From the Tuesday, October 30, 2007, Toronto Star, News section, page A3, the forest industry pledging to become carbon neutral:
CANADA'S FOREST INDUSTRY TO TURN OVER A NEW LEAF
Making plans to meet carbon-neutral pledge
Peter Gorrie
Environment Reporter
Canada's forest industry says it will be carbon neutral by 2015.
In what is likely the first such pledge by any major industry sector in the world, the forest companies say their logging, paper and pulp operations, and the products they produce, will, in effect, no longer be a source of greenhouse gas emissions that cause climate change.
And they'll do it, they say, without resorting to offsets - the controversial practice in which polluters continue to spew emissions, but contribute to projects elsewhere that claim to reduce them.
The effort must extend beyond forests and mills to wood and paper consumers, such as construction sites, homes and offices, Avrim Lazar, president of the Forest Products Association of Canada, said.
The aim is to protect both the environment and the industry's bottom line, said Lazar, who was to announce the pledge this morning at a conference in Ottawa.
Global demand for wood products is soaring, he said, "If people continue to do it the old way... it won't be very good for the planet."
The devastating spread of pine beetles in British Columbia - partly because winters are no longer cold enough to kill the insects - is a wake-up call, he said.
"We got a lesson in the impact of climate change before most of the rest of Canada."
As well, global buyers increasingly demand products from "sustainable" operations. That can be an edge for Canadian firms, which face fierce competition from China, Brazil and other places where trees grow faster, costs are lower, and environment rules can be lax.
The Canadian industry has reduced its greenhouse emissions 44 per cent since 1990, when its output increased by 20 per cent.
That puts it far ahead of Canada's Kyoto Protocol target - a 6 per cent cut.
Most of the industry's reductions have been at pulp and paper mills, which have become more efficient and, in many cases, converted from oil and gas to renewable fuels. But much of the effort will involve keeping wood and paper out of landfills where, as it decomposes, it releases methane, a potent greenhouse gas.
About half the paper used in Canada is recycled, Lazar said. To improve that figure, the industry will use publicity to target consumers in offices and apartment buildings, where recycling rates are low.
Another focus will be recycling wood waste at construction sites. The aim is to have it recycled into plywood, particleboard or paper; or sent to high-tech plants that burn wood for heat and electricity.
"We hope other industries will rise to the challenge" of doing the same, or better, said Lorne Johnson of World Wildlife Fund Canada, which is working with the association. Other green groups are on an advisory panel.
Johnson added the odds are good the industry will meet the target. "They're already doing a good job."
Shifting Into Neutral
How the Canadian forestry industry plans to meet its 2015 target:
* Become energy self-sufficient - switch from fossil fuels to renewable energy.
* Adopt energy-efficient technologies.
* Increase diversion of used forest products from landfills.
* Cap more landfills to prevent methane leaks.
* Increase cogeneration - using waste heat to generate electricity.
* Increase potential of forests and wood products to store carbon.
* Maximize recycling of paper and wood products.
Showing posts with label carbon neutral. Show all posts
Showing posts with label carbon neutral. Show all posts
Friday, December 21, 2007
Thursday, November 8, 2007
Biofuels
From the Monday, August 13, 2007, Metro, the Growing Green section, page 14:
Earth tones
These are dizzying times for biofuels
Sophia Dore & Andrew Laursen
earthtones.metrogmail.com
We have been following the discussions of alternative fuels with rapt attention for the past several years.
With terms like "carbon neutral" in connection to fuels swirling around our heads, these are dizzying times.
It seems like everyone in buying into the idea of biofuels, freeing us from the grasp of fossil fuels. Many governments are investing heavily, even those that so recently invested in denying carbon emissions were a problem. The domestic air travel industry, a disproportionately high emitter of carbon, is considering (among other strategies) a move to biofuels. Richard Branson of Virgin Airlines has even announced plans to fly an aircraft on biofuel by 2008.
Ethanol is made from a wide variety of plants, particularly corn and soybeans (Ontario's two biggest crops), and new ethanol plants are popping up each year. In Europe, ethanol is even distilled from less drinkable wines. Biodiesel can be made from any vegetable or animal oils, with the most promising sources, in terms of yield, being algae. If biofuels can be produced so readily, why hasn't anyone ever thought of this before? Oh, wait ...
