Author: Karen Kelly

“Smart Meters” Installed to Save Energy

A growing number of electricity customers in Ontario are
using so-called smart meters, which will charge more for electricity
used during peak hours of the day. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s
Karen Kelly reports:

Transcript

A growing number of electricity customers in Ontario are using so-called smart
meters, which
will charge more for electricity used during peak hours of the day. The Great Lakes
Radio
Consortium’s Karen Kelly reports:


Right now, electricity customers in Ontario pay the same amount to run their
dishwasher at 6 p.m.
– during peak hours – as they do at ten in the morning. But it costs the province
more to produce
that power during peak times.


The heavy demand is a strain on Ontario’s aging electricity plants. So, the
province plans to
install smart electricity meters in every home and business over the next five years.


Ted Gruetzner is with the Ontario Ministry of Energy.


“It allows people to track their energy use depending on the time of day and monitor
when they’re
using power so they can turn their lights off at certain times or use their ovens or
dryers at
different times of day.”


That’s because electricity used during peak hours will cost consumers more. Ontario
is the first
jurisdiction in North America to use this system.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Karen Kelly.

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Province Seeks to Recycle E-Waste

  • Ontario has proposed a new recycling plan for electronic waste in an effort to conserve materials and reduce pollution. (Photo by Eylem Culculoglu)

Old computers, televisions and stereos may soon be
found in recycling bins across Ontario. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Karen Kelly reports:

Transcript

Old computers, televisions and stereos might soon be found in recycling
bins across Ontario. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Karen Kelly reports:


Last year, 157 thousand tonnes of electronic waste ended up in Canadian
landfills.


The Ontario government plans to send that waste to recycling plants instead.
It will require electronics manufacturers to devise a recycling plan for their
own products – things like CD players, microwaves and even power tools – and then
help pay for it. John Steele is a spokesman for the Ontario environment ministry.


“Our goal is to reduce the amount of electronic waste that enters a landfill site.
Once something enters a landfill site, for all intents and purposes, it can not be
recycled or reused. It’s a waste of a resource as far as the Ministry of the Environment
is concerned.”


It’s also a source of pollution. Many electronics contain toxins like lead and mercury.
Steele says the plan will be modelled after recycling agreements the province already has
with newspaper, soft drink and pizza box manufacturers.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Karen Kelly.

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Is Sewage an Untapped Energy Source?

  • Who would've thought that sewage could produce electricity? The University of Toronto's David Bagley did. (photo by Davide Gugliemo)

A Toronto researcher says most communities are underestimating a potential source of cheap electricity – raw sewage. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Karen Kelly reports:

Transcript

A Toronto researcher says most communities are underestimating a potential source
of cheap electricity – raw sewage. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Karen Kelly reports:


University of Toronto professor David Bagley collected waste water at a North
Toronto water treatment plant. He took the sewage into his lab, dried it and
then burned the solids to see how much energy they produced. He estimates the
energy produced from sewage at three treatment plants could produce more than
100 megawatts of electricity. That could be enough to keep a small town going
for a year. But Bagley says few take advantage of this resource.


“Our measurements show that there’s enough energy that we should be able to
completely offset the electricity needed to run the plant, and have extra
left over the send back to to the grid.”


Bagley finds communities are reluctant to invest in the equipment they’d
need to convert sewage into power. But he’s hoping to to design a cheaper
and more efficient system so more people can get the most out of their sewage.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Karen Kelly.

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Canada Falling Short on Kyoto Enforcement?

  • Smog hovers over Toronto as some at the Sierra Club of Canada worry about the government's commitment to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. (Photo by John Hornak)

Russia recently signed the Kyoto Protocol, jumpstarting the agreement in countries around the world. But in Canada, environmental groups fear their government isn’t doing enough to enforce the protocol. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Karen Kelly has more:

Transcript

Russia recently signed the Kyoto Protocol, jumpstarting the agreement in countries around the world. But in Canada, environmental groups fear their government isn’t doing enough to enforce the protocol. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Karen Kelly reports:


The Canadian government has agreed to reduce Canada’s greenhouse gas emissions by about 20 percent over the next eight years. And the government reiterated that commitment in the recent Speech from the Throne. It’s the Canadian equivalent of a State of the Union.


