The Great White North may be key to promoting energy efficiency

Bob and Doug McKenzie on the set of SCTV.

The War of 1812 is long forgotten.

Few other than history buffs and students know much of the series of bloody battles which pitted what is now Canada against its southern neighbor. Those included the slow slaughter of Creek Indians at the Battle of Horseshoe Bend by then-Col. Andrew Jackson or the Battle of Bladensburg during which British forces captured and torched Washington, D.C.

Now Canada is good buddies with the United States. The country mostly surfaces in the news as being the source of Justin Bieber or, energy-wise, for its rich oil sands in the Athabasca-Wabasca, Peace River and Cold Lake reserves in Alberta. Estimates vary but Oil Sands InfoMine puts the recoverable deposits at about 170 billion barrels, placing Canada just behind Saudi Arabia. That oil is being extracted at a rate of about 1 million barrels a day and is expected to grow to about 4 million barrels by 2020.

Canada's energy rep

Canada's hardly known for its energy efficiency or its embrace of renewables like solar, wind and geothermal. Just ask activist and author Bill McKibben, one of the chief opponents of the Keystone Pipeline, which would send all that "tar" sands oil to the Gulf Coast.

But that could change. On June 21, 2012, Environment Canada and the U.S. Department of Energy released the second part of an ambitious plan outlining how the two countries will jointly advance clean energy technologies. The effort has possibly the least sexy name in clean energy history, dubbed the "U.S.-Canada Clean Energy Dialogue Action Plan II," or CED for short.


The plan renews a 2009 commitment between the United States and Canada to work together on carbon capture and storage technologies, clean and smart electrical grids and clean energy research and development. It also places "a greater emphasis on energy efficiency."

A shift in sentiment?

Peter Kent, Canada's minister of the environment, hailed the move from Rio de Janeiro where led the Canadian delegation at the Rio+20 United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development. "It is our hope that the transformation of our economies and our joint work will identify clean energy solutions that will contribute to making sustainable energy a reality for all," he said.

Tyler Hamilton, a columnist with the Toronto Star, underlines the importance for his country of increasing clean energy investment in a piece about the pro-sustainability stand by the Paris-based International Energy Agency. IEA Executive Director Maria van der Hoeven calls for bold policies that radically transform the world's energy systems and says: "If significant policy action is taken, we can still achieve the huge potential for these technologies to reduce CO2 emissions and boost energy security."

An IEA statement that the alternative is the potential of "locking in high-carbon infrastructure" appears to irk Hamilton. "That’s what many people are worried about, and not just environmentalists," he writes. "They know that the decisions we make today will have a profound impact on the quality of life of our children and their children tomorrow."

Hamilton says certain Canadian cabinet ministers may deem the move to embrace sustainability radical, but "most common sense folk would call it risk management."

Big gains in efficiency

Canada's policy direction -- should it go even a pale green -- likely will have a profound effect on the United States, especially in energy efficiency. Colder Canada can make tremendous progress on improving its existing commercial and industrial buildings and save energy.

The American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy recently released a report that amplifies the importance for utilities of improving building performance. The report, "Three Decades and Counting: A Historical Review and Current Assessment of Electric Utility Energy Efficiency Activity in the States," says the initial concept that energy utilities should pursue electricity savings was a major departure from policies of the past.

"From these early roots, energy efficiency programs for electric utility customers have grown rapidly" to total budgets in 2010 of $4.6 billion for U.S.-based programs, the study says.

ACEEE says new policies and programs have driven down energy consumption, shown the environmental and economic benefits and demonstrated a "new era of energy efficiency ... marked by continued expansion and innovation."

Green gas in BC

That would be good for Canada, especially in light of the recent controversy caused by British Columbia Premier Christy Clark when she "redefined" three liquified natural gas plants in the northern region of her province as green energy. "This is consistent with our comprehensive natural gas strategy and it's also consistent with our efforts to use renewable energy," she said, according to Tamsyn Burgmann of the Canadian Press.

Gordon Hamilton of the Vancouver Sun reports that Clark's ruling means "gas-fired power plants used to make LNG or to propel gas along pipelines will be considered green energy, a move that will enable the oil and gas industry to produce cheap electricity without compromising the requirements of the Clean Energy Act."

All the more reason to focus on energy efficiency while that issue works itself out. Maybe renewables will get more attention, too.

In the meantime, Canadian businesses and local governments will likely be hiring energy managers, instituting energy audits and carrying out a number of energy efficiency-related savings programs.

