The Narwhal | News on Climate Change, Environmental Issues in Canada

This German Energy Expert Says Canada is Perfect for a Clean Energy Transition

Erin Flegg — Sat, 18 Oct 2014 20:09:00 +0000

We’re all taught in life that if something sounds too good to be true, it probably is. The sentiment has been applied to Germany’s renewable energy transition, or Energiewende, with critics questioning emission reduction reporting or arguing costs of new systems are too high. But even if the Energiewende isn’t quite as shiny as it first appears, there are still a few important lessons from Germany's energy transition that Canada can take to heart.

German clean energy policy expert Dr. David Jacobs paid Canada a visit this week to dispel a few myths about the Energiewende. While addressing potential downsides, Jacobs talked about the lessons North American countries can take from Germany’s push toward completely sustainable energy. Jacobs, the founder and director of International Energy Transition Consulting, organized an event in Vancouver Thursday to discuss Germany’s energy policies, and invited MLAs, policymakers, developers and academics to ask questions. He also spoke at the annual Generate conference, hosted by Clean Energy BC. Jacobs visited at the invitation of Clean Energy Canada as part of their Low Carbon Leadership speaker series.

Jacobs focused his talk on the strength of the German economy and the contributions of the green energy sector in achieving the lowest unemployment rate since reunification in the early 1990s. He also addressed criticism that investment in a new clean energy regime is too costly and is only available to wealthy countries and individuals who can afford to buy and install solar panels, reaping the financial rewards of selling green energy back to the grid. When it comes to the big picture, Jacobs said many of the costs associated with Germany's transition have been historical costs, such as the purchase of solar panels when the cost of that equipment was much higher than it is today. The steady drop in the cost of solar means other countries looking to get on board are in a better starting position than Germany ever was.

Localized and democratized energy production

“This is very important for countries or jurisdictions like B.C.," Jacobs told DeSmog Canada. "If you start investing in PV (photovoltaics) today, you’re starting from a whole different benchmark and you can benefit from the cost reduction from other countries.” On an individual level, he said, it requires very little equity (real assets) to invest in small-scale solar energy production. And this is perhaps one of the most important insights Canada’s energy sector can take from the German approach to democratizing the energy supply chain.

Where once there were only four companies supplying energy to the German grid, there are now 1.2 million contributors, and Jacobs said that number is only growing. The result is a decentralized and localized system of energy production and supply.

Germany's next steps

While the size of Canada compared to Germany (indeed, to all of Europe) might at first look like an impediment to the kind of small-scale energy production fueling Germany’s energy transition, Jacobs believes it’s quite the opposite. With Canadians spread out across a vast country, the idea of a localized supply that doesn’t require transportation over long distances makes a lot of sense. “There’s actually more incentive to go for a decentralized solution,” he said, adding that he is by no means wedded to the romance of the 'small solution.' And in spite of the difference between B.C. and Germany, there are a few key similarities that mean we could benefit significantly not only from the current stage of their transition, but also from their next steps. While the German model is currently focused on decentralizing the energy supply and putting production in the hands of families and individuals to generate their own power, the next phase involves a few steps back toward centralization, at least among their European neighbours. “We still have these ugly months of November, December, January,” Jacobs said. It would require huge amounts of storage to get all Germans through the relatively sunless days of winter, a fact with which Vancouverites can surely empathize. Moving toward a new kind of centralized energy system based on renewables means countries can effectively share sunshine and other renewable resources. “If the sun is not shining in northern Germany, it might be shining in southern France.”

