better. Higher crop yields, bigger equipment, less genetic diversity, and more fertilizer and pesticides do not equal a more energy-efficient operation,” says Rod MacRae (left), a professor in 91��ɫ’s Faculty of Environmental Studies.

Critics of organic farming commonly argue that lower yields make it unsustainable in the long term. “As population increases and land availability decreases, it’s assumed that an ‘assembly line’ approach to agriculture is the only way to keep up with our food needs. While this is the dominant way of thinking, this logic is also deeply flawed,” MacRae says. “For example, many regions in the global south show better yield performance with organic farming. Even in North America, organic yields are not far behind conventional ones.”

MacRae points out that there is an enormous amount of waste in conventional systems. Significant amounts of edible food are lost at harvest, during processing and distribution, at retail and in consumers’ homes. “By some accounts, up to 40 per cent of what gets farmed never makes it to our mouths, and this adds enormously to energy waste. This can result in the perception that we’re not producing enough food,” he says.

Studies of conventional and organic grain growers in the prairie region showed significant benefits for organic methods, including 50 per cent lower energy use in a 12-year study of forage and grain crop rotations. The absence of nitrogen fertilizer was a main contributor to reduced energy inputs and greater efficiency. Modelling studies of a Canada-wide conversion to organic canola, wheat, soybean and corn concluded we would consume 39 per cent less energy and generate only 77 per cent of the global warming emissions and 17 per cent of ozone-depleting emissions of conventional wheat farming.

Above: Organic cultivation of mixed vegetables

In terms of dairy farming, a study in Atlantic Canada found that an organic, seasonal grazing system was 64 per cent more energy efficient and emitted 29 per cent less greenhouse gases compared with the average of conventional systems. Cows consuming an organic diet may also have a longer lifespan, increasing efficiency and reducing methane emissions when calculated over time.

Where livestock is concerned, fewer studies exist and comparisons are more difficult because of dramatic differences in operations from farm to farm, particularly for hogs and poultry. Conventionally raised beef is widely accepted as the least environmentally friendly meat, requiring seven times as many inputs for an equivalent output of calories. Organic beef production is considered to be more efficient because the animals consume more grass and less grain than humans can consume.

The study, “The Carbon and Global Warming Potential Impacts of Organic Farming: Does It Have a Significant Role in an Energy Constrained World?” was published in the journal Sustainability. Its lead author is Professor Derek Lynch, Department of Plant & Animal Sciences, Nova Scotia Agricultural College.

MacRae was also interviewed in about the lack of attention politicians are paying to food policy during the current federal election campaigns.

“None of them really link the food story to health care that well, or to social-policy reform,” said Rod MacRae, a professor at 91��ɫ who is one of Canada’s foremost experts on the subject. “What they’ve done is pick the low-hanging fruit – the things that are more part of the public consciousness right now.”

Still, strong federal leadership in the national food policy process is critical, he said. “The federal role is to act as the animator, the facilitator, and to use its usual package of sticks and carrots to try and get everybody on board.”

By Melissa Hughes, media relations officer.

Republished courtesy of YFile– 91��ɫ’s daily e-bulletin.

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91��ɫ Professors comment on Ontario's hydro rate increases and increased profits for power authorities

fmaquito — Mon, 27 Sep 2010 08:00:00 +0000

Conservative leader Tim Hudak slammed the Ontario Power Authority (OPA) as a wasteful entity, wrote the Ottawa Citizen Sept. 24 in a :

The Conservative leader said that, while the agency has expanded, it has yet to fulfil its central mandate by producing a long-term energy plan.

But one energy expert says the OPA doesn’t deserve all the blame. 91��ɫ Professor Mark Winfield, of the Faculty of Environmental Studies, says the Liberal government hasn’t enabled the OPA to fulfil its mandate.

“There’s no direction from the government to the OPA,” Winfield said. “There’s no overall vision or strategy about where we’re going.”

The Toronto Sun quoted Professor in its :

The Ontario Energy Board thinks you’re not paying enough for hydro so it’s yanking another $60 out of your wallet.

Ontario hydro ratepayers — already hammered by the HST, time-of-use pricing and rate hikes — will pay an added $240 million a year, the Ontario NDP says.

Officials at the provincial crown agency — whose salaries are paid for through hydro bills — decided earlier this year that utilities should be able to boost their rate of return to 9.85% from 8.39%.

. . .

Gordon Roberts, a professor at the Schulich School of Business at 91��ɫ, who made a submission to the OEB on behalf of , recommended a lower rate. “It’s generous,” Roberts said. “Clearly, if the answer comes out on the generous side (for utilities), it’s less fair for the ratepayers.”

