Open Letter to the Minister of Energy of the Province of Ontario

Recently the Ontario Government invited the people of Ontario to respond to the Government's plan for Ontario's energy future, as outlined in a booklet on this topic that was apparently sent out to every household in the province. The following is my response.

Dear Sir,

I would like to express my views as an Ontario resident concerning Ontario's energy future, in response to my receipt of the booklet, Our Energy, Our Future. I should like to say at the outset that my views are heavily influenced by my reading of the works of R. Buckminster Fuller (www.bfi.org), who alone understood in a comprehensive way the overall problems facing our society and provided viable and realistic recommendations for their solution. I am not expert enough in the technical details to provide specific factual statistics. However, I would like to sketch the conceptual outline of the plan that I believe should be adopted by the province, the specifics to be worked out by a coalition of experts in their respective fields who are willing to "think outside the box."

With respect to the sources of electricity, it is clear that burning limited fossil fuels and other non-renewable energy sources is the way of the past, and that we should put in place a plan to eliminate our dependence on oil and gas as well as nuclear, which produces ever increasing quantities of carginogenic waste with no realistic solution for its disposal. Moreover, since no technology is 100% foolproof, sooner or later there will be a nuclear accident, releasing vast quantities of radioactive pollution into the environment on an unprecedented scale, as has already occurred in Russia. Finally, the existence of nuclear facilities implies at least the potential to construct nuclear weapons, with devastating consequences if they were ever to be used. Buckminster Fuller described nuclear energy as self-incineration and an act of desperation. Canada should not be embracing nuclear. Instead, all nuclear technologies should be abandoned world around. Canada could lead the way in this movement.

Ontario should endeavour to maximize existing and undeveloped power sources based on water, wind, tides, sun, and the conversion of human and animal waste into methane gas. Buckminster Fuller pointed out that the total energy falling on the earth in the form of sunlight and wind far exceeds world energy consumption. To this end the province should not merely consider maximizing power generation that is distributed from a central facility, but also local decentralized power generation, in homes and other buildings. One aspect of this approach would be for the province to mandate that all electric meters be replaced with reversible meters, instead of the current smart meter plan, which is really quite limited and silly, whereby locally generated power that exceeds consumption can be fed back into the power grid while running the electric meter backwards, resulting in a reduction in electrical expense to the consumer and an increase in power on the grid. This is the right approach, encouraging energy production and reducing use instead of the opposite. The province should also promote scientific research and development into alternative high tech local power sources such as hydrogen fuel cells, etc.

On the consumption side, one hears constantly how difficult it is to "persuade" people to use less electricity. Perhaps the problem is that this approach to conservation is wrong. Instead, let's change the manufacturing process, so that appliances become ever more efficient and are redesigned so that they cannot be used inefficiently. One example that immediately comes to mind would be to raise the lowest possible setting on air conditioners, so that users cannot over air condition their homes. Office buildings in particular are extremely energy inefficient and should be completely redesigned. Making it illegal to leave lights in office towers on overnight is one obvious measure. Again, the government should fund scientific research and development into ways that electrical appliances and distribution systems can be made super-efficient, e.g., superconductivity. Superconductivity would also make the electricity generation system more efficient, so that less power is lost in transmission over long distances. Your booklet included references to energy efficient light bulbs and cold water clothes washing. Instead of trying to "persuade" people to use these things, make the sale of energy inefficient light bulbs actually illegal. Make it impossible to wash one's clothes in anything other than cold water. Ban all energy inefficient appliances and practices. There must be hundreds of things that could be done.

Finally, Buckminster Fuller pointed out that in North America the average efficiency of the average power generation plant is only 50%, due to the fact that far less power is consumed during the night than during the day. He proposed that all the electrical grids world around be interconnected together with one world electricity price, resulting in an effective doubling of available energy due to the fact that while one half of the world sleeps their excess power production capacity will be fed into the grid on the day lit half of the planet. You will find this proposal in his book, Critical Path, and elsewhere.

I think the foregoing provides an outline of an approach to power generation and conservation in Ontario that is far more progressive and visionary than continuing to rely on nuclear and non-renewable sources of energy to provide 57% of our energy needs (the OPA recommended electricity mix in 2025 according to your booklet). I hope you will consider a more adventurous and farsighted approach to these problems and create a detailed, viable plan based on the principles summarized above. We have 19 years. Surely in that time with the scientific resources at our disposal we can do better.