Tag Archives: Solar energy

Cost of Climate Change, Energy

Carrie Saxifrage’s Climate Mitigation Presentation To The SRD Board

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Cortes Island author Carrie Saxifrage made a climate mitigation presentation at the May 22 SRD Board meeting. This is an abridged version of that talk. 

She began with a simple admission, “This is my first time. Thank you so much for having me. If I were to do it again, I’d do it a little differently, but here we are. We’re going to whisk through some slides, and I’m going to emphasize what I think is most important.”

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Arts, Environment

A UBC Professor Explains What To Look For At COP 28 & Why He Does Not Believe In Overshoot

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With the COP 28 only a little more than a week away, the University of British Columbia held a press conference about key issues. In the breakout session, Cortes Currents asked Dr Simon Donner a former COP delegate and professor from the Department of Geography and Institute for Resources, Environment and Sustainability, two questions.

  1. Many people on Cortes and Quadra Islands believe in the Overshoot theory. What do you say to people who believe that Climate Change is a symptom of a much larger problem: there are too many of us living on a planet with rapidly diminishing resources?
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Energy, Indigenous Nations

Heightened need for clean energy prompts BC Hydro to put call out for new sources

By Mina Kerr-Lazenby, North Shore News, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

BC Hydro will be issuing a call for new sources of renewable, emission-free electricity, with applications to open in the spring of next year.

The call out, the first to come from BC Hydro in 15 years, has been prompted by an accelerated need for clean energy, said Premier David Eby on Thursday, at a media event at the Tsleil-Waututh Nation administration building in North Vancouver.

Eby said an additional 3,000 gigawatt hours per year of renewable energy, enough electricity to power 270,000 homes in B.C, is needed by 2028 – three years earlier than previously estimated.

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Energy, Politics

Why Didn’t the US Develop Solar Energy 45 Years Ago?

The following interview was originally broadcast on August 20, 2014, when this website was called the ECOreport and all of my long distance interviews were over Skype.

Solar technology was invented in the United States and the world’s first solar company was American. The initial race to develop wind energy was closer, but once again the first prototype was built in the U.S.  

In 1978 Dr Alan Hoffman handed President Jimmy Carter a plan to fast track the adoption of renewable energy.

Only Ronald Reagan was elected in 1980 and for the next three decades, Hoffman watched as other nations took over the leadership in developing renewables.

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Energy

Solar Panels on Quadra Elementary School

It has been a month since the Quadra ICAN Energy Efficiency Team achieved its goal of having 14 solar panels installed on the roof of Quadra Elementary School. 

According to Mike Gall, one of the participants in this project, they will only supply about 5% of the school’s needs – but that is not their purpose. 

This solar array is meant to be an educational tool. Students and the general public, will soon be able to go online and monitor the performance of the solar panels that a typical house on Quadra or Cortes Island would need. 

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