To date the government has offered no incentives to commercial businesses to invest in individual renewable energy.

I’ve spent the week doing a lot of research on renewable energy, specifically wind energy. I was amazed at the responses I was getting from business owners, particularly those in ideal wind zones.

The initial set up cost is so high that it is complete barrier to entry in the renewable energy sector.

But wait didn’t we hear from the government through the media that a large portion was to come from individual, renewable energy investment?

It got me thinking about the whole triple bottom line approach to things; evaluating something from an economic, environmental and social perspective. Yes the government wants to improve our energy grid and reduce green house emissions, but it cannot be at the economic expense of businesses.

It can cost upwards of $4million for a single wind turbine

That’s a lot of money. And businesses these days just don’t have that kind of money to invest. Most are fearful that this economic downturn is not quite over yet; I’m on the fence with that one.

Here are some suggestions for getting these programs going:

1. Government should offer NO interest loans to companies to invest in renewable energy.
2. There should be co-sharing of the long-term costs – the government still comes out ahead, this way they don’t have to invest in all of it.
3. More R&D is needed to figure out how to lower the cost of production – although as more people the demand the technologies, economies of scale will prevail and costs will naturally decrease
4. Charge people the ‘real’ cost for electricity. This one is a little controversial, but there is some evidence that we are not paying enough for our electricity. Renewables become much more economically attractive if the price of electricity doubles or even triples.

Renewables are part of the future, lets just make them part of the near future.

As much as we try in North America, it is almost impossible to give up driving. Not because we aren’t trying but because we lack the infrastructure to get anywhere without a car.

Tips for efficiency

Thanks to Sierra Magazine’s The Green Life: Daily Tips for Living Well and Doing Good for providing these simple tips.

I think the most important tip of all is to drive a fuel efficient car. With the ‘cash for clunkers’ program in the US individuals can trade in their old, gas-guzzling, monsters for smaller more efficient cars; unfortunately at this time Canada does not have a similar program, but Chrysler Canada is offering an incentive.

The reality is everyone does have to drive at times. By reducing the amount we drive and following these simple tips we can all help to reduce the footprints of our cars.

If you think about how much would it really cost to replace all your traditional light bulbs in your house for the energy-efficient, earth friendly ones? Likely not a lot and add to that the savings from the energy reduction for the light bulb’s demand; a CFL uses 75% less energy than a traditional bulb. Plus CFL’s have a much longer average life span, in the range of 6 to 15 times longer than a traditional light bulb. Phrasing it that way how can you not afford to change your bulbs.

The traffic in the city has been a cause for much of the stress in my days, and there is lots going on in my life right now. I cannot believe the amount of construction and the lack of organization – Toronto shouldn’t paralyze the city by allowing construction on parallel routes. The City also needs to consider eliminating on street parking on routes where it is impossible for a car to travel adjacent to the parked cars.

With over 4 million people living in the GTA and a lacking, inefficient transit system it is essential to have a working road infrastructure system.

Here are my suggestions for moving traffic more efficiently in Toronto.

1. Construction can occur during the day – City officials should coordinate construction programs such that parallel routes are unaffected to allow traffic to more efficiently.
2. Consider night construction: I think in the city you can do ‘noisy’ construction until 9pm. If you do all the ‘loud’ stuff between 7 and 9 you could place concrete, asphalt, etc the less noisy activities. This way traffic disruptions are minimized
3. Eliminate on Street parking on regular two lane, major roads: Think of Bayview Avenue south of Eglinton to Davisville. There is always traffic there because people can park on the street. It’s time this came to an end our traffic volumes demand it
4. Construct more and bigger parking lots at some of the major transit stops. Promote people to be multi-modal.
5. Allow people to ride their bicycle at less than 15km/hr on sidewalks on major roads. I would bike to school if I didn’t have to ride on Wilson after getting off the subway to get to work. Wilson, which runs parallel to the 401, is busy and scary, it is impossible to ride a bike on it safely

I’m sure I’ve forgotten many ideas here, this really was more of a way for me to vent

As reported by Steve Munro here is what we can expect:

• Peak bus loading standards are reduced by about 10% (a route will be considered to be “full” with a lower average load).  This triggers service improvements on many routes, but loading generally has been rising and there is already a backlog of changes waiting to begin.  This affects 62 routes with a total of 89 more am and 65 pm peak buses.
• Off peak bus standards, as well as streetcar and rapid transit standards for all periods, are unchanged at, effectively, a seated load.  Note that this is an average over an hour and local variations will occur.
• Routes with services less frequent than 30 minutes will be improved to the new 30-minute maximum headway.  This affects 26 routes.
• All routes will operate seven days a week during all periods until at least 1:00 am.  This affects about 86 routes.

Routes Affected:

The full list of routes affected can be found here. As you can see it’s a lot of routes!

I’ll test out this new plan tonight. One of my usual routes is the 501 Queen, notorious for not running on schedule and breaking down. I’ll keep you posted on my experience tonight.

Meet blackle.com, the energy efficient search engine from google. Developed in 2005 by Heap Media, an Australian Company, Blackle is a reminder that we all need to be more energy efficient. Completely dependant on our computers it is the little things that count.

Everytime you load a page from blackle you are given an energy efficiency tip. A list of energy saving tips can be found here.

Again it is about doing the little things each day … dress for the weather, turn out your lights, walk instead of drive, and use an energy efficient search engine.

My friend Natalie is obsessed with roundabouts. And why not? They improve road safety, keep traffic moving more efficiently and reduce both air and noise pollution.

North America has been slower to adapt the roundabout, our focus has been the signalized intersection. But in Europe the roundabout is widespread.

Ontario is about to start construction on its first roundabout on a provincial highway. This bold move should pave the way for future roundabouts across the province. Although it will take some getting used to I think change sets the stage for breaking away from the ‘norms’ in Ontario.

Our drivers are too complacent and if a roundabout helps to decrease the number of accidents and increase the efficiency of vehicles than we are all the better for it. I look forward to a future in Ontario with more roundabouts.