Island News & Views
Events · 1st January 2008
Robyn Budd
Looking for ways to cut down your home energy costs, generate your own power, recycle greywater or harvest rainwater? Then the Quadra Sustainable Energy Fair is for you!
On January 25 & 26 Sierra Quadra is hosting this event as a follow-up to their very successful Climate Change Film Fest a year ago. Many filmgoers expressed interest in learning practical solutions to energy issues and reducing their household carbon footprint. The Sustainable Energy Fair was launched by way of response.
The event kicks off on Friday January 25 with a keynote address by Joe Van Belleghem. Joe is the founder of the Canada Green Building Council, and primary consultant for Victoria’s Dockside Green, the first greenhouse-gas-neutral urban development project in North America. Joe's talk begins at 7:30pm at the Quadra Community Centre; the doors – and the food concession – will open at 7.
On Saturday January 26 the Community Centre will open at 10am for the Energy Fair trade show and presentations. Fifteen BC companies are confirmed exhibitors at the event, and will be bringing samples, literature and displays of their products and services. You can even take a test ride on an electric bike from Island Cycle!
A day-long Speakers Series will run concurrently upstairs at the Community Centre, on a wide range of energy-related topics – how to install a solar hot water system; reusing greywater for toilet flushing; the design and installation of geothermal heat pumps.... and much more.
For visitors from Campbell River and Cortes Island, free shuttles will be available between the ferry and the Quadra Community Centre.
A food concession will be open for the duration of the event. Admission to both Friday's keynote address and the Energy Fair on Saturday is free. The event finishes at 6pm.
On January 25 & 26 Sierra Quadra is hosting this event as a follow-up to their very successful Climate Change Film Fest a year ago. Many filmgoers expressed interest in learning practical solutions to energy issues and reducing their household carbon footprint. The Sustainable Energy Fair was launched by way of response.
The event kicks off on Friday January 25 with a keynote address by Joe Van Belleghem. Joe is the founder of the Canada Green Building Council, and primary consultant for Victoria’s Dockside Green, the first greenhouse-gas-neutral urban development project in North America. Joe's talk begins at 7:30pm at the Quadra Community Centre; the doors – and the food concession – will open at 7.
On Saturday January 26 the Community Centre will open at 10am for the Energy Fair trade show and presentations. Fifteen BC companies are confirmed exhibitors at the event, and will be bringing samples, literature and displays of their products and services. You can even take a test ride on an electric bike from Island Cycle!
A day-long Speakers Series will run concurrently upstairs at the Community Centre, on a wide range of energy-related topics – how to install a solar hot water system; reusing greywater for toilet flushing; the design and installation of geothermal heat pumps.... and much more.
For visitors from Campbell River and Cortes Island, free shuttles will be available between the ferry and the Quadra Community Centre.
A food concession will be open for the duration of the event. Admission to both Friday's keynote address and the Energy Fair on Saturday is free. The event finishes at 6pm.
Joe Van Belleghem, keynote speaker
Cradle-to-grave is the real definition of sustainable
Comment by Smokey on 16th December 2010
Many "light green" technologies, ie, those which are proposed by people as a new-tech quick-fix to old environmental problems are really traps in themselves. "Deep green" analysis demands that all proposed technologies be analyzed from the beginning of the extraction of resources from the earth all the way to the disposal of the discarded components when their utility is finished.
