B.C. geothermal condos that come with a cost

B.C. geothermal condos that come with a cost

Geothermal condos are now a growing trend in Richmond. Using thermal energy from infrastructure built underneath for heating and cooling, these condos are marketed as sustainable, energy efficient and cost effective for residents. However, residents who are currently living in a geothermal condo in Richmond say the cost they are paying for their geothermal energy is not as cheap as what some developers have marketed it as.

Western Investor

An eco-friendly office retrofit that paid off

Searching for an office 15 years ago to house its 30 international brands, Travel Corp. Canada looked at available spaces across the Toronto area. Its ultimate choice was unconventional: a sprawling one-storey former soap factory built in 1958 in a suburban industrial park. The 67,000-square-foot building had the space the company needed for a fast-expanding staff and warehousing for tonnes of travel brochures, but it needed a lot of upgrading.

Globe and Mail

BTB to install beehives at 10 properties

BTB REIT (BTB.UN-T)) announced that in partnership with Alvéole, it has recently introduced beehives on the rooftops of 10 of its properties located in Montréal, Québec City and Ottawa. This initiative is part of BTB’s commitment to sustainable development, where it strives to maintain eco-friendly properties that exist harmoniously with nature. The honey produced by the bees will be packaged and gifted to BTB’s clients.

Canada Newswire

Uncertain future for Manitoba solar industry

An array of solar panels fastened to a rocky face above a cluster of cabins in the Canadian Shield is one of several record-shattering projects underway in Manitoba. The nearly 200-kilowatt, 588-panel system on a hill overlooking the rustic cabins at Tallpine Lodges in West Hawk Lake is just one of dozens of record-tying solar projects planned to come online within the next year.

CBC

Business park plans 15 MW, unsubsidized solar farm

As subsidy-free renewables proliferate, it will become harder to derail decarbonization. Slowly but surely, plans for subsidy-free solar and even subsidy-free offshore wind are beginning to see the light of day, where the conditions are right. Now Insider Media reports on a UK business park that is planning Britain’s first subsidy-free, onsite solar farm.

TreeHugger – Insider Media

What’s missing in WeWork’s environmental policies

WeWork recently adopted a meat-free policy that applies to direct company purchases as well as to meals purchased by employees and charged to the company, according to a Bloomberg report that outlines the strategy. Other coverage suggests that the move was driven by environmental considerations and the company expect the change to have saved 16.6 billion gallons of water, 445 million pounds of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions and 15 million animals.

GreenBiz – Bloomberg

US cities with the most green office buildings

The nation’s largest cities are getting even greener, according to the fifth annual US Green Building Adoption Index by CBRE and Maastricht University. Researchers have found green certified office space across America’s 30 largest metros has reached 41% of market totals – the highest in the index’s history.

Energy Manager Today

Cost-effective ways cities can cut carbon, create jobs

Cities have seen that the energy consumption of existing buildings accounts for the greatest source of their carbon emissions — constituting 64 to 73 percent of citywide carbon emissions in the three most populous cities in the United States. Most existing buildings are decades old, suffer from substantial deferred maintenance issues and have significant potential for cost-effective energy retrofits.

GreenBiz

Wilfrid Laurier urging students to live more sustainably

As students prepare to return to school in September, staff at Wilfrid Laurier University are already trying to get them to do more when it comes to living sustainability on campus. According to the university, the problem is not what students bring to campus at the beginning of the term, but what they do there after they arrive, like regularly buying bottled water.

CBC

Hydrogen could shake up Canada’s energy sector

A few decades ago, there was hype around hydrogen because of how one day it may replace gasoline and diesel as the fuel most use to fill up their tanks. And while the use of hydrogen is still in its infancy, it’s growing in Canada. The potential is significant for how the most abundant element in the universe could change the country’s transportation, electricity and energy sectors.