But John Bennett of the Sierra Club of Canada is concerned that there are still no laws that would force industry to reduce its emissions.


“Either we have the most naive politicians in the world, or they’re not very smart because they talk about cooperation, but industry does not want to go ahead and do this.”


So far, the Liberal government has tried to rely on voluntary agreements to reduce emissions. Officials have promised that no one industry or region of the country would bear a greater burden than others.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Karen Kelly.

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Canadian Groups Concerned About Water Withdrawals

  • Groups like the Pembina Institute worry about water sustainability as the Great Lakes receive little new water and government officials both in Canada and in the U.S. discuss Annex 2001. (photo by Jenn Borton)

Canadian environmental groups are concerned that a new plan to regulate water withdrawals from the Great Lakes basin would allow too much water to be removed. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Karen Kelly reports:

Transcript

A Toronto researcher says most communities are underestimating a potential source
of cheap electricity – raw sewage. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Karen Kelly reports:


University of Toronto professor David Bagley collected waste water at a North
Toronto water treatment plant. He took the sewage into his lab, dried it and
then burned the solids to see how much energy they produced. He estimates the
energy produced from sewage at three treatment plants could produce more than
100 megawatts of electricity. That could be enough to keep a small town going
for a year. But Bagley says few take advantage of this resource.


“Our measurements show that there’s enough energy that we should be able to
completely offset the electricity needed to run the plant, and have extra
left over the send back to to the grid.”


Bagley finds communities are reluctant to invest in the equipment they’d
need to convert sewage into power. But he’s hoping to to design a cheaper
and more efficient system so more people can get the most out of their sewage.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Karen Kelly.

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Tragedy Prompts New Drinking Water Proposal

Environmental groups are praising a proposed law that aims to protect the sources of Ontario’s drinking water. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Karen Kelly reports:

Transcript

Environmental groups are praising a proposed law that aims to protect the sources of
Ontario’s drinking water. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Karen Kelly reports:


In the year 2000, seven people died after drinking tainted water in Walkerton, Ontario.
Ontario passed laws to improve the testing of tap water.


Now the province is proposing a new law to help prevent the sources of drinking water
from becoming polluted in the first place.


It plans to create special committees that will oversee protection in the different regions.
Paul Muldoon of the Canadian Environmental Law Association describes it as a step
forward.


“If it’s completed in the direction its going it would be one of the best around and
certainly a thousand times better than we had before Walkerton’s tragedy.”


However, Muldoon and others say the province still must find a way to fund these
protections. They want Ontario to introduce water meters so that industry and residents
pay for the water they use.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Karen Kelly.

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Essay: Mourning the Destruction of a Flower Garden

It’s the time of year when many gardens reach their peak – and even grow a little bit wild. That has made one essayist’s loss all the more painful. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Karen Kelly remembers a special garden:

Transcript

It’s the time of year when many gardens reach their peak –
and even grow a little bit wild. That has made one essayist’s loss all the more painful.
The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Karen Kelly remembers a special garden:


It looked like a crime scene.


Everything in the garden was gone.


The morning glories no longer crowded the sidewalk. Sunflowers were cut down in their
prime. There was a hole instead of the lilac. And one stubby trunk – where someone had
hacked off the sand cherry tree.


We started the garden just over a year ago. I found out I was pregnant and next thing I
know, my husband is incubating black-eyed susans on top of the refrigerator.


He seemed to have that nesting instinct. Suddenly, he was spending every weekend at
the nursery. He came home with tools and soil and plants and even trees.


The scraggly yard in front of our apartment building was being transformed.
For me, it was just what I needed – a patch of nature in the middle of the city.


