Are electric cars a viable option as a sustainable method of transportation?

Using such a vehicle would reduce an average Canadians carbon footprint by

about 36 per cent, according to Environment Canada

2010 OCEPP Student Essay Competition Winner

Why Ontario needs a sustainable

not greenenergy policy
By Arthur Yip

Executive Summary
Green energy in Ontario is garnering much public attention, but
there is also a growing backlash questioning the rationality and
economic sensibility. This paper investigates why energy policy
should refocus on an objective of sustainability rather than green
intentions. Electricity will play a critical role in a sustainable
de-carbonized energy future. Policy focused on green renewable

power should be rationally reassessed, given that there are

embedded challenges related to diffusivity, geography and variability.
Rather than tasking energy policy with the objective of improving
its green credentials, Ontario should focus on policy for a sustainable energy future.

Green is the buzzword of today. We are inundated with references

to the green movement in everyday life, whether in the form of
cloth bags and organic choices at the grocery store, recycling and
composting bins at home, green hybrid vehicles or, recently,
green power. Our society has become fixated on green solutions.
However, the green movement is also provoking a growing animosity.
Usually, it is the economic costs of going green that come into
question and raise doubts and fears. One only has to look back to the

most recent federal election in 2008 to understand that the green movement in Canada garners significant opposition. The defeat of Stphane
Dions Liberals was largely attributed to their Green Shift platform,
a proposed revenue-neutral carbon tax. Many Canadians took note
when Stephen Harper denigrated the proposal by calling it the Green
Shaft and engraved the idea that greenness comes hand in hand
with economic sacrifice.
Green has become a meaningless clich, and the word may now

10 August 2010 Volume 2/Number 4

The Journal of Policy Engagement

even carry negative overtones of sacrifice and burden. As a result,

governments everywhere are having a hard time figuring out how to
achieve a political balance between economic and green concerns,
especially in the energy policy realm.
Therefore, it is crucial that policy-makers step back, re-think the
green movement and adopt a more general approach: sustainability.
As defined by the United Nations Commission on Environment and
Development in 1987, sustainability means to meet the needs of
the present without compromising the ability of future generations
to meet their own needs (UN, 1987). Often, sustainability is associated
with the environmental movement, but the concept applies to
economics and development at the same time. By finding a way to
meet the needs of the present while preserving resources and the
environment to meet future generations needs, sustainability
balances environmental concerns with economic realities. As science
writer and author Michael Lemonick puts it simply, sustainability
means to not take more than your share (Lemonick, 2009).
The concept of sustainability calls for a balanced consideration of
economics and the environment. This is in contrast to todays green
movement, where assorted environmental concerns are often given
priority over economic considerations. Sustainability takes note
of economic realities, allowing todays society to use its share of
the Earths resources, with the stipulation of responsible usage. By
recognizing societys goal of continued prosperity and quality of life,
sustainability creates an economic and environmental context for the
appropriate evaluation of any type of development.
ONTARIO AND THE GREEN ENERGY ACT

In Ontario, with the passage of the Green Energy and Green Economy
Act (GEA) in 2009, the province appears to have skilfully bundled
the concepts of environment and economy by combining the key
words green and jobs. The main focus of the GEA is to promote
and subsidize wind and solar power projects by streamlining
regulatory processes and guaranteeing contract prices. The jobs are
expected to arrive in the creation and installation of these green
technologies, as highlighted in the provinces recent $7-billion
deal with Samsung/Korea Electric Power Corporation to manufacture and install 2,500 megawatts of wind and solar power.
While the GEA has been publicly popular, such a policy focused on
pure green renewable power may undermine the more comprehensive
concept of sustainability and hinder a successful sustainable energy
infrastructure and economy. Directly investing in and subsidizing
specific green power technologies could reduce the efficiency, reliability
and cost-competitiveness of Ontarios energy system in the long run.
As a result of the GEA, Ontario may become too dependent on pure
green but potentially unviable and unsustainable energy infrastructure
that may not effectively meet the needs of the present or near future.
There are two major risks in tasking energy policy with the purpose
of greening Ontario. First, electricitys future role in society will
expand significantly, making electricity even more of a critical
commodity than it is today, and a green energy policy may prove to
be unsuitable in meeting the growing and increasingly critical demands
on the electricity system. Second, pure green renewable power
technologies face fundamental physical and economic shortcomings
that limit the green dream of entire economies powered by solar
and wind.