CBC

Stop producing nuclear waste: Critics

Environmental groups say Canada should stop producing nuclear energy until the federal government replaces its “pathetic” waste disposal policy with something more meaningful and scientific. The groups, including the Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility and the Canadian Environmental Law Association, intend to protest outside a meeting Wednesday where officials will discuss plans to decommission nuclear labs and reactors in Chalk River, Ont., and Pinawa, Man.

CBC

	World Green Building Week – Sept. 24-30, 2018
	This year, we want everyone, everywhere to take action and commit to making a change in the homes they build, lease or live in. We can all do something to make our home a greener, healthier and more energy efficient home. Let’s start now.
	World Green Building Council

 

Canada begins consultations on vehicle emission standards

Canada’s light-duty vehicle greenhouse gas emission standards are supporting innovation, a cleaner, and more competitive economy, and action on climate change and they are saving consumers money at the pump. The Government of Canada has published a discussion paper to begin consultations on the mid-term evaluation of Canada’s light-duty vehicle greenhouse gas emission regulations for the 2022–2025 model years.

Canada Newswire

Quebec raises $215M in cap-and-trade auction

The Quebec government says it raised about $215-million in revenue for its Green Fund in the first cap-and-trade greenhouse gas emission credits auction since Ontario bowed out in the spring. Results from the Aug. 14th joint Quebec-California auction released Tuesday show that all 79 million available current vintage emission units were sold for $19.77 each and all 9.4 million 2021 future units were sold for $19.57.

Globe and Mail

Canada, U.K. plan the first Paris climate deal carbon trades

Canada and the U.K. are among six countries preparing the first carbon trades under the landmark Paris Agreement on climate change, part of an effort to unlock as much as US$4 billion for the fight against global warming. The nations are assessing projects to cut greenhouse-gases in exchange for emission credits that can be used to comply with goals they set under the United Nations pact sealed in 2015.

Bloomberg

N.S. report calls for restrictions on clearcutting

A new report is calling for fundamental changes in how trees are harvested in Nova Scotia – including a reduction in clearcutting, a controversial practice that fells large stands of forest. The report released Tuesday by University of Kings College president Bill Lahey says forest practices should be guided by a new paradigm called “ecological forestry” which treats forests “first and foremost” as ecosystems.

Globe and Mail

	Global warming ‘pause’ about to end
	The past four years have been the hottest on record, but new research shows the Earth was actually in a global warming “hiatus” that is about to end. And when it does, natural factors are likely to help an already warming planet get even hotter.
	CBC, August 20, 2018

 

Products, Technology and Design

Thin-film PV recycling expected to soar

The global solar panel recycling market is projected to reach $269.8 million by 2023. Increasing support of the government toward sustainable development and growing adoption of solar power as a renewable source of energy are the major factors driving the growth of the market. In terms of value, mechanical process held the largest share in the solar panel recycling market during the historical period and is estimated to contribute more than 55% share to the market in 2017.

Globe Newswire

Cleantech startups turning biogas sludge into fertilizer

Three Canadian cleantech companies will receive more than $500,000 funding to test technologies that can produce products other than methane from biogas. Foresight Cleantech Accelerator Centre has chosen three finalists in its ARCTIC Innovation Challenge to work with Seabreeze Farm in Delta to test their technologies.

Business In Vancouver

Companies compete in renewable natural gas challenge

Three Canadian companies will battle for the right to advance the field of renewable natural gas (RNG) in B.C. Today, Foresight Cleantech Accelerator Centre and the BC Bioenergy Network announced the three finalists in the Advanced Resource Clean Technology Innovation Centre (ARCTIC) Innovation Challenge. The next step for the trio: developing technology that improves the business case for on-farm production of RNG.

BCBusiness

Battery boom could end up burning some investors

Some of the latest battery technologies may become obsolete before reaching the market because of the breakneck pace of advances in the industry. Teams of scientists from San Francisco to Shenzhen are experimenting with new chemical processes to improve the traditional lithium-ion cell and find new ways to bottle up electricity for use at another time. Investors in those projects are starting to worry they might have picked the wrong technology.

