A Healthy Environment
When you envision a healthy, natural, and thriving environment in Red Deer and area how do you see people fitting into and living that vision? What relationship will we have with the air, the water and the land and how is that different from now?
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- Forums:
Keeping Red Deer Green and Healthy
Red Deer has many natural amenities and an ecosystem where we our in frequent contact with wildlife and nature. I believe we, as a community, are in tune with our environment and want to keep our community healthy and clean. I think the improvements made to our recreation facilities, such as the renovations to the G.H. Dawe Centre are great, but we can do even better. I believe we should have a 50m pool, and an improved trail system.
One area that we can improve drastically is litter control. I think there should be heavy fines for those caught littering and possibly more accessible garbage bins so people can dispose of their litter more easily.
The environmental technology we use should make sense for the environment we live in. For example, if the return on investment (ROI) for geo-thermal technology is 5 years in Red Deer, whereas the ROI for solar is 30 years, than it would make financial sense to allocate more of our resources into implementing geo-thermal technology. I would be interested to see what our local environmental experts say in regards to what types of technology are most appropriate for our city.
Best Regards,
Chris Stephan - For City Council
We can do better!
As a society as a whole we can do better and I think each year we do. We can do more but it takes leadership and vision to design with green roofs, solar panels, eco friendly drainage systems, using alternative heat and energy forms. I support the efforts made thus far and each year we will need to improve upon them.
Visit electdawson.com for more about my ideas.
Jeffrey Dawson
We can do better
I agree that Red Deer can build on its good history of environmental preservation.
I’d like to suggest that the City seriously consider “going off-grid” in the same way that the City of Calgary is rapidly doing with its own city-owned utility ENMAX. They are developing natural gas turbine electrical generators, coupled with district heating. The gas turbines are much more efficient and produce less carbon that the dirty coal fired electricity we use now. Since they start and stop quickly, they also provide the flexibility to use wind power sources that the coal fired plants cannot accommodate.
The City of Edmonton has instituted a grant program so homeowners can install photo-voltaic solar collectors so they can generate electricity.
The Alberta Utility Commission has just wrapped up a hearing into developing a smart grid which if properly implemented, could facilitate these types of developments. Unfortunately the hearing was dominated by the old coal fired electrical generators and their friends in the big transmission sector. The City’s submission was rather weak in my opinion.
Isn’t it time for Red Deer to protect itself from being tied to 1960’s dirty coal electricity as other jurisdictions, even in Alberta, are doing?
By the way, both Calgary and Medicine Hat make bundles of money for their cities by owning and controlling their own utilities.
Ken Larsen
Interesting
Ken,
Thank you for enlightening me on some initiatives occurring regards to self reliance for our own energy. When Joffre was expanding and built their own electric generation facility the City of Red Deer did own their own electric utility and I suggested we contact Nova and see if we could become a partner so we could generate our own electricity, at the time Council and administration had no interest to investigate. At that time the province also forced us to sell our electric utility or spin it off as a separate corporation which is what Calgary did by forming Enmax. Medicine Hat was given an exemption to this rule because they owned gas fields and generation facilities already. Red Deer actually was served a raw deal in this regard by the province and the whole electrical deregulation strategy backfired and cost us as taxpayers millions of dollars to the benefit of Enmax and others.
I would like to meet with you and learn more about your ideas as I believe they have merit provided the province permits us to take such a move.
Jeffrey Dawson
Visit electdawson.com for more about my ideas.
Paul Harris - distributed power grid.
Ken,
You raise many good points that people need to understand and pay attention to. Preparing for a future that will certainly have major challenges requires that we all think and work together completely differently than we do now. The biggest challange we have with electricity is getting it to our homes, factories, and offices when we need it. Currently the majority of our energy is produced by coal fire plants located quite some distance from our need. That technology is dirty and is contributing to serious environmental damage.
I was at a presentation recently given by Gary Holden, the CEO of Enmax Energy. He indicated that when all of the factors are considered approximately 70% of the energy produced by these methods is lost by the time it reaches us.
We need to work hard in this city to a create way of producing energy close to our need. Other communities have started. One of the most promising strategies is microgeneration, which allows individual property and business owners to create power on site or nearby. It means the establishment of a distributed power grid which everyone can participate in.
Here is an interesting article that gives a bit more information.
http://www.climatechangecentral.com/publications/c3-views/january-2009/micro-generation-small-power-a-big-impact
I fully intend to find ways to make a distributed power grid a reality, and to enable microgeneration for our citizens. This will take more than encouraging people to install green roofs and solar panels. We'll have to work together with the utility companies to create the policy and framework that will make this a benefit and an affordable option for all. I think we can be leaders in this work. It's going to take innovation, creativity, and collaboration. We must start from the position of "yes, it can be done, and must be."
There are great examples out there that are financially sound and provide quick payback. I'd be very interested in exploring these ideas with other councillors who understand the importance and complexity of environmental issues and also understand the importance of sound and successful business practises.
Thanks again Ken for bringing this into the election arena.
To anyone who reads this, please feel free to contact me. To learn more about me and my platform, I invite you to visit my website at www.paulharrisforcouncil.ca and to follow me on FB at www.facebook.com/harris4rd or on Twitter at twitter.com/harris4rd.
Of course you may also drop by Sunworks for a coffee and a chat. I look forward to meeting you in person.
Paul Harris.
Paths To A Healthy Environment
I feel that the path to a healthier environment is to design Cities as a series of as self contained villages with green spaces and trails contenting each of them and a minimum of vehicle roads. The various “villages” would have all of basic amenities within walking distance such as grocery stores, medical clinics, community recreation areas, and other infrastructure that society deems necessary. These district villages would have adequate bus stops with all-weather shelters to connect them to other district villages and larger community facilities such as hospitals, high schools, fair grounds and so forth. This kind of design would allow citizens to go about their daily lives without the need to use vehicles for many daily tasks. Our family was fortunate enough to live in areas in Red Deer where we were able to walk to many of the places that we needed to go to. In fact, for the first 17 years of my life our family was able to live happily without a vehicle. I am therefore a big supporter of active transportation which is not only good for our environment and also our physical well being.
I would support any initiatives that would protect or improve our land, air and water. In particular, I have high hopes for the Plasco waste to energy project. If this project succeeds there will be no need for traditional landfills.
http://www.plascoenergygroup.com/?Central_Waste_Management_Commission,_Red_Deer,_Alberta,_Canada