Time to Join the Green Gold Rush
Here in the West, especially in Alberta, we have been focused on minimizing the potential economic decline associated with the global pursuit of a low carbon economy. Rightly so -- we have a great deal of skin in the high carbon game.
In most parts of the world, the focus is on how to benefit from the rising demand for green energy. If there is to be a green gold rush, we have to look at the opportunities to mitigate our losses. We have to get out in front and lead these changes. This does not mean we should turn our backs on our carbon resources, but it does mean adding a few new moves to our economic repertoire.
The Canada West Foundation's Jim Hume Memorial Student Essay Contest asked western Canadian post-secondary students what they think we need to do to ensure Canada benefits from the shift to a low carbon world.
Stewart Prest, a PhD student in political science at UBC, smartly argues that "we need to fundamentally rethink the traditional division between energy producers and consumers. The advance of micro-generation technologies such as rooftop solar, small-scale wind turbines and bioenergy now promise to turn every house, office tower and farm into a miniature power station capable of meeting a significant portion of the site's energy needs. Consumers can even become producers, selling power to the grid for use elsewhere."
Prest's vision suggests there are opportunities for entrepreneurs to figure out how to make one's home into a mini power station and to sell this expertise locally and abroad.
These ideas read well, but transforming our energy production and distribution system into a network of micro-scale green energy producers and users would require a "big bang" sized change to set it off.
Our approach to changing consumer behaviour is the equivalent to a small pop. The prevailing idea is to educate people on the full costs of the system and then wait for them to pull out their credit cards and install solar panels on their roofs. A few people have done this or something similar, but it does not add up to a radical new green energy production system. It's one thing to get people to recycle and turn off the lights when they are not in the room, it is another to get them to invest in small-scale green energy infrastructure.
A variation on this theme involves relying on the market to transform itself gradually. The market has a huge role to play, but at least for now, our energy production system is relatively cheap and efficient. This kind of change is a long way off.
This is why so many people turn to government to create the big bang. Government has three main ways it can do this. It can spend tax dollars on an array of subsidies, rebates, R & D and programs designed to increase the use of small-scale alternative energy infrastructure; it can implement green taxes in an effort to make the system more expensive than switching to a new one; and it can regulate industry to nudge or force it toward new practices.
For those who raise an eyebrow at government intervention, spending and tax increases, this makes them nervous. A lot can go wrong. In addition, there is no definitive evidence to say that a rebate is better than a tax or more government R & D spending is better than new regulations. There are live experiments happening here and in other countries but we are uncertain about which policy will work the best. We will have to try it and see.
There is a pressing need to move beyond rhetoric and start a rigorous public dialogue that measures what costs we are, or are not, willing to bear and what role we want government to play. We can get from here to there, but it's time to get moving.
The full essays are available here.
Roger Gibbins is President and CEO of the Canada West Foundation. Robert Roach is Director of the West in Canada Project.