Roberts also spoke about the hydro profits issue on CBC Radio and CBC-TV, Sept. 23.

Posted by Elizabeth Monier-Williams, research communications officer, with files courtesy of YFile – 91��ɫ’s daily e-bulletin.

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Professor Mark Winfield says Ontario needs new electricity plan to meet demand and develop renewable energy

fmaquito — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 08:00:00 +0000

Ontario’s electricity system will continue to lurch from crisis to crisis until a long-term strategy focused on environmental and economic sustainability is adopted, concludes a study led by 91��ɫ environmental studies Professor Mark Winfield. It was published in the international journal Energy Policy this month.

The study finds that the conventional approaches to electricity system planning adopted by the Ontario Power Authority (OPA) in the development of its 20-year Integrated Power System Plan (IPSP) have created a situation where the province effectively has no overall plan for the future of its electricity system.

“The fundamental assumptions that underlay the IPSP have been proven wrong by the events of the last two years,” says Winfield, the report’s lead author. “Electricity demand has gone down, rather than up; new nuclear facilities turned out to cost nearly four times what the plan assumed, and the response to the Green Energy Act is proving that there is more potential to develop renewable energy than the OPA assumed. A fundamentally different approach to system planning is needed,” he says.

Left: Mark Winfield

According to the study, co-authored by researchers at the University of Waterloo, the OPA's failure to properly employ a sustainability assessment approach resulted in a plan that was rigid and relied heavily on nuclear power. This would have left the province’s electricity system unable to adapt to the changed circumstances that have defined the past two years.

“A sustainability assessment approach would have emphasized resilience and adaptive capacity in the development of the plan, and put energy conservation and energy sources that have low environmental impacts and can be added to the system in smaller incremental steps first,” says Winfield. "Options like nuclear power that are large, centralized, inflexible, high-risk and high-cost should have been last.”

The report’s authors, along with a team of faculty and graduate students in environmental studies programs at the University of Waterloo and 91��ɫ, undertook to illustrate how the OPA should have elaborated and applied the sustainability criteria and trade-off rules that it had formally embraced. The exercise involved constructing a properly comprehensive, context-specific set of sustainability assessment criteria for energy system planning in Ontario, and applying these criteria in assessments of each of the main components of the IPSP proposal.

The report, titled “Implications of sustainability assessment for electricity system design: The case of the Ontario Power Authority’s integrated power system plan”, was co-authored by Professor Robert B. Gibson and graduate students Tanya Markvart and Kyrke Gaudreau of the University of Waterloo’s Faculty of Environment, and Jennifer Taylor, a graduate student in 91��ɫ’s Faculty of Environmental Studies.

Republished courtesy of YFile– 91��ɫ’s daily e-bulletin.

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Professor Mark Winfield speaks to Globe and Mail about local pushback to Ontario's green energy plans

fmaquito — Thu, 05 Aug 2010 08:00:00 +0000

Residents of Bala, located about a two hours drive north of Toronto, say they have nothing against hydro power, but fear the $23-million facility and its construction will destroy the tiny town’s main attraction: the falls that lure curious eyeballs and day-tripper cash, :

This is one local battlefield of Ontario’s Green Energy Act, whose subsidy program prioritizes small-scale green-energy projects over larger, dirtier ones. In a matter of months, the province has made itself the best place on the continent to make a business case for green energy.

. . .

The irony is these mini-projects set the stage for hundreds of confrontations with small communities that balk at the prospect of a power plant or wind farm upsetting their delicate equilibrium.

“Going to a system which relies on more distributed sources of generation, lots of smaller facilities as opposed to one big one, the worst consequence is you do exacerbate the potential for these social conflicts,” said 91��ɫ renewable energy policy professor Mark Winfield. “Instead of trying to build one big gas facility in Oakville, you’re potentially building 100 wind turbine sites, each of which has the potential to turn into a little donnybrook. “

. . .

It doesn’t help that there’s no clear picture of what Ontario’s future energy needs are: Demand is waning, or at least not growing as quickly as predicted, thanks to the recession and successful, aggressive energy-conservation programs. Capricious natural gas prices that haven’t been rising as much as planned combine with costs (and risks) of long-term nuclear commitments that skyrocketed higher than hypothesized means predicting the province’s energy load decades into the future is a mug’s game.

This makes it far more difficult to weigh the benefits against the costs of projects like Bala Falls, Prof. Winfield says.