ELECTRICITYS ROLE IN A SUSTAINABLE

DE-CARBONIZED ENERGY FUTURE

The electricity sector will play a significantly increased role in a

sustainable de-carbonized energy future. An analysis of the current
energy situation demonstrates why and how the role of electricity
will become more crucial (see Figure 1). In 2007, electricity accounted
for 22 per cent of all of the energy used in Canada. The other
major energy-consuming sectors are transportation, space and
water heating, industry and agriculture (Statistics Canada, 2009).
Figure 1: Canadian energy diet, 2007

Electricity 22%
Industry and
Agriculture 30%

Space and
Water Heating 18%

Transportation 30%

Source: Statistics Canada

However, when the analysis is focused on carbon dioxide emissions,

the paramount environmental concern of today, we find that only
20 per cent of electricity generation in Ontario is carbon-intensive,
coming from coal and natural gas peaking plants (see Figure 2). In
contrast, virtually all of transportations energy requirements are
supplied by petroleum, and nearly all the energy used in non-electrical
space and water heating is provided by natural gas. This represents
substantial differences in the environmental impact of the different
uses of energy.
Figure 2: Canadian energy diet with Ontario carbon intensities

Low-carbon Electricity
(Nuclear, Hydro,
Renewables) 18%
Industry and
Agriculture (Coal, Oil,
Natural Gas) 30%

Space and
Water Heating
(Natural Gas) 18%

High-carbon
Electricity (Coal,
Natural Gas) 4%

Transportation
(Oil) 30%

Source: Statistics Canada

The comparison shows that while attempting to further green the

Ontario electricity sector will chip away at the 20 per cent of fossil-fuel
electricity; reducing the carbon intensity of other sectors would
have more impact on the greenness of the overall energy diet. A viable

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Volume 2/Number 4 August 2010 11

Solar photovoltaics collect and convert the suns rays into electricity, but
while light and heat from the sun are abundant, they are low-grade types
of energy that cannot be effectively stored and dispatched at todays
required amounts and rates

method to achieve effective reductions in carbon intensity would be

to shift from using fossil fuels to using electricity for energy.
The primary reason why these two sectors continue to be carbonintensive amid the green movement is the economic concept of market
failure from an unaccounted externality. Because carbon emissions do
not carry an economic cost in todays economy, they are not factored
into rational economic decisions. The environmental benefits of
using electricity as the energy source in these sectors are clear, but the
greenness does not contribute to the bottom line. Once there is an economic cost associated with carbon emissions, unsustainable fossil fuel
use would be recognized and the shift to a lower-carbon energy diet
would have an economic driver. In addition to the environmental benefits of using electricity in Ontario and Canada, which would translate
into savings in a world with priced carbon, additional advantages
include its versatility and scalability, its efficient conversion to other
useful types of energy and its ubiquity and availability, both in terms
of location and time. These factors would further drive electrification.
In fact, even without priced carbon, game-changing electricity
technologies in two key sectors, transportation and heating, already
are being developed intensively. In late 2010, General Motors is set to
present the Chevrolet Volt to the general public. The Volt is a plugin hybrid electric vehicle that unites personal transportation with
electricity. The Volt will store and use approximately 10 kilowatt-hours
of electricity for 60 kilometres of travel, displacing about four litres of
gasoline every full charge used in a regular automobile. This amounts
to eliminating almost six kilograms of carbon dioxide per charge.
The average savings per vehicle would amount to 1,800 kilograms
annually, and this would reduce an average Canadians carbon
footprint by about 36 per cent, as estimated by Environment Canada
for the 2004 One-Tonne Challenge. This significant potential for
carbon emission reduction for urban commuters means that in
a de-carbonized energy future, personal transportation will rely
significantly on electricity for its energy.
In addition to automobiles, other types of transportation have

12 August 2010 Volume 2/Number 4

been gravitating toward electricity. The transport of freight depends

heavily on railways, and the only remaining barrier to electric rail
is the relatively inexpensive option of diesel. Furthermore, when
electric rails low-carbon advantage is realized via appropriate carbon
pricing, freight traffic will begin to shift from delivery by gasolineconsuming tractor trailers to delivery by efficient electric trains.
Electrification of space and water heating is another transition that
will take off when carbon emissions are appropriately priced. Similar
to the transportation sector shifting away from fossil fuels, a transition
in the heating sector would reduce the dependence on natural gas and
heating oil boilers and furnaces, which provide most of our heating
needs in Canada, and replace them with low-carbon electric alternatives. Electric hot water technology to heat water and homes is proven
technology, but its popularity has remained low due to the cheap
availability of natural gas. Heat recovery ventilators use electricity to
recycle heat from building exhaust into incoming fresh air and are
increasingly being implemented. While insulation and conservation
strategies will also become more prevalent in future construction, a
significant amount of natural gas still needs to be displaced.
In this regard, a ground-breaking substitute ready for prime
time is heat pump technology, which offers a dramatic reduction in
energy required to heat buildings. By using electricity to run heat
exchangers, heat is transferred from about 10 metres underground
(for ground source heat pumps) into the buildings where it is
required. In Japan, commercial heat pumps already achieve high
coefficients of performance, delivering four units of heat energy
with one unit of electrical energy (MacKay, 2009). In a sustainable
de-carbonized future, these electric-powered heating technologies
will become more and more prevalent.
Technical solutions already exist to facilitate the shift in energy
diet of the two key sectors, transportation and space and water
heating. In order to slow the greenhouse effect and anthropogenic
climate change, the externality of carbon emissions will be priced
appropriately, and this will accelerate the shift in energy use toward electricity, given that low-carbon electricity provides the most
potential for carbon emission reduction. Electrification would then
be driven by economics and occur rapidly, sustainably and on a
large scale. As a result, electrification will play a significant role in
transitioning to a sustainable future.
Figure 3: Potential Canadian energy diet after 50% electrification
of transporation and heating sectors