Thus, when you analyze an electric car, for example, you find that its "green" label is a sheer and utter hoax. As George Monbiot has written in his book "Heat...." and in his many columns in The Guardian, that 20 per cent of the greenhouse gases and equivalents (GHG-Es) of a car, electric, or otherwise, are already sent into the atmosphere in the production of the vehicle. Then you must look at the generation of the electricity it will need. Since all electrical production save hydroelectric needs vast amounts of cooling (nuclear power, gas and coal) it has been calculated that an electric car will use 17 TIMES MORE WATER than a gasoline powered car in its lifetime. After that, there is the battery problem. The best batteries, with careful charging, will last 7 years, at best. Many will be discarded sooner, because they will have a diminished range of operation before they are completely "dead". It has been boasted by apologists that 90% of batteries are recycled in the U.S.A. This is a misleading statistic, since 90% are actually sent to under-developped countries where they are recycled, BY HAND, by children and others who have no other employment prospects. There, they are dismantled in ponds and in streams, which dilute the acids, but which pollute the watersheds people rely on for their lives and livelihoods. Many, many horror stories have been written, mostly in the foreign press, about cancers, rashes, deaths, and environmental ailments from direct contact with acids and lead by poor villagers. Of the 10% of the batteries which do remain in the continental USA, 90% may be recycled, but even there, there is no monitoring agency to assure ecological compliance.
Then we need to look at the production of the battery components. Lead is one of the very most harmful compounds around and acids are also, if not treated properly. The factories that produce these have horrible downstream discharges.
Do you still want to drive that cute electric car? It's still going to end up in the dump, in the end, isn't it? Long ago, cars were proposed which would not be built for style but for easy production and re-use. The front and back doors would be mirror images, so that only half as many moulds would be needed. All four body panels would be mirror images also. The hood and trunk would be the same pieces, etc. But in reality, this is all a pipe dream. The private automobile is the biggest scam in the universe. Public transportation is the only sustainable alternative we should strive for.
Next time I'll write about how we will never achieve the alternative energy goal we once hoped for because we're too late building the generators already.
Many "light green" technologies, ie, those which are proposed by people as a new-tech quick-fix to old environmental problems are really traps in themselves. "Deep green" analysis demands that all proposed technologies be analyzed from the beginning of the extraction of resources from the earth all the way to the disposal of the discarded components when their utility is finished.
Thus, when you analyze an electric car, for example, you find that its "green" label is a sheer and utter hoax. As George Monbiot has written in his book "Heat...." and in his many columns in The Guardian, that 20 per cent of the greenhouse gases and equivalents (GHG-Es) of a car, electric, or otherwise, are already sent into the atmosphere in the production of the vehicle. Then you must look at the generation of the electricity it will need. Since all electrical production save hydroelectric needs vast amounts of cooling (nuclear power, gas and coal) it has been calculated that an electric car will use 17 TIMES MORE WATER than a gasoline powered car in its lifetime. After that, there is the battery problem. The best batteries, with careful charging, will last 7 years, at best. Many will be discarded sooner, because they will have a diminished range of operation before they are completely "dead". It has been boasted by apologists that 90% of batteries are recycled in the U.S.A. This is a misleading statistic, since 90% are actually sent to under-developped countries where they are recycled, BY HAND, by children and others who have no other employment prospects. There, they are dismantled in ponds and in streams, which dilute the acids, but which pollute the watersheds people rely on for their lives and livelihoods. Many, many horror stories have been written, mostly in the foreign press, about cancers, rashes, deaths, and environmental ailments from direct contact with acids and lead by poor villagers. Of the 10% of the batteries which do remain in the continental USA, 90% may be recycled, but even there, there is no monitoring agency to assure ecological compliance.
Then we need to look at the production of the battery components. Lead is one of the very most harmful compounds around and acids are also, if not treated properly. The factories that produce these have horrible downstream discharges.
Do you still want to drive that cute electric car? It's still going to end up in the dump, in the end, isn't it? Long ago, cars were proposed which would not be built for style but for easy production and re-use. The front and back doors would be mirror images, so that only half as many moulds would be needed. All four body panels would be mirror images also. The hood and trunk would be the same pieces, etc. But in reality, this is all a pipe dream. The private automobile is the biggest scam in the universe. Public transportation is the only sustainable alternative we should strive for.
Next time I'll write about how we will never achieve the alternative energy goal we once hoped for because we're too late building the generators already.