Bloomberg

Market Trends and Research

As B.C. burns, air quality remains poor

As smoky skies from the wildfires burning throughout B.C. persist, air quality remains poor throughout much of the province, including in Metro Vancouver — but some regions have seen a reprieve. According to the B.C. air quality data map, Comox Valley, West Shore, Victoria, southwest Metro Vancouver, Castlegar, Smithers and Fort St. John and the eastern Fraser Valley had a 10+ rating as of 5 p.m. PT. Tuesday, indicating a very high health risk.

CBC – Global News – CBC

Wildfires tripled permafrost thaw in N.W.T., Alberta

As wildfires are growing larger across the North a new study suggests they’re causing permafrost to thaw faster. The study by the University of Alberta was published in Nature Communications this month and found that, over the past 30 years, wildfires have caused nearly a quarter of all permafrost thaw — about 2,000 square kilometres — of peatlands in Alberta and the Northwest Territories.

CBC

Edmonton takes dubious honour in air quality rankings

Last week, among the thousands of urban areas in 85 countries around the world, Edmonton had the worst air quality in cities with more than 250,000 people. The culprit was drifting smoke from the B.C. wildfires. According to Berkeley Earth’s air quality data, Edmonton beat out cities in India, China and the Middle East, places where cities with poor air quality usually top the list.

CBC

Alberta’s new normal could be a ‘constant state’ of drought

Farmers across the prairies have been facing off against hot and dry weather conditions for the past year, and a drought researcher says simulations show it’s time to start treating these conditions as the “new normal.” “It’s not a crisis right now, but it’s building to a different threshold that we need to start planning for,” said Mary-Ellen Tyler, a professor with the University of Calgary’s faculty of environmental design.

CBC

Commercial real estate

The emerging field of biophilic design

Experts in the emerging field of biophilic design are finding that that people need regular contact with nature to be happy and whole. For those who live and work in cities, the concrete, glass towers, smog, and noise can drastically and negatively affect wellbeing.  When there’s only so much real estate available in urban centers for parks, how’s a developer to bring in more green with biophilic design?

BDC Network

L.A. Lakers facility feeds off solar power

After signing LeBron James earlier this summer, the Los Angeles Lakers are looking to make the place fit for a king. The sports team partnered with LG Electronics and Vaha Energy to power UCLA Health Training Center with renewable energy. The installation will harvest the energy through LG solar panels. The 120,000-square-foot LEED Platinum certified facility was equipped with a 375-watt LG NeON 2, comprising 456 solar panels.

CP Executive

Renewable Energy

Greek island to run on wind, solar power

When the blades of its 800-kilowatt wind turbine start turning, the small Greek island of Tilos will become the first in the Mediterranean to run exclusively on wind and solar power. The sea horse-shaped Greek island between Rhodes and Kos has a winter population of 400. But that swells to as many as 3,000 people in the summer, putting an impossible strain on its dilapidated power supply.

CBC

Government Programs and Incentives

While the planet burns, our politicians fiddle

For days now, a grey pall has descended on Metro Vancouver. The North Shore mountains are barely visible from many parts of the region. The sun, meantime, appears like a tangerine behind a gauze-like veil, a shroud created by wildfire smoke now blanketing Southern B.C. It could be worse for local dwellers. They could be living in the Interior and northern parts of the province.

Globe and Mail – Globe and Mail

Conserving oil no longer an economic imperative for U.S.

Conserving oil is no longer an economic imperative for the U.S., the Trump administration declares in a major new policy statement that threatens to undermine decades of government campaigns for gas-thrifty cars and other conservation programs. The position was outlined in a memo released last month in support of the administration’s proposal to relax fuel mileage standards.

Global News

Cities and Towns

Edmonton faces charges for pesticide-related offences

The City of Edmonton faces environmental charges after allegedly using weed control chemicals inappropriately. Alberta officials say the city has been charged with six counts under the Environmental Protection and Enhancement Act and one count under the province’s pesticide regulations. The charges are related to a set of events from May 11 to Sept. 9, 2016.

Globe and Mail