The expression everything old is new again applies well to biofuels. Remember "gasohol" in the '80s? It is back, this time with much less fanfare, which I find surprising considering public interest in renewable fuels. Perhaps the marketing arms of petroleum companies think consumers will also remember gasohol, which was not a big hit the last time around. At most gas stations today, you will get a blend of ethanol (often 10 per cent) and gasoline.
The diesel engine was originally designed to run on vegetable oil. It still does. There are websites with recipes for homemade diesel. Occasionally, I am on the road and smell french fries. Suddenly hungry and searching for the source, I am dismayed to find it's only a diesel running on spent oil from a restaurant's fryer.
Although some newer gasoline engines will run on E85 ethanol (85 per cent ethanol by volume), and diesels can run on vegetable oil, the bulk of most commercially available fuels is still petroleum. That's worth remembering, as even the more environmentally friendly fuels available at filling stations (if you are able to find them) are not currently carbon neutral.
Can we achieve carbon neutrality using biofuels? It would be difficult. While you might want to kick the gas habit, do you want to buy a vehicle before the infrastructure exists to get fuel? And what incentive is there for a filling station to invest in infrastructure before there is a customer base? Biodiesel offers the greatest promise since current engines are already compatible with the fuel.
Should we try to achieve carbon neutrality using biofuels? How much land can be given over to producing crops for biofuels? This calculus will impact not only land available for growing food, but also land currently in non-agricultural use (such as forest). It would also impact nutrient management strategies. Growing crops for biofuels (like growing food crops) is fertilizer intensive. It often flies under the radar, but fertilizers (particularly nitrogen and phosphorus) can be major pollutants when they run off agricultural soil into aquatic ecosystems.
The potential benefits of biofuels are exciting. However, we should not be thinking of them as a straight-up replacement for fossil fuels. They could help us reduce carbon emissions, but conservation of fuels must stay in focus as we balance the need to reduce carbon emissions with the need to protect natural resources.
Andrew Laursen is an assistant professor in the department of chemistry and biology at Ryerson University and is a member of the environmental applied science and management program in graduate studies. His research is in the area of ecosystem ecology. Sophia Dore is an environmental scientist with Conestoga-Rovers & Associates, an environmental consulting company. Contact Andrew Laursen at earthtones.metro@g.mail.com .
Earth tones
These are dizzying times for biofuels
Sophia Dore & Andrew Laursen
earthtones.metrogmail.com
We have been following the discussions of alternative fuels with rapt attention for the past several years.
With terms like "carbon neutral" in connection to fuels swirling around our heads, these are dizzying times.
It seems like everyone in buying into the idea of biofuels, freeing us from the grasp of fossil fuels. Many governments are investing heavily, even those that so recently invested in denying carbon emissions were a problem. The domestic air travel industry, a disproportionately high emitter of carbon, is considering (among other strategies) a move to biofuels. Richard Branson of Virgin Airlines has even announced plans to fly an aircraft on biofuel by 2008.
Ethanol is made from a wide variety of plants, particularly corn and soybeans (Ontario's two biggest crops), and new ethanol plants are popping up each year. In Europe, ethanol is even distilled from less drinkable wines. Biodiesel can be made from any vegetable or animal oils, with the most promising sources, in terms of yield, being algae. If biofuels can be produced so readily, why hasn't anyone ever thought of this before? Oh, wait ...
The expression everything old is new again applies well to biofuels. Remember "gasohol" in the '80s? It is back, this time with much less fanfare, which I find surprising considering public interest in renewable fuels. Perhaps the marketing arms of petroleum companies think consumers will also remember gasohol, which was not a big hit the last time around. At most gas stations today, you will get a blend of ethanol (often 10 per cent) and gasoline.
The diesel engine was originally designed to run on vegetable oil. It still does. There are websites with recipes for homemade diesel. Occasionally, I am on the road and smell french fries. Suddenly hungry and searching for the source, I am dismayed to find it's only a diesel running on spent oil from a restaurant's fryer.
Although some newer gasoline engines will run on E85 ethanol (85 per cent ethanol by volume), and diesels can run on vegetable oil, the bulk of most commercially available fuels is still petroleum. That's worth remembering, as even the more environmentally friendly fuels available at filling stations (if you are able to find them) are not currently carbon neutral.
Can we achieve carbon neutrality using biofuels? It would be difficult. While you might want to kick the gas habit, do you want to buy a vehicle before the infrastructure exists to get fuel? And what incentive is there for a filling station to invest in infrastructure before there is a customer base? Biodiesel offers the greatest promise since current engines are already compatible with the fuel.
