—based on my earlier commentary or on testimony that you have heard from prior witnesses.
One, data on energy production or consumption should be accompanied by details on its end use. In other words, how is that energy used? A tabular column with this information would allow easy calculation of emissions for CO2, NOx, particulate matter, and other deleterious impacts, which can be mitigated if a specific application is converted to a cleaner source of energy.
Two, there should be more differentiation between electricity and energy. Too many people think electrons are the only game in town, but electricity is a carrier, not an energy. Most is low-carbon hydro or nuclear, and it is only 20% of our national energy mix. That said, watch out for space cooling. Consumption has doubled since 1990 and, thanks to global warming, will continue to grow.
Last week, the IEA warned that space cooling is a critical blind spot in the energy debate.
Three, when tracking electricity, include time of consumption. In Ontario, the price during peak period is double the off-peak rate. This timing detail can facilitate greater adoption of storage, and better grid planning. My house is classified as all electric, but I use less than 10% in peak periods.
Four, I fully support lower carbon emissions, but what do the data say? If all cars in Ontario converted to Teslas, Volts, Priuses, or LEAFs, at current charging efficiency, and drove 18,000 kilometres per year, the resulting demand for fuel is equal to the output of four nuclear reactors. This type of data interpretation is critical to inform our discussion of future energy use and environment.
Five, we should track or estimate non-mainstream renewable energies. One of our oldest and largest energy sources is biomass. How much propane and oil is not combusted thanks to wood stoves? Solar lights are ubiquitous. Passive solar is real energy. Most swimming pools still use solar thermal to heat their water. Again, how much conventional energy is not being consumed because of non-valorized off-grid renewables? We focus on wind turbines and solar panels, both cost-effective technologies, but do not overlook the 80% of energy use that is still high carbon, and which can be displaced relatively easily by thermal renewables.
The ground source heat pump industry is finally explaining that, yes, we need electricity to operate, but we produce fourfold in dispatchable renewable energy from the ground. NRCan estimates our units produced 1.4 billion kilowatt hours in 2010, about 40% of the output from all wind turbines that year. Although smaller than the deep lake water cooling system in downtown Toronto, both towers of the Museum of History are completely space conditioned from the Ottawa River using heat pumps, which most people here do not know.
Six, it would be very difficult to quantify, but please try to track conservation and energy efficiency. Power utilities have set targets. I'm slightly uncomfortable with their methodology, but tracking megawatts and megatherms would benefit all users, as well as save money and emissions.
Seven, reporting national energy data necessitates big numbers with binary prefixes of, “mega”, or, “giga”, but data must also be available in usable formats and common technology if we want real people to have any real concept of their consumption and the environmental impact of their consumption. I used NRCan data to calculate that the city of Ottawa consumes 178 petajoules across all sectors, which I then converted to 50 billion kilowatt hours, and broke down to each end use. No one knows what a BTU or a decajoule is. To compete with the big boys, we must adopt their terminology so we can be compared on an equal level.
I am not suggesting that SI measures be dropped, just that accompanying charts and graphs also display units that people understand, as grocery stores list the price of tomatoes in pounds, and many thermometers still show degrees Fahrenheit.
In summary, I support many of the suggestions others have made to this committee on fine-tuning the sourcing and sharing of energy data. My objective today is to see if we can inject more colour and more value into any and all numbers that are disseminated. The federal exhortation to limit temperature rise to 2°C is a sexy way to sell that concept, but it could encourage some people to turn up their air conditioners to help keep our planet cool.
As the one-tonne challenge showed, nothing is going to happen until I know what a tonne is, how many tonnes I emit, and how I can reduce my load.
Canada has a lot of energy, so most discussion of energy data is also a discussion of carbon data. If you want me to reduce my carbon footprint, let me see how many kilowatt hours of carbon energy I need to stop burning. If relevant data are provided in an actionable format, a person who wants to change and be part of the solution can and will make the right decisions.
I spend too much time massaging complex big data into manageable packages and interpreting energy issues for concerned individuals. If this committee is setting new guidelines for collection and release of national data, I want you to take over that part of my job.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.