REMEDIAL ACTION

By Charles Rhodes, Xylene Power Ltd.

GLOSSARY OF TERMS

REMEDIAL STEPS:
1. All levels of government must act to eliminate the combustion of fossil fuels, regardless of the perceived cost and economic consequences. In applications where use of carbon is essential biocarbon should be used. This change in priorities is difficult for many people to accept, particularly those that are opposed to nuclear power, higher electricity prices and higher transportation and heating fuel prices.

2. All new buildings and new electricity generation plants should be designed to operate without fossil fuels.

3. All levels of government must accept the reality that non-fossil fuel energy costs much more than fossil fuel energy before fossil carbon emissions tax, but that non-fossil fuel energy is essential for Canada and Ontario to survive the emerging crisis of global warming.

4. In order to encourage the development of non-fossil fuel electricity generation the price of electricity must be increased.

5. The price of electricity must be based on the cost per kWh of non-fossil fuel electricity. As long as fossil fuels are used to minimize the end user cost of electricity it is impossible to attract sufficient private investment in non-fossil fuel generation to replace existing and future fossil fuel electricity generation.

6. The Canadian government should implement a fossil carbon tax that is sufficiently high that it does not make financial sense to use fossil carbon as a fuel for supply of primary energy. It is reasonably estimated that this tax must be about $200 / emitted CO2 tonne. Part of the revenue from this tax should go to parties that produce and bury biochar. Biochar is the solid carbon rich material that remains after pyrolysis (heating in absence of oxygen) of biomatter is used to obtain gaseous and liquid hydrocarbons.

7. Implementation of a fossil carbon tax requires political will. In democratic countries every voter must be taught the carbon dioxide related problems and the available solutions because these solutions have a price and the voters must be sufficiently educated to elect politicians who will choose to pay that price in order to preserve the world for the voters' children and grand children.

8. Politicians that fail to promptly implement fossil carbon tax or other measures required to prevent combustion of fossil carbon for primary energy generation must be voted out of office.

9. In the absence of a fossil carbon tax imposed by the government of Canada, fossil fuels must be phased out sufficiently quickly that there are ongoing electricity shortages. These shortages must be sufficient to drive up the price of electricity to a level that attracts private investors into the business of generating non-fossil fuel electricity. As an alternative provincial governments can impose their own fossil carbon taxes.

10. The Canadian people must collectively agree that international expectations must be tempered. Much of the world wants to emulate Canada and the USA, which have very high per capita consumptions of fossil fuel. The oceans simply do not have the carbon dioxide absorption capacity required to allow the people of other nations to use fossil fuels to attain the same life style that the people of Canada and the USA presently enjoy. The problem is that the combined population of the other nations is about 19 times the combined population of Canada and the USA. The only way for Canada and the USA to temper these expectations is to set an example by ceasing their own use of fossil carbon for primary energy generation.

11. The federal and provincial governments must promote a culture of fossil carbon consumption reduction by removing all government financial subsidies and incentives relating to fossil carbon extraction and distribution.

12. The federal and provincial governments must support development in the nuclear industry, particularly for Micro Fusion and advanced fission fuel cycles that have the potential of greatly reducing production of long term radioactive waste.

13. In Ontario in 2003 Premier Dalton McGuinty and his Liberal government were elected with a mandate to close coal fired generation, but they completely failed to exercise that mandate. The Liberal government had the options of converting part or all of the Nanticoke coal fired generating station to natural gas, of building additional transmission lines to the Bruce Generating Station to access additional nuclear power as well as wind power enroute, of authorizing construction of a new nuclear plant at Nanticoke and of building new transmission line(s) to access wind and hydro power in Northern Ontario, Manitoba, Quebec or Labrador. None of these projects has been funded. Except for the Bruce to Milton power corridor, no substantial negotiations with affected third parties have taken place. Dalton McGuinty and his government have demonstrated that they are incapable of making timely decisions on these important matters. In the absence of political leadership the Ontario Power Authority has committed Ontario to long term use of fossil carbon to meet Ontario's future electricity generation requirements.

14. The only way for Ontario to preserve its present standard of living while ceasing fossil fuel consumption is to implement non-fossil fuel: transportation, heating and electricity generation systems. These systems should be based primarily on wind power, hydro power, nuclear power and solar power. A major expansion of agricultural production will be required to produce feedstocks for production of liquid biofuels. A major expansion and electrification of the rail network will be required to shift people and cargo from airplanes, cars and trucks to trains.

15. Sufficient non-fossil fuel electricity must be generated to completely displace existing fossil fuelled electricity generation, fossil fuelled transportation and liquid fossil fuelled general purpose heating. The amount of electricity required for general heating can be mitigated through the use of ground source heat pumps and Micro Fusion.

16. Micro Fusion can be used to provide the heat required for concentrating ethanol, butanol and other liquid biofuels.

17. The Ontario government must remove impediments to wind generation of electricity. In Ontario these impediments include: lack of energy storage and an electricity rate structure that is not consistent with either energy storage or distributed power generation. These matters must be resolved by the Ontario Power Authority and the Ontario Energy Board acting under the direction of the Minister of Energy.

18. The Ontario government must remove impediments to heat generation via Micro Fusion. In Ontario one of these impediments is a direction from the Ministry of Energy to Ontario Power Generation (OPG) that OPG is not to engage in any "non-core business".

19.The Ontario Power Authority should abandon its plan to use fossil fuels to meet Ontario's urban electricity requirements and summer peak electricity demand, because the carbon dioxide released by combustion of fossil fuels directly or indirectly causes much of the air conditioning load in southern Ontario. Carbon dioxide has a half life in the atmosphere of about 25 years. Fossil carbon dioxide added to the atmosphere now will significantly increase the air conditioning load for about a century to come.

20. The Minister of Energy and Infrastructure of Ontario and the Ontario Power Authority should consult with their counterparts in neighbouring jurisdictions that are upwind of Ontario to determine what can be done within these jurisdictions to minimize use of coal and other fossil fuels for electricity generation, especially during the summer.

21. The Ontario Power Authority should do all necessary to extricate itself from long term commitments for purchase of electricity generated by combustion of fossil fuels. The entire electricity load should be met from nonfossil fuel electricity sources to the greatest extent possible at the earliest possible date.

22. A fossil carbon tax should be applied to electricity imports from other jurisdictions.

23. The issue of reducing the average carbon dioxide concentration over southern Ontario during the summer should be made a specific responsibility of the Ontario Power Authority, because this issue represents one of the largest opportunities for energy conservation and peak demand reduction in the Province of Ontario.

24. At the root of professional engineering ethics is protection of the public. The increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration poses a wide spectrum of problems. One of these problems is an increase in fresh water consumption for agriculture. Another problem is the increasing air conditioning load. Professional engineers should take a firm stand and tell politicians and the general public that fossil fuels are no longer a viable primary energy source.

25. Engineers must convince their clients that fossil fuels are no longer viable. In order to do so they must learn the technical content of this web site.

26. Increasing population is a major cause of increasing demand for energy. All governments must implement effective measures to stabilize and then reduce the world wide human population. The population must be reduced about tenfold to bring carbon dioxide emissions down to an acceptable level while enabling a good standard of living. If governments fail to promptly deal with this matter, natural forces will cause population reduction via war, famine, floods and disease.

27. All countries should tighten laws and enforcement relating to emission of greenhouse gases and ozone depleting substances.

GLOSSARY OF TERMS

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This web page last updated March 28, 2011.