Preparing for Climate Change through Energy Internet and eVehicles: Universities in BC mandated to be carbon neutral by 2010

Energy Internet and eVehicles Overview

Governments around the world are wrestling with the challenge of how to prepare society for inevitable climate change. To date most people have been focused on how to reduce Green House Gas emissions, but now there is growing recognition that regardless of what we do to mitigate against climate change the planet is going to be significantly warmer in the coming years with all the attendant problems of more frequent droughts, flooding, sever storms, etc. As such we need to invest in solutions that provide a more robust and resilient infrastructure to withstand this environmental onslaught especially for our electrical and telecommunications systems and at the same time reduce our carbon footprint.

Linking renewable energy with high speed Internet using fiber to the home combined with autonomous eVehicles and dynamic charging where vehicle's batteries are charged as it travels along the road, may provide for a whole new "energy Internet" infrastructure for linking small distributed renewable energy sources to users that is far more robust and resilient to survive climate change than today's centralized command and control infrastructure. These new energy architectures will also significantly reduce our carbon footprint. For more details please see:

Using autonomous eVehicles for Renewable Energy Transportation and Distribution: http://goo.gl/bXO6x and http://goo.gl/UDz37

Free High Speed Internet to the Home or School Integrated with solar roof top: http://goo.gl/wGjVG

High level architecture of Internet Networks to survive Climate Change: https://goo.gl/24SiUP

Architecture and routing protocols for Energy Internet: http://goo.gl/niWy1g

How to use Green Bond Funds to underwrite costs of new network and energy infrastructure: https://goo.gl/74Bptd

Wednesday, May 28, 2008

Universities in BC mandated to be carbon neutral by 2010

[The provincial government in British Columbia has been a world trend setter in setting new standards and legislation to reduce GHG emissions. They are the first government in North America to introduce a carbon tax. They also have mandated all public sector institutions such as universities, schools and hospitals to be zero carbon by 2010. It is expected that other governments in Canada and around the world will soon follow BC's lead and implement similar policies, as public sector institutions should be seen as leaders in addressing the challenges of global warming.

This will have a major impact on universities as eScience and cyber-infrastructure are very energy intensive which can result in significant increase in GHG emissions if the power comes from fossil fuel plants. Moreover the power demand and concomitant GHG emission by computers and cyber-infrastructure is expected to double in the next 4 years.

Networks, grids and virtualization linked with zero carbon data centers will play a critical role in helping universities meet their carbon neutral targets. These technologies may mean even help universities earn additional dollars to support research and infrastructure through carbon offset trading. Kudos to BCnet and BC university CIOs who are already arranging strategy meetings to address this initiative. As I have always argued, jurisdictions that are the first to address this major environmental challenge will be the real winners in the future in creating new jobs and business opportunities of a zero carbon society. More details on my blog. Some excerpts from the BC legislation--BSA]

http://www.leg.bc.ca/38th3rd/3rd_read/gov44-3.htm

Targets for carbon neutral public sector

5 (1) Each public sector organization must be carbon neutral for the 2010 calendar year and for each subsequent calendar year.

(2) The Provincial government must be carbon neutral for the 2008 and 2009 calendar years in relation to its PSO greenhouse gas emissions that are directly related to public officials travelling on public business for which the travel expenses are covered by the consolidated revenue fund.

(3) In advance of the obligation under subsection (1), for the 2008 and 2009 calendar years, each public sector organization must pursue actions to minimize its PSO greenhouse gas emissions. Requirements for achieving carbon neutral status

6 (1) In order to be carbon neutral for a calendar year, a public sector organization must

(a) pursue actions to minimize its PSO greenhouse gas emissions for the calendar year,

(b) determine its PSO greenhouse gas emissions for that calendar year in accordance with the regulations, and

(c) no later than the end of June in the following calendar year, apply emission offsets in accordance with the regulations to net those emissions to zero.