Energy Conservation
polaris
Posts: 3,527
i've had discussions here with people about the need for nuclear power - much of that discussion centred around whether or not we as people could conserve and use less energy ...
here in ontario, is proof that it can be done - this with minimal gov't support ... it should be noted that ontario is planning to build more nuclear reactors (shortsightedly in my opinion) ... in any case - any program to address climate change has to focus on energy conservation ... there is so much more we can easily do ...
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http://www.thestar.com/News/Ontario/article/435879
We've cut electricity use 4.6%
Jun 03, 2008 04:30 AM
Peter Gorrie
Environment Reporter
Ontario residents are learning to live better with less electricity, says a report to be released today.
Consumption is dropping faster than at any previous time and the province is ahead of the conservation target it set three years ago, Peter Love, chief energy conservation officer with the Ontario Power Authority, said in an interview.
"We're getting there, but there's a long way to go," he said.
From 2005 to 2007, Ontario's total consumption fell by 2.6 per cent to 150,8906 gigawatt hours, and the average for each person dropped by 4.6 per cent to 11,725 kilowatt hours. Both figures are adjusted for changes in the weather.
In addition, last year's weather-adjusted peak demand – the highest recorded use of electricity, a hot day when air conditioners were cranked up – was 24,820 megawatts, which was 1,462 megawatts below the amount forecast a couple of years ago by the Independent Electricity System Operator, the provincial agency that controls the flow of electricity.
That beat Queen's Park's first-stage goal – a reduction of 1,350 megawatts – for the first three years of its plan to cut peak demand by 6,300 megawatts by 2025.
"We have a lot of work to do. We're looking to create a culture of conservation. It happens over decades," Love said.
The decline shows the Liberal government should rethink its focus on building new nuclear power plants, said Chris Winter, head of the Conservation Council of Ontario, an independent advocacy group.
Critics have said the government is moving far too slowly on conservation as it plans $40 billion worth of new nuclear generating stations.
The report "tells me that people are getting the message and that those of us who said we could go much faster were right, " Winter said. "We always said they could achieve 6,300 megawatts (of reduction) by 2012. At what point do they get the message that people prefer conservation to coal, nuclear or other dirty power?"
But Love said Ontario's conservation goal is far tougher than others in North America. "The next target will be much more difficult."
The power authority has launched 26 conservation programs, ranging from an incentive to encourage homeowners to get rid of energy-sucking old beer fridges to technical help for major industries.
No new residential incentives are planned for this summer, but the province has installed 1.4 million "smart meters," out of 4.3 million in total, that will reward consumers for using appliances during periods of low demand.
When it's finally underway, the charge for electricity – now no more than 5.9 cents per kilowatt hour – will be 9.3 cents during peak times, 7.3 cents in medium periods and only 2.7 cents in off-peak times, generally overnight. A kilowatt-hour is the amount of electricity required to keep a 100-watt light burning for 10 hours, and one billion kilowatts equals one gigawatt.
The conservation effort is a far cry from the 1960s, when the former Ontario Hydro exhorted consumers to turn up their thermostats, take off their socks and "live better electrically." It's also different from the province's only previous attempt to curb demand, when, from 1988 to '92, Hydro had a team of more than 500 staff pushing the conservation message. That program resulted in about half the total electricity savings of the current effort, the power authority says.
The authority is contracting out much of the current conservation work to utilities, energy service companies and non-profit groups.
Ontario's electricity rates are still much lower than most other parts of the world, Paul Shervill, the power authority's vice-president of conservation development said.
here in ontario, is proof that it can be done - this with minimal gov't support ... it should be noted that ontario is planning to build more nuclear reactors (shortsightedly in my opinion) ... in any case - any program to address climate change has to focus on energy conservation ... there is so much more we can easily do ...
*****************************
http://www.thestar.com/News/Ontario/article/435879
We've cut electricity use 4.6%
Jun 03, 2008 04:30 AM
Peter Gorrie
Environment Reporter
Ontario residents are learning to live better with less electricity, says a report to be released today.
Consumption is dropping faster than at any previous time and the province is ahead of the conservation target it set three years ago, Peter Love, chief energy conservation officer with the Ontario Power Authority, said in an interview.
"We're getting there, but there's a long way to go," he said.
From 2005 to 2007, Ontario's total consumption fell by 2.6 per cent to 150,8906 gigawatt hours, and the average for each person dropped by 4.6 per cent to 11,725 kilowatt hours. Both figures are adjusted for changes in the weather.
In addition, last year's weather-adjusted peak demand – the highest recorded use of electricity, a hot day when air conditioners were cranked up – was 24,820 megawatts, which was 1,462 megawatts below the amount forecast a couple of years ago by the Independent Electricity System Operator, the provincial agency that controls the flow of electricity.
