During last month’s storm, the wind turned lights off in the capital region. Now TimberWest wants to see if there’s enough wind on southern Vancouver Island to keep the lights on.
The forestry company has applied for a permit to build three 80-metre testing towers in the Juan de Fuca Electoral Area to see if there’s enough wind to justify building a wind farm.
Harvesting the wind is an attractive concept, and B.C. is a good place to do it — a 2002 study by the Tides Foundation and Greenpeace showed three coastal regions could produce an estimated 7,500 megawatts from wind power. A subsequent study by the World Energy Council identified the B.C. coast as having the best wind resource for power generation in the world.
So far, attention has been focused on the Knob Hill Wind Farm at Cape Scott on northern Vancouver Island. With a generation capacity of 99 megawatts, it’s expected to begin commercial operations this fall. Advancing technology means electricity can be transmitted over greater distances, but the closer the consumer of electricity is to the producer, the more efficiently the electricity is used.
Generating power closer to a populated region such as Greater Victoria is a better use of the resource, so it’s commendable that TimberWest is investing the resources to see if enough wind is available.
“The answer, my friend, is blowin’ in the wind,” sang Bob Dylan, and wind power certainly seems like an answer to the problem of growing energy consumption. Unlike the burning of fossil fuels, generating electricity with wind does not produce carbon dioxide. Along with solar power, it is seen as a clean — and free — energy source.
But every source of energy has its price, and every source comes with consequences. When we don’t see those consequences, we tend to ignore them.
Solar power is regarded as a green energy source, yet the manufacture of solar panels produces millions of kilograms of polluted sludge and contaminated water each year, according to an Associated Press article published in February.
Ethanol is touted as a clean-burning automotive fuel, but ethanol plants emit air pollution, including nitrogen oxide, and the farming of corn from which ethanol is derived can be environmentally destructive.
Hydroelectric generation produces no pollutants, but the building of dams has a tremendous effect on habitats and rivers.
Although they don’t spew smoke or discharge hazardous wastes into the watershed, wind farms are still industrial sites. They change the landscape on which they sit. They can have an adverse effect on wildlife. Some people living near wind farms are concerned about the low-frequency noises that emanate from the huge turbines.
That doesn’t mean we should give up on these sources, but we should not be blind to the costs, including the less-obvious ones.
The easiest way to solve the energy dilemma is to use less of it. We have become energy spendthrifts, lavishly lighting our homes, public places and streets. We drive more than we need to.
We spend too much heating and cooling buildings, when relatively inexpensive design changes could significantly reduce energy consumption. Homes built to R2000 standards, says Natural Resources Canada, will add two to four per cent to construction costs, but will use 30 per cent less energy than conventional homes.
Simply siting a house to take advantage of the sun’s position can bring measurable energy savings, as can the judicious use of trees, shrubbery and other landscaping.
Energy research holds much promise, but we shouldn’t count on future technological advances to continue supporting our wasteful energy habits when there’s so much we can be doing in the present.