Should we try to achieve carbon neutrality using biofuels? How much land can be given over to producing crops for biofuels? This calculus will impact not only land available for growing food, but also land currently in non-agricultural use (such as forest). It would also impact nutrient management strategies. Growing crops for biofuels (like growing food crops) is fertilizer intensive. It often flies under the radar, but fertilizers (particularly nitrogen and phosphorus) can be major pollutants when they run off agricultural soil into aquatic ecosystems.
The potential benefits of biofuels are exciting. However, we should not be thinking of them as a straight-up replacement for fossil fuels. They could help us reduce carbon emissions, but conservation of fuels must stay in focus as we balance the need to reduce carbon emissions with the need to protect natural resources.
Andrew Laursen is an assistant professor in the department of chemistry and biology at Ryerson University and is a member of the environmental applied science and management program in graduate studies. His research is in the area of ecosystem ecology. Sophia Dore is an environmental scientist with Conestoga-Rovers & Associates, an environmental consulting company. Contact Andrew Laursen at earthtones.metro@g.mail.com .
Thursday, October 18, 2007
Living Green & Leading by Example
Toronto Star, Sat., October 6, 2007, Section U, "Green Living".
For the Children
LEADING BY EXAMPLE
Small changes can yield big results, especially when the goal is healing. You can learn from friends whose reusuable shopping bags and energy-efficient lightbulbs inspire green living. Pick up a few eco-friendly habits and feel good for passing yours along. Saving the environment can be easier than you think.
_____________________________________________________________________
The following is an article by Dr. David Suzuki, in the Toronto Star, Saturday, October 6, 2007, "Living Green," page U1. Dr. Suzuki is a scientist, author, professor, lecturer, and Canada's leading environmentalist:
What does it mean to live green? Unless we live under a rock, we are all part of a way of life that is unsustainable because it is undermining the life support systems of the planet -- air, water, soil, energy and biodiversity.
Globalization conceals much of the ecological cost of our way of life. From the moment I wake up in cotton sheets under wool blankets, I benefit from materials grown, shipped and manufactured all over the world.
Think of the source of the coffee, sugar, newsprint and ink, porcelain dishes and metal cutlery that help us start the day. By the time we get to all the components of our radios, or TVs, cars, phones and computers, you realize we are invisibly plugged in to the rest of the world and if 6.5 billion people aspire to our standard of living, the burden on the planet will be overwhelming.
But 30 million Canadians making small changes in our lives -- rejecting disposability, consuming less and more judiciously, driving less, etc. -- can nevertheless be very significant with no diminution in the quality of our lives.
Can we change to a society that covets clean air, clean water, clean soil, clean energy and a diversity of other species as our highest priority, or will be choose to carry on with business as usual because we are unwilling to jeopardize the economy or sacrifice our hyper-consumption?
Whatever we choose, nature will ultimately impose the final limits and conditions on our survival and well-being.
We all live with contradictions. In 2000, I purchased the first Prius sold in Canada. I bicycle around Vancouver, and I take the bus or walk even more.
But I fly, and as George Monbiot's book Heat points out, air travel is the one major activity that cannot be changed to meet the large reduction of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions necessary if we are to keep global temperature from rising more than 2C this century.
To bring human-generated GHGs into balance with the biosphere's capacity to absorb them, Monbiot asserts we must reduce our annual output of GHGs to an average of one tonne per person on the planet. At present, the average Canadian generates 20 tonnes and, according to Monbiot, a round-trip flight from Toronto to London produces one tonne per passenger.
To move toward balance with our surroundings, we have to spread information and knowledge, and that has been my rationale for continuing to fly. But it's not a satisfying one because I know people can rationalize just about anything.
For more than three years, I have been flying gold-standard "carbon neutral" -- that is, for the energy used on my behalf when I fly, I invest in putting 1 1/2 times as much green energy (solar and wind) onto the grid in developing countries like China and India.
The atmosphere is a single entity, and what happens there affects us all. By investing in such countries, we reduce their incentive to build polluting coal-burning plants.
But "carbon neutral" is not a licence to pollute. So this year I have cut my flying in half. I lumped commitments to fulfill several speaking engagements and television work on one trip.
Monbiot points out that short flights produce a disproportionate amount of GHGs because takeoff and landing are the times of greatest energy use. So I take trains between Toronto, Montreal and Ottawa and, although they take longer, I can work and relax and travel from downtown to downtown.