That beat Queen's Park's first-stage goal – a reduction of 1,350 megawatts – for the first three years of its plan to cut peak demand by 6,300 megawatts by 2025.
"We have a lot of work to do. We're looking to create a culture of conservation. It happens over decades," Love said.
The decline shows the Liberal government should rethink its focus on building new nuclear power plants, said Chris Winter, head of the Conservation Council of Ontario, an independent advocacy group.
Critics have said the government is moving far too slowly on conservation as it plans $40 billion worth of new nuclear generating stations.
The report "tells me that people are getting the message and that those of us who said we could go much faster were right, " Winter said. "We always said they could achieve 6,300 megawatts (of reduction) by 2012. At what point do they get the message that people prefer conservation to coal, nuclear or other dirty power?"
But Love said Ontario's conservation goal is far tougher than others in North America. "The next target will be much more difficult."
The power authority has launched 26 conservation programs, ranging from an incentive to encourage homeowners to get rid of energy-sucking old beer fridges to technical help for major industries.
No new residential incentives are planned for this summer, but the province has installed 1.4 million "smart meters," out of 4.3 million in total, that will reward consumers for using appliances during periods of low demand.
When it's finally underway, the charge for electricity – now no more than 5.9 cents per kilowatt hour – will be 9.3 cents during peak times, 7.3 cents in medium periods and only 2.7 cents in off-peak times, generally overnight. A kilowatt-hour is the amount of electricity required to keep a 100-watt light burning for 10 hours, and one billion kilowatts equals one gigawatt.
The conservation effort is a far cry from the 1960s, when the former Ontario Hydro exhorted consumers to turn up their thermostats, take off their socks and "live better electrically." It's also different from the province's only previous attempt to curb demand, when, from 1988 to '92, Hydro had a team of more than 500 staff pushing the conservation message. That program resulted in about half the total electricity savings of the current effort, the power authority says.
The authority is contracting out much of the current conservation work to utilities, energy service companies and non-profit groups.
Ontario's electricity rates are still much lower than most other parts of the world, Paul Shervill, the power authority's vice-president of conservation development said.
Post edited by Unknown User on
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Comments
The other thing, if you're working and you have AC or heat... why not turn it off during the day during peak hours at your house?
I'd love to see energy saving power sockets become standard features in new codes as well as pushing the use of LED applications and energy saving devices.
There is a whole heck of a lot we can personally do for conservation.
I'm really hopeful about solar collection from buildings especially if the technology can be made cheaper.
Honestly though P, I think the push towards nuclear in this sense has more to do with city planning and growth than anything else. Governments like some consumers always want as much as they can get and that dosen't come from conserving anything because conservation dosen't drive their revenues it detracts from them.
The US isn't doing a tenth of what it should be pushing for in the way of conservation. Virtually the only groups involved in it in most areas are Power Companies.
Verona??? it's all surmountable
Dublin 23.08.06 "The beauty of Ireland, right there!"
Wembley? We all believe!
Copenhagen?? your light made us stars
Chicago 07? And love
What a different life
Had I not found this love with you
hh - it seems the nuclear lobby is effective all around the world
Energy Conservation is a hell of a lot cheaper for everyone. It makes a lot of cents literally to teach and preach conservation which some people aparently just don't seem to understand anything about. This is something virtually anyone from any walk of life should be able to get behind.
I think essentially with the level of demand, and the ability of Nuclear production combined with the reduction of fossil fuels for production that it requires Nuclear is looking more attractive for that reason even with expensive initial cost. Even though I think it can be made relatively safe There is still the trouble with spent fuel from fission reactors. It helps capacity, but it does create some huge issues down the road. The previous issues like Sellafield, Chernobyl, Three Mile Island, the Savannah River site etc are big problems but partly because of how everything was engineered and the application. Poor regard to safety, poor engineering, poor execution of operation. I don't think it's completely fair to write off nuclear power all toegther due to some rather horrific past errors but it does require substantially more start up cost and constant skilled maintenence to run properly. I think most locales are more afraid of nuclear power than they are ok with it really.
I wonder if any of this has to do with the recent slowdown of the Ontario Economy? I mean if manufacturing plants and other industries (which are big time energy users) are decreasing their production then of course energy consumption is going to decrease. I would be curious to know if the residential consumption rate has gone down.
http://www.smartmetersontario.ca/
Somehow I think it's just a way to look inside peoples homes remotely to see what they have on at any given hour, while charging more money for the regular time rates.
This is just a gut feeling, I haven't looked into into it at length yet.
in any event homes can now be monitored at will via satellite to get an idea of what kind appliances are being turned on, when, how often, and for how long.