Nothing says warm like efficiency

Say a guy in Whitehorse, Yukon Territories, adds a premium efficiency heater, bolsters insulation, upgrades his ducting and eliminates all air leaks in his business. In addition, he installs other measures recommended by his energy auditors. His workers and customers feel the effects and say how great they are, especially when the thermometer dips to 40 or 50 below zero.

Changing attitudes and policies would work wonders to cut down the immense heating bills that many in more northern latitudes face every month. And lower operating costs can translate into additional profits (or continued existence) during tough economic times.

Anecdotes of successful retrofits and programs in the land of the maple leaf will leak down south, and that would benefit both regions.

Bob and Doug

So, eh? The reason I got into this post had very little to do with anything serious. I just had Bob and Doug McKenzie on the brain. I blame it on Canada Day. That devolved into thinking about Geddy Lee joining the two comedians on the song "Take Off" and wearing woolies in the winter.

Cold is something I'm very familiar with. Now I'm a pro at dealing with extreme heat, too. And I'll tell you, I'd take the cold any day. Maybe not 40 below. That just bites any way you look at it.

Bob and Doug of SCTV fame had their streak of popularity. One skit involved a game of beer hunter. They did drink a lot of beer. But anyway, here's a bit.

Seeing as it has been 200 years since that little dispute between the States and former UK territories, it's possible this next era will be one of prosperity and clean air. Sounds like a good reason to fry up some backbacon.

Kiss off Keystone, oil ought to give clean energy a shot

For the past couple of years, I've been imagining this scenario: What if an oil company ventured big time into solar, wind, biofuels, hydrogen and wave energy?

Imagine the public goodwill such a move would engender. It also offers strategic investment diversity. Communications teams could play up the green angle, talk up the environmental benefits and start referring to their employer as a full-spectrum energy company.

The ex-journalists in the press office could start firing off straight-forward missives. Something like: "We support clean energy but realize we must pursue a balanced approach. Oil will be with us for generations, but we must use it wisely, taking advantage of energy efficiency and renewables whenever possible."

Is it far-fetched? Certainly. But who better? BP had 2011 third quarter earnings of $5.33 billion, a decline of 3.7 percent from the previous year. Royal Dutch Shell earned $7 billion in the same period, double from a year earlier. And Chevron topped them both with $7.8 billion, more than double from a year earlier.

A Chevron allocation of half its earnings to solar and wind would rock Wall Street.

Oil for renewables

Clean energy won't happen by itself. Like many of the up-and-coming energy sources that came before, it needs favorable government policy, investment and dedicated research and development.

The oil industry can relate. Heck, listen to any politician talk about curtailing regulation and opening up opportunity for exploratory drilling or shale oil extraction. "Everybody needs a little help," or so says the grime-encrusted sign the homeless guy holds up near the mall.

The oil industry could easily reframe the good science/bad science debate regarding climate change now raging in political circles. Major investment into solar like the deal by Google and Kohlberg Kravis Roberts to buy four photovoltaic power plants near Sacramento from Recurrent Energy could make a substantive dent.

It's unlikely. Probably too risky. Oil industry types like to stick to a business model with a certain payoff.

Soviet-era parable

Big Oil's unwillingness to bend reminds me of a parable I heard in the former Soviet Union a couple years after the fall of the Berlin Wall.

In June 1991 while working for the now-defunct Anchorage Times, photographer Doug Van Reeth and I hire an older woman in Khabarovsk, Russia as a translator. Our editor wanted a story on entrepreneurs to reflect the region's emergence from decades under the repressive centrally controlled regime.

Our translator, who I'll call Olga and was one of the very few in her once-closed city to speak English, explains that yes, indeed, her city did have some entrepreneurs but they would be difficult to find.

We ask why. Olga sighs and looks at Doug and I like we are a little slow.

"This is Russia," she says. "For years, everybody earned the same salary. Nothing. A doctor was paid the same as a janitor. We all had small apartments. We stood in the same lines to get fresh meat."

Ugly American journalists

OK, Doug and I say, still not getting it. We have just two days to pull together interviews chronicling the new capitalists, and we feel a little desperate. Our Alaska Airlines flight is the first on a new international route, and my stories and Doug's photos would unveil to our state the once mysterious Cold War foe.

But we come up with nothing. We had just gone through a bustling open-air market, where people sold everything from pirated compact discs, electronics, produce and baked goods. Nobody would talk to us. One grizzled character even raised his arms and shouted what I believe were expletives at Olga while pointing in our direction. Even the shoppers gave us the evil eye after that.