Political obstacles to Canada's energy transition

Jacobs also talked about another key difference between Germany and Canada: the political climate. One of the greatest sticking points in North America, the question of environment versus economy, is, according to the Germans, no question at all. At least, not anymore. They’ve seen renewable energy contribute to a strong economy, one that is arguably stronger than most those of its European compatriots. “So there are no longer people arguing that if you protect the environment you lose jobs. It’s clear that if you protect the environment you’re probably creating jobs.” It’s not that Germany never faced the same kind of opposition to clean energy growth, Jacobs said. The timeline is just a little further ahead. “We had a very similar debate in Germany but just a few decades earlier. The discussion you see happening in North America happened already in Germany in 1980s and 90s.” He added that all political parties in Germany, regardless of their differences, all support the energy transition. “It’s just one side of how big this consensus really is in our society.” Between 80 and 85 per cent of the German people are in favour of the energy transition, according to Jacons, and 92 per cent are in favour of supporting the development of renewable in one way or another. “Even more than half of the German population is willing to pay more for its electricity when it comes from renewable energy sources,” he said. While much of Germany’s push for renewables can be credited to the country's longer political history, Jacobs is taken aback when I mention the politicization of energy in Canada and former Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver’s infamous reference to environmentalists as “foreign-funded radicals.” “It has never been that polarized in Germany," he said. "Not even in the 1960s.”

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Leave Us the Birds and the Bees, Please? Canadian Government Lags Behind in the Move to Ban Neonicotinoid Pesticides

Elizabeth Hand — Tue, 23 Jul 2013 16:17:26 +0000

For about a decade, bee populations around the world have been experiencing massive declines for mysterious reasons. The phenomenon, often called Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD), is characterized by a rapid loss of worker bees and has been linked to a wide range of causes: cell phone frequencies, mites and pesticides. It isn’t until recently that the massive bee deaths have been directly linked to the use of neonicotinoid pesticides.

Neonicotinoids, or neonics, are neuro-active insecticides, chemically related to nicotine. They came into development in the 1980’s and 90’s by Shell Oil Company and then Bayer pharmaceuticals. Neonics are hyper-toxic pesticides that are designed to be water soluble, so they are able to travel and contaminate pollen-dense plant life far and wide. The wide reach and long life of neonics has proven to be deadly to pollinators like bees and birds and detrimental to humans as it has penetrated groundwater systems into drinking water.

Recently, when they found 50,000 dead bees in a department store parking lot, the state of Oregon temporarily banned the use of these pesticides. The bans are in place until the research can show that the chemicals will not threaten bee populations. Likewise, the European Parliament put out a report in 2012 that specifically links the use of neonics to irreversible hive destruction. A moratorium has been placed on these pesticides in the European Union.

Last year 5000 beehives in Ontario were lost suddenly and have not recovered. Yet, when the story came out, the pesticide lobbyist group, CropLife claimed that the problem was nothing more than the usual crop dusting issues. CropLife blames any negative side affects resulting from the distribution of pesticide dust on equipment manufacturers.

However, this spring, farmers in Ontario experienced bee mortalities in unprecedented numbers. These deaths have been researched by scientists worldwide and are undeniably linked to the use of neonicotinoid-coated corn and soy seeds.

Despite the evidence, bans on neonics are not in place yet in Canada. According to a report by Maria Szabo for the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, the Pest Management Regulatory Agency (PMRA) is calling for further assessment before a ban will be implemented and they claim the process could take years to complete.

In order to better understand the level of crisis that Ontario beekeepers are experiencing, DeSmog Canada spoke to Tibor Szabo Jr. of Szabo Bee Enterprises. Tibor is a queen producer, the Vice president of the Ontario Beekeepers Association (OBA), third generation beekeeper, and son of Dr. Tibor Szabo, Order of Canada recipient and Apiculturist for Agriculture Canada.

"I've never seen anything like it," Tibor said.

He tells us that he and his father first noticed the bees were being poisoned four years ago when they found that some of their hives had far fewer adult bees than what would be considered healthy. The bees were acting strange and appeared to be sick and disoriented. A full report on his findings is published at honeybees.ca.

“It was confusing,” he said. “We didn’t think that anyone was using any kind of insecticide in this area… there are, however a few corn and soy fields nearby. We had no idea that the bees were dying because of the agricultural fields.”