This summer, the flowers came back. And we shared the garden with our 6 month old.
We were pointing out the buds on the trees, and the bees buzzing around.


We didn’t tend it much as we got ready to move. And it grew pretty wild.
There were flowers, but also grass and weeds.


Two weeks after we moved, all that life was torn up. Eleven different kinds of plants – all
carefully chosen and tended. We visited them every time we walked in or out of the
building.


I can’t imagine the person who could just rip flowers out of the ground. It was a tiny,
imperfect oasis. Now, it’s just dirt.


Ironically, the only thing that survived was a plum tree we planted on the city property –
between the sidewalk and the road. We thought city workers might pull it up – since it
wasn’t official. Instead, they plunked an iron gate around it and now, every week, a city
truck comes to water it.


We always laugh about how it survived its brush with the city officials.


Now, that tree has proved it really is a survivor – but all that perennial color that was
once a backdrop to it is gone. It was not just a bit of our past, but an investment in the
future as well.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Karen Kelly.

Online News Versus the Sunday Paper

A new study compares reading the news online to having the paper dropped at your door – and it has no good news for lovers of the Sunday paper. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Karen Kelly reports:

Transcript

A new study compares reading the news online to having the paper dropped at your door – and it
has no good news for lovers of the Sunday paper. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Karen
Kelly reports:

Mike Toffel is a researcher at UC Berkeley, where he reads the newspaper on a personal digital
assistant – or PDA. That’s a handheld computer. He wondered how much carbon dioxide that
activity released, compared to reading a hard copy of the paper. So, he looked at the design, use
and disposal of a PDA versus having the New York Times delivered from a printer 50 miles away.
Toffel found that production and delivery of the paper released more heat trapping gases.


“Reading the news for over a year on your PDA emits about 5 kilograms of carbon dioxide per
year whereas with a newspaper, depending on the scenario, it’s 160 to 700 kilograms per year.”


Toffel says he doesn’t really expect folks to start curling up with their computers on Sunday
morning. But his study may prompt people to read other things online, and use less energy in the
process.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Karen Kelly.

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Polluting Province Shoots for Cleaner Air

Environmental groups are praising an Ontario plan to crack down on the pollution that contributes to smog. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Karen Kelly reports:

Transcript

Environmental groups are praising an Ontario plan to crack down on the pollution that contributes to smog. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Karen Kelly reports:

Ontario has announced new limits on the amount of nitrogen oxide and sulfur dioxide that can be released into the atmosphere. The two are major ingredients in smog and acid rain.


Quentin Chiotti is with the environmental group Pollution Probe. He says the emissions reductions will be significant, and he sees it as an important step in dealing with a serious health problem.


“From an air pollution and smog perspective, that continues to cause quite significant health impacts. In Ontario, estimated to be about 2,000 premature deaths annually and upwards of 1 billion to 10 billion dollars to the Ontario economy and health care system.”


The new plan is modeled after regulations in the US, but covers a larger number of industries. Ontario’s industrial sector is consistently rated among the worst polluters in North America.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Karen Kelly.

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Hotter, Drier Climate in Region’s Future?

A new study predicts that water levels in the Great Lakes could drop significantly over the next 50 years. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Karen Kelly reports:

Transcript

A new study predicts that water levels in the Great Lakes could drop significantly over
the next 50 years. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Karen Kelly reports:


Researchers at Environment Canada say global warming could cause shorelines to drop
by more than three feet over the next five decades. The findings were based on computer
models, which are predicting hotter and drier conditions in the region’s future. David Fay
is coauthor of the study. He says a drop in water levels would affect many people,
starting with landowners.


“If they have a dock on their property, the water depth of the dock would go down. It
would certainly impact commercial navigation… quite significant environmental changes
are possible.”


Fay says the study offers predictions, not guarantees. But it does suggest that Lakes
Michigan and Huron and the St. Lawrence River would be most affected.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Karen Kelly.

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