Do we really want to be a clean energy super power and a dirty one at the same time, as one can extrapolate on the clean energy claim by this Canadian Press article?
NS is working on a problem of fossil fuel dependence for generating electricity. Many stand to benefit from the modest clean energy fund. It would be positive if tidal generation where found to be acceptable (to Bay stakeholders) in terms of ecological impact at the level of future expansion. Positive IF it offsets the dirty generation. NOT meet increasing demand. See what I mean? Paramount is the need for reducing need. Why?
It's no plan for new green generation to be installed to keep up with a burgeoning electricity draw. 'green' generation will litter the landscape soon enough. The problem for everyone is how to develop so as not to depend on/demand increasing amounts of cheap electricity, and of course, other forms of energy.
Increasing scarcity of easily accessible liquid energy enters in to this. How? For those not blessed (or cursed, whichever the case may be) with plentiful hydro-electric, clean burning gas could be fueling thermal electric plants instead of getting piped to growth markets or making steam for extracting syncrude.
Does the challenge of meeting our needs warrant a serious look at the converging problems of increasing scarcity of cheap oil and climate change? I argue yes, there is an elephant in the room.
Sometimes I just can't let people have the last word. The 'fact' that the world needs new sources of power, according to WilliamStevens in their comment, and fast, is a real indication we're hell bent on maintaining a particular notion of progress (for the whole world?), more than it is an indicator of actual needs. What the world needs now is not power, sweet power. We need food and the means to make it where we live. We need transportation. Streets need to move people and goods, not necessarily cars.
Why can't people talk openly about the downward trajectory of energy consumption we're facing in the developed world? We're going to need more are we? More (clean) energy is being used to extract the dirty energy to keep our oil underpinnings standing. We use natural gas to make the steam that liquefies the syncrude. More energy to squander on luxuries we've come to expect?
We need less energy. Less is more as we go into the future. I'm not interested in helping a floundering notion of progress pin down our prospects for prosperity in the future.
