How the Living Planet City Works

The Living Planet city is a community where heat and electricity are produced and consumed locally from low-impact, renewable sources of energy, maximizing efficiency and minimizing waste and pollution.

Sounds great, right? It's hard to believe that more cities and towns across Canada aren't doing it.

Yet some in government and industry want to tie Canada's energy future to the destructive exploitation of the tar sands. Even though Canada now ranks last among the G8 countries in climate change action. And our greenhouse gases are, incredibly, still on the rise.

By switching to renewable energy sources, communities across Canada can dramatically reduce their greenhouse gas emissions. Households and businesses will begin to use energy differently, more efficiently, and systems will be more responsive to actual energy needs - some will even generate their own energy on-site.

Efficiency

No one wants energy - we want the services (heat, light, mobility) that it provides. If we can keep our houses warm, our milk cold, and get to work comfortably and reliably using a half or a quarter of the energy we do today, then the only thing we're missing is a big chunk of our energy bill.

Our first priority must be to improve the efficiency in how we use energy. This includes:

• retrofitting existing buildings, as in the Tower Renewal Project example from the Living Planet City
• designing more efficient new buildings (with better insulation, as well as green roofs and solar power integrated into the buildings)
• using fuel more efficiently (through combined heat and power units, where waste heat is recycled to heat and cool buildings or make beer!)

Combined Heat and Power: a more efficient use of fuel

Combined heat and power (CHP) is at the heart of the Living Planet City's energy system. Traditionally, we have burned fuel in one place to create heat, and in another place to generate electricity. This is enormously wasteful. For example, in a typical coal-fired generating station, two thirds of the energy in the fuel is lost as waste heat that goes up the stack rather than being transformed into electricity.

By bringing the two together - as shown in the hospital, brewery, recreation centre and CHP plant in the Living Planet City or the Markham District Energy system in Markham, Ontario - we wring more useful energy out of each unit of fuel. And by generating electricity close to where it is used, we avoid the losses associated with transmitting power over long distances.

CHP is also vital in the transition from a fossil-fuelled energy system to one based on cleaner, greener fuels like biogas and biomass. CHP plants can run on a variety of fuels. In the near future, many will run on natural gas, but as renewable fuels like biogas or biomass become more available, CHP plants will switch to these non-fossil fuels.

If we combined the efficiencies of CHP with improved efficiencies in the home (proper insulation for example, and minimum efficiency standards for appliances), we'd practically eliminate the waste in our current system.

Renewable energy sources

CHP is only one part of the decentralized energy system. We must also work with nature and use energy from the wind, sun, water, rain and earth rather than relying on unsustainable fossil fuels and uranium. Fortunately, there's an abundance of renewable energy here in Canada, ready to be harnessed.

Canadians must leverage renewable energy sources on a much larger scale, and begin to reduce our dependence on coal and oil. Cities and businesses alike are already taking innovative steps into a cleaner future by implementing some of the examples used in the Living Planet City - demonstrating that it is doable.

Why is it important we invest in energy efficiency and renewable energy?

Today, societies are faced with the need to secure ongoing, reliable energy supplies, and beat back the imminent threat of climate change. We can't afford to waste energy, or to over-consume it recklessly as we have in the past.

The world is running out of conventional oil so we are seeing increasing investment in dirtier, more resource-intensive forms of oil like the tar sands. By making a transition to renewable energy and electric vehicles powered by green grids, we can avoid the need to dig up the tar sands.