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Oilsands and airplanes, pots and kettles: are climate agreements a waste of time?

May 21, 2013
Oilsands and airplanes, pots and kettles: are climate agreements a waste of time?

“If Congress won’t act soon to protect future generations [by reducing greenhouse gas pollution], I will.” Thus spake the U.S. president on February 12 of this year, in his 2013 state of the union speech. Only 77 days earlier, he had signed a bill protecting U.S. airlines from paying a carbon dioxide (CO2) emission fee…

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Today’s coffee, without Ontario nuclear power: a depressing counter-factual look at the brave new green world

May 16, 2013
Today’s coffee, without Ontario nuclear power: a depressing counter-factual look at the brave new green world

My coffeemaker, a 1995-vintage Hamilton-Beach automatic drip filter machine, takes roughly eight minutes to make four cups of coffee. The appliance is rated at 1000 watts (one kilowatt), which means that in those eight minutes it uses roughly 0.133 kilowatt-hours. Of course, I don’t turn…

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Is expensive electricity good? Impoverished Sri Lankans don’t think so

May 15, 2013
Is expensive electricity good? Impoverished Sri Lankans don’t think so

Electricity is an essential component of modern life. Without it we would be quite literally back in medieval times. The island nation of Sri Lanka is striving mightily to emerge from both the literal and figurative medieval times. Its population is around 21.6 million, and…

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Energy and carbon: keeping the natural balance

May 7, 2013
Energy and carbon: keeping the natural balance

Of all the countries on earth, France is the only one with the foresight, confidence, and discipline to have recognized and then immediately implemented the right energy strategy during the…

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Wasting water: Ontario’s Environmental Disconnect of the Day

May 4, 2013
Wasting water: Ontario’s Environmental Disconnect of the Day

Infra-red water faucets are now a fixture (pun intended) in many public washrooms. Everybody appears to have bought in to the conservation mantra: use as little as possible. Chief among…

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Atmospheric carbon approaches “unprecedented” levels, while world ignores Ontario’s unprecedented nuclear-driven carbon reductions

May 2, 2013
Atmospheric carbon approaches “unprecedented” levels, while world ignores Ontario’s unprecedented nuclear-driven carbon reductions

Climate talks in Bonn, Germany kicked off two days ago with a warning from the head of the UN Climate Change body that atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide (CO2) are…

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Solar Soirée in Ottawa: a nuclear-powered anti-nuclear exhortation to use more fossil fuel

April 30, 2013
Solar Soirée in Ottawa: a nuclear-powered anti-nuclear exhortation to use more fossil fuel

A soirée is an evening event, meaning that most soirées held in non-polar latitudes take place at a time when solar photovoltaic devices are not experiencing very many photon interactions…

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Energy and work: saluting those who do the most work, and never stop—even for a second

April 24, 2013
Energy and work: saluting those who do the most work, and never stop—even for a second

Over my 52 years I have tried to stay fit. Years ago, I got into yoga, then hot yoga—that is a challenge, especially when done in a really hot room.…

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On Earth Day, a real present for Mother Earth: 5,500 megawatts of zero-carbon electricity

April 22, 2013

All Bruce Power nuclear reactors are running, as of just this afternoon. This is the first time since 1996 that the plant’s 8 units have all been running, and the…

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Item 1: if Ontario did not have its nuclear generating fleet, last hour’s CO2 emissions would have been AT LEAST:

6,514 metric tons, and the CIPK would have been 394.2 grams

Item 2: Since prorogation of the Ontario legislature on October 15, 2012, provincial gas-fired generating plants have dumped this much CO2 into our air:

6,384,819 metric tons. This is a running total. Every hour, the total increases by the amount of Gas CO2 given in Table 1.

VOTE in today’s poll

Is wood-fired power generation carbon-neutral?

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