I have declined several invitations to speak abroad. And now I am offering to give speeches to various places but on condition that they be by teleconference. This month, I do my first two teleconference speeches to Australia and I hope that next year, most of my speeches will be from the comfort of a studio in Vancouver where I live.
It means I'll be better off psychically and physically, my family and friends will be pleased and, I hope, Mother Earth will have a slightly reduced burden.
David Suzuki is a broadcaster, scientist and founder of the David Suzuki Foundation: davidsuzuki.org
For the Children
LEADING BY EXAMPLE
Small changes can yield big results, especially when the goal is healing. You can learn from friends whose reusuable shopping bags and energy-efficient lightbulbs inspire green living. Pick up a few eco-friendly habits and feel good for passing yours along. Saving the environment can be easier than you think.
_____________________________________________________________________
The following is an article by Dr. David Suzuki, in the Toronto Star, Saturday, October 6, 2007, "Living Green," page U1. Dr. Suzuki is a scientist, author, professor, lecturer, and Canada's leading environmentalist:
What does it mean to live green? Unless we live under a rock, we are all part of a way of life that is unsustainable because it is undermining the life support systems of the planet -- air, water, soil, energy and biodiversity.
Globalization conceals much of the ecological cost of our way of life. From the moment I wake up in cotton sheets under wool blankets, I benefit from materials grown, shipped and manufactured all over the world.
Think of the source of the coffee, sugar, newsprint and ink, porcelain dishes and metal cutlery that help us start the day. By the time we get to all the components of our radios, or TVs, cars, phones and computers, you realize we are invisibly plugged in to the rest of the world and if 6.5 billion people aspire to our standard of living, the burden on the planet will be overwhelming.
'Carbon neutral is not a licence to pollute. So this year I have cut my flying in half.' David Suzuki
But 30 million Canadians making small changes in our lives -- rejecting disposability, consuming less and more judiciously, driving less, etc. -- can nevertheless be very significant with no diminution in the quality of our lives.
Can we change to a society that covets clean air, clean water, clean soil, clean energy and a diversity of other species as our highest priority, or will be choose to carry on with business as usual because we are unwilling to jeopardize the economy or sacrifice our hyper-consumption?
Whatever we choose, nature will ultimately impose the final limits and conditions on our survival and well-being.
We all live with contradictions. In 2000, I purchased the first Prius sold in Canada. I bicycle around Vancouver, and I take the bus or walk even more.
But I fly, and as George Monbiot's book Heat points out, air travel is the one major activity that cannot be changed to meet the large reduction of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions necessary if we are to keep global temperature from rising more than 2C this century.
To bring human-generated GHGs into balance with the biosphere's capacity to absorb them, Monbiot asserts we must reduce our annual output of GHGs to an average of one tonne per person on the planet. At present, the average Canadian generates 20 tonnes and, according to Monbiot, a round-trip flight from Toronto to London produces one tonne per passenger.
To move toward balance with our surroundings, we have to spread information and knowledge, and that has been my rationale for continuing to fly. But it's not a satisfying one because I know people can rationalize just about anything.
For more than three years, I have been flying gold-standard "carbon neutral" -- that is, for the energy used on my behalf when I fly, I invest in putting 1 1/2 times as much green energy (solar and wind) onto the grid in developing countries like China and India.
The atmosphere is a single entity, and what happens there affects us all. By investing in such countries, we reduce their incentive to build polluting coal-burning plants.
But "carbon neutral" is not a licence to pollute. So this year I have cut my flying in half. I lumped commitments to fulfill several speaking engagements and television work on one trip.
Monbiot points out that short flights produce a disproportionate amount of GHGs because takeoff and landing are the times of greatest energy use. So I take trains between Toronto, Montreal and Ottawa and, although they take longer, I can work and relax and travel from downtown to downtown.
I have declined several invitations to speak abroad. And now I am offering to give speeches to various places but on condition that they be by teleconference. This month, I do my first two teleconference speeches to Australia and I hope that next year, most of my speeches will be from the comfort of a studio in Vancouver where I live.
It means I'll be better off psychically and physically, my family and friends will be pleased and, I hope, Mother Earth will have a slightly reduced burden.
David Suzuki is a broadcaster, scientist and founder of the David Suzuki Foundation: davidsuzuki.org
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
