E-mail A Friend Tell a friend about the information found on this page by sending them an e-mail.   Your Name: Your E-mail:   Type an e-mail address, then click add: Add a Personal Message: (Optional)

May/June 2001 issue	In this issue Table of Contents Editor’s Notebook Inside Story Feature: Solar power À la carte Reverberations

Power Switch | À la carte: Mapping the Wind | Home Costs | Windiest City | Facts and Figures

Canada’s renewable energy potential is endless. Not so our non-renewable resources. We have burned fossil fuels, spewed exhaust and buried our nuclear waste. But there is a faint light at the end of Canada’s energy tunnel: so-called ‘green’ energy, such as wind and solar power, is steadily rising among the ranks of Canada’s energy sources. More and more we see solar panels on our schools and wind turbines topping our hills as our interest in renewables grows.

But where do we stand globally in this regard? How is the rest of the world using energy?

• North America has 7% of world’s population
• North America consumes 30% of the world’s energy
• The world’s wind energy potential is estimated at 10,000 gw (gigawatts)
• North American wind energy potential is more than 2,3000 gw
• Total installed wind capacity world wide is 3,000 mw (megawatts)
• In Canada, wind energy could provide a minimum of 10% of our electricity
• The first Canadian windmill was built by the St. Lawrence River in the 1620s
• Canada currently has 20 mw installed wind capacity
• More than 17,000 operating wind turbines are installed in California with a capacity of more than 1,600 mw (enough energy to power San Francisco)
• Canada has better wind resources than California or Denmark (a world wind energy leader)
• Wind energy results in the highest number of jobs per unit of installed capacity

• Reliability of today’s wind turbines is more than 95%
• Europe is placing substantial funding into wind technology
• Average annual growth of wind energy during the 1990s was 24%. It is now a $4-billion industry
• Fossil fuels still account for more than 85% of the world’s primary energy consumption
• The most significant greenhouse gas is carbon dioxide, which comes mainly from burning fossil fuels (coal, oil, natural gas) to generate energy
• In a year, a 250 kW (kilowatt) wind turbine at a favourably windy site can eliminate 500 to 1,000 tonnes of carbon emissions burned by fossil fuels to create the same amount of energy
• Total world energy use has risen four times since the Second World War

— Tobi McIntrye

top