Industry and
Agriculture (Coal, Oil,
Natural Gas) 30%

Low-carbon Electricity
(Nuclear, Hydro,
Renewables) 37%

Space and
Water Heating
(Natural Gas) 9%

Transportation
(Oil) 15%
Source: Authors calculations

The Journal of Policy Engagement

High-carbon
Electricity (Coal,
Natural Gas) 9%

Relatively inexpensive diesel fuel is still a significant barrier to electric rail, above.
When electrics low-carbon advantage is realized via appropriate carbon pricing, railroads will begin to shift from diesel

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Volume 2/Number 4 August 2010 13

To illustrate the impact of this shift, an estimated half of the energy

requirements of transportation and heating shifting to electricity
would result in a doubling of electricitys role in the energy diet (see
Figure 3). This rough estimate shows that a sustainable de-carbonized
energy future will depend critically on an expanded, abundant and
reliable supply of electricity.
GREEN POWER AND ITS CHALLENGES

On the supply side of the electricity sector, the GEA promotes

investment in green, renewable sources such as solar photovoltaics
and wind. Unfortunately, these investments, while green and
clean, are difficult to justify in terms of overall sustainability. The
strongest evidence to support this argument is the break-even
point for solar and wind power. These can be interpreted from
the GEA feed-in tariff rates, which are designed to offset the costs
of the renewable power investment. The rates are 19 cents per
kilowatt-hour for offshore wind and 80 cents for solar photovoltaics,
guaranteed for 20 years. These rates are five and 20 times, respectively,
more than the current cost of producing electricity in Ontario, four
cents per kilowatt-hour, as estimated by the Ontario Power Authority
(OPA, 2006).
It is easy to be enticed by arguments that an enormous amount of
green energy is available on Earth via the suns rays and the blowing
wind, but there are significant physical limitations to harvesting
this energy. The reasons behind the relative cost-ineffectiveness of
renewables are diffusivity, geography and variability.
Diffusivity refers to the low concentration of energy in time and
space constraints. While solar photovoltaics collect and convert the
suns rays into electricity in real time, one must remember that society
has been accustomed to using energy at a rate that has in the past
two centuries depleted millions of years worth of compressed solar
energy dating back to the age of dinosaurs. Light and heat from the
sun are abundant, but they are low-grade types of energy that cannot be
effectively stored and dispatched at todays required amounts and rates.
While wind turbines collect the energy of flowing air, Canadians are
familiar with using energy from water turbines that collect the energy
of flowing water, a material 1,000 times denser. The natural rotational
movement of wind turbines to generate power may seem appealing,
but one must then consider the energy required to spin the wheels of
all of societys cars, trucks and trains. These examples demonstrate the
low power output, low specific energy output and low energy density
of green power relative to the energy usage habits that society has
been accustomed to.
Green power advocates must also keep in mind the limitations
of geography and optimal locations. Without massive subsidies,
solar panels may be cost-effective only on large, flat areas of land
or perhaps only in the sunniest regions. Without government support,
wind turbines may produce benefits over their costs only in deep
off-shore locations, without preferential investment and rates.
While renewable technologies may be appropriate and advantageous for certain locations, the green dream of having every home
and building self-sustained with renewable energy is overblown.
One more challenge facing green power sources is their supply
variability. Given societys current reliance on electricity and the projected additional demand from electrification of sectors such as transportation and heating, any compromise of reliable electrical supply would

14 August 2010 Volume 2/Number 4

be unacceptable. Solar and wind power technologies are dependent on

unpredictable natural systems that fluctuate and lull.
The following data from Ontarios Independent Electricity System
Operator (IESO) highlight the significance of this challenge. At 4
p.m. on October 31, 2009, wind power provided 989 megawatts
to Ontarios electricity system, close to the installed peak capacity
of 1,200 megawatts. On the very next day, the winds had ceased to
blow, and all the wind turbines in the province combined were
only able to muster seven megawatts (see Figure 4).
Figure 4: Wind variability