We sit on a park bench nearby and Olga says, "This is a communist country. If one man has more than his neighbor, it is considered wrong."

Then Olga tells us this little story. I'm a little foggy on the details but here's the gist: A man works hard on a little garden he maintains in the country, earning enough to buy a goat. This goat produces milk that feeds his family, making his children strong. Food is rationed then and hard to come by. People stand in long lines for hours just to get a chunk of cheese or loaf of bread. He sells the extra milk to supplement his salary at the factory.

Soviet entrepreneur

The man lives in a tiny apartment but keeps the goat on his dacha, a postage stamp of land just outside the city. He must visit the goat in the morning and night. She soon gives him two kids. In a couple years, he has four goats and is making good money off milk and vegetables. His children are healthy, and his wife is happy.

However, his neighbors don't like his changing fortunes. They want what he has. But rather than starting their own gardens and getting their own goats, the solve it Soviet style.

They beat the guy up, burn his garden and kill his goats. "You're no better than we are," they say.

The parable is roughly the same as Nickolai Gogol's "The Overcoat," which I devoured as a grade-schooler. I mention this to Olga and she smiles and nods.

Sticking with the status quo

The neighbors in the story remind me of the oil industry. They're secure with the status quo and wary of change. Rather than encourage the pursuit of other sources of industry, they'd prefer to stick with the familiar.

That short-sightedness didn't do much for the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. When President Reagan said, "Tear down that wall," he knew it was already full of cracks.

Lobbyists for the fossil-fuel industry aren't looking too far beyond the next election. That short-term view may hamstring Big Oil and Big Coal at some point, especially as the international cry for curbs on carbon dioxide production increases and weather patterns continue to change.

Cracks are forming in our fossil-fuel economy, too. Added costs of extraction for oil, natural gas and coal boost viability of renewable energy. And people generally are getting sick of polluted air and the illness it brings.

Rather than kill the goat, the oil industry could buy a flock of them and maybe convince its friends in Congress that favorable policy for his new green ventures would be beneficial economically and -- heaven forbid -- environmentally.

Two decades to clean air

In fact, a new study by Stanford professor Mark Z. Jacobson and University of California, Davis researcher Mark A. Delucchi says the world can be fully powered by alternative energy in 20 to 40 years with existing technology and at about the same cost as conventional energy.

"We're really looking at trying to power the entire world, eliminating the 2.5 million to 3 million air pollution deaths every year and all global warming," Jacobson says.

The researchers acknowledge it will be a massive undertaking, requiring "the societal and political will to make it happen."

Others also say it can be done. So let's tear down that wall between new and conventional energy sources.

Loren Steffy, a business columnist at the Houston Chronicle, puts it this way: "We need to actively conserve and boost energy efficiency, develop renewables and promote domestic production of conventional fuels." He says if the United States enacts policies to encourage that, we wouldn’t become energy independent, but "might prevent ourselves from being held hostage by rising prices and dwindling available supply."

Back in the USSR

Doug and I finally find our entrepreneurs the day before we were to leave. We meet them quietly and promise nobody in the city would learn their names. Olga introduces us to an attorney who sets up joint ventures. He meets us at his small apartment, introduces us to his wife and young son and talks with us for about an hour after making sure we are OK. He serves vodka flavored with some sort of super-hot pepper.

The attorney gives us the name of a "businessman," who we meet the next day. "Be careful," he says. Olga translates, frowning.

Our businessman turns out to be a great guy, personable and self-deprecating. I hit it off with him immediately. Olga declines our offer to translate. We find another who couldn't speak English as well. The businessman introduces us to artists, craftsmen, restaurateurs and small-time manufacturers. With his introduction, they treat us like long-lost relatives.

Doug shoots pictures. I collect interviews for a half dozen stories that would run for a week in the paper.

"An offer he can't refuse"

Our businessman then gives us an intricately carved piece of ivory about 18 inches long of a native man and sled dog team. We figure it is walrus tusk and respectfully decline. It was about then we deduce that our friend runs the rather large contingent of hookers at the Intourist Hotel and travels in a three-car caravan. His Mercedes stand out in a city where the other nice cars are shiny Ladas, a Russian staple based on an old Fiat platform.

We figure he's the Don Corleone of Khabarovsk. Twice his representatives bring the ivory back, trying in Russian to convince us to take it, the last time right after we clear customs and are about to board the plane.

We ask an ivory dealer in Anchorage the next week how much the piece would be worth. She says about $12,000.