“Developing Bala Falls maybe means we don’t have to build a gas or nuclear plant – then you might look at it differently. ... [But] there’s no overall context or plan in which each of these individual projects are evolving; there’s no framework to determine whether you need it or not.”

The complete article is .

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91��ɫ welcomes Professor Janusz Kozinski, Faculty of Science & Engineering's new dean

fmaquito — Wed, 21 Apr 2010 08:00:00 +0000

91��ɫ has appointed Janusz Kozinski as dean of the Faculty of Science & Engineering.

Kozinski will begin a five-year term at 91��ɫ on July 1. He has been dean of the College of Engineering at the University of Saskatchewan since 2007, but spent much of his career at McGill University.

A widely acknowledged expert in sustainable energy systems and immune building concepts (focused on anti-bioterrorism), Kozinski has created and led multidisciplinary teams throughout his career, linking research on energy, environmental issues, public health and security.

“I’m looking forward to welcoming Dean Kozinski to our Faculty of Science & Engineering,” said President & Vice-Chancellor Mamdouh Shoukri. “His research achievements and leadership skills will help to ensure that students receive an excellent education and will enhance 91��ɫ’s reputation for innovation.”

Right: Janusz Kozinski

Educated in Poland, Kozinski earned master of engineering and PhD degrees from AGH University of Science & Technology in Krakow, and did post-doctoral work at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) before joining McGill University’s Faculty of Engineering in 1994.

He was appointed associate vice-principal (research & international relations) at McGill in 2005. He has also completed the Oxford Advanced Management & Leadership Programme at Oxford University's Saïd Business School and the Executive Education Crisis Leadership in Higher Education program at the Harvard Kennedy School.

Kozinski’s research includes projects related to sustainable energy systems, the next generation of nuclear reactors, environmental impact of energy technology, greenhouse gas mitigation, and many other topics, including Mars exploration.

In 2006, he was named International Chair in Bioenergy for the Institute for Advanced Studies and Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) in France. While at the CNRS in 2002-2003, Kozinski researched how to mix metals from Mars’ crust and CO2 from its atmosphere to generate enough energy for a return trip from Mars − a project that took him to space on a series of zero-gravity parabolic flights organized by the European Space Agency.

“Being asked to lead a Faculty that includes both scientific research and engineering expertise, at a major university in Canada, is a unique opportunity,” said Kozinski. “I would characterize 91��ɫ as ‘i-squared’ − a very interdisciplinary and very international university. Those are among the key things that are going to be the driving force in science and engineering in the 21st century.”

Kozinski will succeed Interim Dean Walter Tholen. "I want to thank Interim Dean Tholen for his outstanding leadership and efforts during this past year," said Shoukri.

Republished courtesy of YFile– 91��ɫ’s daily e-bulletin.

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Passings: Chemistry Professor Michael Pollard showed great promise as a researcher

fmaquito — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 10:00:00 +0000

Michael Pollard, a chemistry professor in the Faculty of Science & Engineering, died suddenly of an aneurysm on Saturday, Feb. 27, in Toronto. He was just 36.

Left: Professor Michael M. Pollard

In Prof. Pollard's honour, 91��ɫ's flag will be lowered to half-mast at sunrise on Friday, March 5, until sunset on Saturday, March 6.

Although he was the Department of Chemistry’s most recent addition, joining the faculty in July 2008, Prof. Pollard had quickly become an integral part of the 91��ɫ community with substantial contributions to teaching, research and department life.

He was passionate about all his undertakings, from scientific inquiry to rock climbing, and possessed a natural curiosity that extended well beyond his chosen field.

A native of Ottawa, Ont., Prof. Pollard attended Queen’s University in Kingston, Ont., where he obtained an honours bachelor of science degree. He earned his PhD from the University of Alberta and conducted research at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands as a post-doctoral fellow and research assistant.

In his independent work at 91��ɫ, Prof. Pollard had developed a promising research program in advanced organic materials with a focus on green energy. His ultimate goal was to develop an organic solar cell that could be painted on, effectively allowing us to harness energy from almost any surface.

Visitations for Prof. Pollard will be held on Friday, March 5, from 2 to 4pm and 7 to 9pm, and Saturday, March 6, from 2 to 4pm, at the , 580 Eagleson Rd., Kanata, Ont., telephone 613-591-6580. A funeral service for Prof. Pollard will take place on Saturday at 4pm. A reception will follow the service.

In lieu of flowers, donations to the or would be appreciated.

Republished courtesy of YFile – 91��ɫ’s daily e-bulletin.

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