Last spring, Tibor discovered that hives placed nearby to agricultural fields experienced a 90% mortality rate. “There were piles and piles of dead bees,” he said.

He had heard that other beekeepers in Ontario and the US were experiencing similar things and he was told to send the dead bees to the PMRA for testing. He discovered tests for 80% of Ontario apiaries came back positive for high levels of clothianidin, a Bayer neonicotinoid insecticide, used to coat corn, “one gram of [this] can kill 25 metric tons of bees,” he said.

They then called for water testing, as they were concerned about puddles of water in the fields that they were sure the bees would be attracted to. The PMRA didn’t get around to testing the water last year. However, The Szabos requested water testing again this year and the PMRA did the tests. The results are still coming in, but initial reports show “extremely concerning levels of insecticide are present in field water.”

What worries him even further is that the chemicals stay present in the water and soil and re-contaminate crops for over three years. “There were samples of dandelions taken that had been sprayed a year before. They tested positive for the pesticides the next year, even though these plants hadn’t been treated.”

When the Ontario beekeepers realized the coated seeds were the culprit in the massive bee deaths, the OBA tried to issue best management practices the farmers could follow that would reduce or eliminate the need for insecticides. “They were not adopted by Health Canada,” Tibor tells us. “They have their own best practices management that looks identical to the pesticides industry’s.”

Earlier this month, the Guelph Mercury published a story on the Szabo farm and how they lost 49 of 50 hives this spring. The President of CropLife responded to the article with a letter that claimed the Varroa Mite was responsible for the deaths of the bees, not the neonics.

Szabo says that CropLife is an incredibly effective lobbying group. “They work hard at misinforming or muddying the information flow, so to speak.” He goes on to say that anyone who kept bees would know that the Varroa Mite has an entirely different epidemiology. And, indeed, if anyone knows about the Varroa Mite, it’s the Szabos.

Dr. Tibor Szabo is one of the foremost researchers on the Varroa Mite. He had been aware of its presence long before the mite reached the US in the 1980s and Canada in the 1990’s. Years before the mite was present in Canada, Dr. Szabo had already been breeding bees for resistance to the mite.

Ontario farmers are on board with the OBA and are trying to get untreated seed. However, they are finding it extremely difficult to buy any. Coated seed is all anyone can buy, despite studies that show the pesticides may not have any positive effect on the crop yields. “For everyday that goes by without bans, CropLife makes money by forcing farmers to buy coated seed. If they can delay anything, they make money.”

The PMRA is in no big hurry to ban the pesticides either, Tibor told DeSmog. "They make 20% of their budget from the licensing and registration of these pesticides. That’s around $8 million per year."

Meanwhile, the use of neonics in Canadian agriculture was implemented before the chemicals were sufficiently tested for safety. Now, the PMRA says they need to do extensive testing before they can issue a ban.

Canadians don't want the Neonics. In a recent poll by the Sierra Club Canada, 67% of informed Canadians support the ban of the neonicotinoid pesticides responsible for massive bee mortalities in the United States and Canada. Another 24% said that they were unsure and 10% were against it. Of the 1000 persons polled, 95% of those that supported the ban also supported their provincial government taking action, should the federal government ignore the issue.

Support for the ban is highest in Ontario, where bee colonies were hit the hardest. In Ontario 54 bee keepers were affected and 4000 bee colonies were destroyed after the planting of pesticide-coated seeds were planted in corresponding fields last year.

“People need to know what’s happening,” Tibor says. "The ban on neonics may have come sooner [in Oregon] because it happened in a parking lot, where people could see it. Here, it’s happening in the farm land.”

He reminds us that so much of life depends on pollination. “It’s a key to our Earth and the way that things have a evolved.” He suggests readers sign the petition to Ban Honey Bee Killing Pesticides Now! on The Petition Site or the Save Ontario's Bees petition at Change.org.

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