Otoh, if one was to come up with a plan to make people energy conscious, you'd have to hit them in the pocketbook with plans such as this.
and reveling in it's loyalty. It's made by forming coalitions
over specific principles, goals, and policies.
http://i36.tinypic.com/66j31x.jpg
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total consumption doesn't factor that the population is growing as well ... although i'm not sure what role the manufacturing sector had to do with the overall decrease - i do believe we can achieve double digit decreases on simple conservation plans alone ...
I think it is kind of strange to see people use Chernobyl as an argument against Nuclear power. I mean that plant was built in the 1970's so do people think that no safety improvements have been made in the design of nuclear power plants in the past 30+ years? I mean to say nuclear power plants shouldn't be built because one built in the 70's was unsafe is like saying people shouldn't drive cars because Ford Pinto's built in the 70's were unsafe.
Verona??? it's all surmountable
Dublin 23.08.06 "The beauty of Ireland, right there!"
Wembley? We all believe!
Copenhagen?? your light made us stars
Chicago 07? And love
What a different life
Had I not found this love with you
Are you referring to Chernobyl or the Pinto? Seriously though cars have become much safer over the last 30 years (as have planes, buildings and pretty much everything else) so why don't people think nuclear plants would be safer?
I read up on the chernobyl disaster yesterday, pretty interesting Wikipedia article really that made me look at a few different reactor types as well. So thanks for the inpiration to study you guys.
In Canada you guys use the CANDU type. it's C) in the article above, if you have some time, it's worth reading about. Pretty facinating when you consider the physics involved.
the CANDU costs waaay too much to build and always has to be shut down for repairs that costs tons of cash ...
a derivitive of nature.
nature is god
god is love
love is light
ha! ... that's what i say ... for some reason the ladies think i'm up to no good tho ...
Bullfrog power for those who don't know is a renewable power operator - wind or hydro.
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http://www.thestar.com/Business/article/439557
$3.83 to power hybrid plug-in for 6 days
My 6 days with a plug-in hybrid
Day 1: During one 25-minute, after-work commute in start-stop downtown traffic, I got fuel economy of less than a litre per 100 kilometres. Used battery most of the time. Average for the day, which included five trips totalling over 45 km, was 1.57 litres/100 km – three times more efficient than your typical Toyota Prius.
Day 2: Didn't drive much. Went 4 kilometres to the grocery store, mostly downhill, and got 1.68 litres/ 100 km. Heading back, uphill, forced me to use the gas engine more so fuel economy dropped to 3.4 litres/100 km.
Day 3: Not a typical day of driving as family drove from the Beaches to a friend's farmhouse about 15 kms north of Orangeville. It was 125 kms to get there, mostly highway driving with a slight upward incline most of the way. We got only 4.25 litres/100 km – still slightly better than a normal Prius, but obviously the extra battery in the plug-in doesn't help as much on longer trips. Heading back we got similar fuel economy.
Day 4: Another day of local driving, with similar fuel economy to Day Two. The PHEV, like a regular Prius, has an onboard display that shows when the car is in all-electric mode or relying more on the engine. This instant feedback allows you to improve the efficiency of your driving, using techniques such as momentum driving and "pulsing" – briefly engaging the engine then easing off the accelerator back into electric mode. Was able to go uphill using this method and get similar results as downhill.
Day 5: Drove to work in the evening. Average for 18-kilometre drive was 1.8 litres/100 km.
Final day: Had to take my two girls to the dentist, so travelled from north Beaches to Church St. and Bloor St. in a lot of stop-start traffic and going at a snail's pace behind a streetcar. I'm learning to drive the car more efficiently. On the nine kilometre trek I got 0.9 litres/100 km, and heading back got 1.1 litres/100 km. I'm falling in love with this vehicle and was sad to hand it back to Hymotion that day.
GM's closure a 'wake-up call' for Ontario
Ontario needs to take a more proactive approach with new vehicle technologies if it hopes to stay competitive and keep jobs in the province.Jun 09, 2008 04:30 AM
Have we reached a tipping point with gas at $1.35 a litre, and rising? Are consumers so fed up that they're finally adjusting their behaviour?
In the past, we complained but did nothing, preferring instead to condemn those evil oil companies and demand that the government keep gas prices artificially low.
This time it's different. The long-term trend toward high prices is clear. And the planned closure of a General Motors truck and SUV plant in Oshawa is a strong sign that the days of gas guzzlers are numbered.
Last week, I had the opportunity of test driving a vehicle that, in a variety of driving scenarios, uses considerably less gasoline than conventional cars. When booting around the city, it almost uses no gas at all. Instead, it relies mostly on electricity from the grid. Just plug into a wall socket overnight and you're ready to go in the morning.
Interested? You should be – it could be the kind of car sitting in your driveway 10 years, even five years, from now.
It's called a plug-in hybrid electric vehicle, or PHEV. The one I drove for six days was a 2004 Toyota Prius that had been retrofitted with a lithium-ion battery pack and a charging outlet on the back bumper.
Unlike a regular Prius, which has a smaller nickel-metal hydride battery that's recharged by the engine and by capturing braking energy, this Prius uses electricity from the grid to displace gasoline use.
Concord-based Hymotion did the retrofit, using batteries from Boston-area company A123 Systems, which is now Hymotion's parent company. It's the same battery technology being considered by General Motors for its Volt electric car, which is scheduled for commercial release in 2010, and a plug-in hybrid version of its Saturn Vue SUV.
For drives within the city, each trip ranging from 10 to 20 kilometres, I generally got fuel economy better than two litres per 100 kilometres. Sometimes it went much higher, and only once – during a long highway trip – was mileage more typical of a standard Prius.
Over the six days, I used 22.5 kilowatt-hours of electricity to keep the battery charged. Using Bullfrog Power, it cost me $3.83 for the power – with electricity, delivery, special charges and taxes all combined. With Bullfrog, when the car was in electric mode, it was truly emission-free.
"Downtown, these types of vehicles can make huge improvements," says Ricardo Bazzarella, founder of Hymotion. He says more people than ever are stopping him on the road and asking questions about the car. "People want to know more because gas prices have gotten so high and they're looking for alternatives."
I got stopped about four times, and found myself giving strangers 10-minute demonstrations while my kids sat patiently in the back seat.
Smog is another issue. On Friday, the Ontario Medical Association announced that smog is responsible for an estimated 9,500 premature deaths in the province each year. Imagine if we all drove an emission-free electric car in downtown Toronto?
Hymotion/A123 is selling its plug-in retrofit kit for $10,000 (U.S.), aimed mostly at Prius drivers who need to replace their battery pack or are looking to push the fuel economy of their cars to the limit. The market is there. Toyota announced last month that Prius sales had surpassed one million since going on sale in the late 1990s.
Within the next few years, however, it's expected the major car manufacturers will have a number of their own plug-in models available for sale at prices affordable to the average driver.
Ric Fulop, an A123 co-founder and vice-president of business development, said they're not for people who generally drive more than 50 kilometres each day, at least not until the battery range improves – and they are improving. "But plug-in hybrids are very good for most commuters."
There are a few caveats. Like any vehicle, driving behaviour can dramatically affect performance. Aggressive drivers kick the car into gas mode more often, so get worse fuel economy. Same goes if you drive longer distances and on the highway. Efficiency also improves the more a person drives the vehicle, because they become more familiar with fuel-saving driving techniques. It should also be said that fuel economy, like most vehicles, is generally not as good in colder weather when you're cranking the heater and using defrost more often.
The Toronto Atmospheric Fund has observed all this first hand. The agency is overseeing a 10-car plug-in hybrid pilot project involving retrofitted cars from Toronto Hydro, the City of Toronto, York University, Bullfrog Power, Autoshare, Toronto & Region Conservation Authority and the ministries of environment and transportation.
Preliminary data from the first six months of the project – fall and winter months – haven't lived up to expectations. Average fuel economy for the test fleet has so far been 5.8 litres per 100 kilometre. Not bad, but nowhere near their potential.
Among the best performing is the city's car, which got average fuel economy of about 4 litres/100 km. The worst was Autoshare, at 7.8 litres/100 km. Autoshare's results make sense. More than 40 different people have been driving the car, and they tend to drive aggressively. This contrasts with the city's car, which is generally used by the same driver who has been trained to drive with discipline.
Bazzarella says U.S. jurisdictions have had much better results. Ben Marans of the Toronto Atmospheric Fund expects the project's second leg will produce better numbers. "Overall, we are seeing good results that are showing an improvement in fuel efficiency as we go," he says.
If you drive mostly in the city and rarely take the car on long highway drives, this type of vehicle is for you. After my own six-day experience, I'm sold.
If your commute is from Barrie to downtown Toronto every day, you'll still get decent mileage. But so will a typical subcompact car that's much cheaper to purchase.
Honda's Plug in Natural Gas Hybrid is in California now I believe.
Seems like many homes could actually generate or store enough in batteries for most phev commutes.
Cities could easily do this with busses.
see first part of post on bullfrong! http://www.bullfrogpower.com/clean/on_clean.cfm
the best part is that most people would be plugging in at nite when demand is not on high ... toyota is now #1 in the world because they don't have their heads in the asses like the big 3 US automakers ...