1200
October 31 (4:00 p.m.): 989 MW
1000

800

600

400

200

November 1 (4:00 p.m.): 7MW

0
1

2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24

Source: Independent Electricity System Operator, 2009

In order to meet electrical supply requirements without resorting

to carbon-intensive fossil fuels, these fluctuations and lulls must
be handled with electricity storage solutions of significant size. For
example, an on-call reservoir and hydro turbine the size of more
than half of the Sir Adam Beck Hydroelectric Power Stations at
Niagara Falls, Ontario, would have had to be ready for dispatch to
make up for the 982 missing megawatts on November 1, 2009.
Other options for electricity storage are limited, and Ontario
will be hard-pressed to handle the significant mismatch between
the supply and demand of green power. Since the province plans
to further increase the green credentials of the electricity sector by
quadrupling wind power capacity by 2025, these fluctuation and
capacity issues will become more acute. Solar power faces similar
problems on cloudy, rainy and snowy days.
Due to these challenges of green powerdiffusivity, geography and
variabilitythe contribution of renewables to useful energy output
for society and overall sustainability of the energy system are severely
limited and often inflated in debate. Building a sustainable energy
system will indisputably require energy sources other than green
renewable sources.
CONCLUSION

While sustainability should be a key objective of energy policy, politicians must avoid focusing solely on greenness and environmental
sustainability. A more rational approach to energy policy would focus
on strategies and technologies that are most effective at reducing carbon
emissions and, at the same time, capable of effectively supplying present

The Journal of Policy Engagement

and immediate-future needs. Green has become too vague a concept,

and the energy and environmental problems have become too critical
for inefficiency and irrationality.
Rather than being held hostage by the green movement, policymakers should refocus their efforts on the areas that will deliver
the most significant reductions in carbon emissions. A technological
shift in the two largest fossil-fuel dependent sectors, transportation and
space and water heating, would be the most hard-hitting and effective
in achieving a sustainable de-carbonized energy future. This approach
would at least double the electricity requirements of the future. In
addition to demand growth, supply will take a hit with the planned
phase-out of coal power in Ontario by 2014.
With electricity to play such a major role in a de-carbonized energy
future, it will be critical for Ontarios electricity sector to grow
efficiently and cost-competitively. The importance of reliability and
cost-effectiveness must not be ignored, meaning that policy focused
on green renewable power should be reassessed, given its inherent
fundamental shortcomings. Tasking energy policy with the objective
of greening, while facing burgeoning electrical demands in a sustainable
energy future, will risk inefficiency and instability in the energy system
and consequently disadvantage Ontarios economy. Ontario should focus
on preparing for a sustainable, not solely green, energy future.
POLICY ASSESSMENT

Ontario is already performing well in certain aspects of sustainable

energy policy. The cash-incentive program for plug-in hybrid electric
vehicles is an excellent initiative that will spark and accelerate the
gradual electrification of the transportation sector and supports
overall sustainability by shifting from petroleum to low-carbon
Ontario electricity. Gaining critical mass will be crucial in the transition, and the cash incentive reduces the entry barrier significantly. As
well, Ontario has been a leader in the implementation of smart-grid
technology, which facilitates individualized two-way flow of electricity
for consumers and producers. A higher degree of control and greater
level of component integration make the electricity system more
versatile and more efficient.
However, there are several areas in which Ontario could improve.
Ontario should focus on energy policy that would maintain the
provinces existing strengths. The electricity sector today already has
a significant low-carbon advantage compared with neighbouring
coal-dependent U.S. jurisdictions. This gives Ontario the opportunity
to showcase the role of electrification in the inevitable de-carbonization of economies. At the same time, electricity costs should be kept
low to retain manufacturing and business and remain competitive
for industry. This means that policy-makers must objectively consider all
electricity options, with overall long-term sustainability in mind.
Nuclear energy is a clear example of how green gets in the way of
sustainability. Despite high economies of scale, dependability, fuel
security and, most important, carbon-free operation, nuclear power
is often the target of environmentalists who place undue weight on
capital costs and safety risks. The public is generally misinformed and
unaware of the massive benefits and critical role of nuclear energy.
Especially with anticipated burgeoning electricity demand, nuclear
power must be recognized as a realistic and practical component of a
sustainable de-carbonized energy future.
In supporting renewable energy, a more rational approach should be

employed. For example, the subsidizing of green power should be

limited to installations that have a high degree of economic feasibility
and sustainability, rather than encouraging installation on any roof and
in any backyard. This would call for a reduction in the GEA feed-in tariff
rates so that they encourage wind and solar power development only
in favourable locations and minimize the unsustainability of artificially
expensive electricity.
Ontarios electricity sector would also benefit from the development
of more large-scale cross-boundary infrastructure and policies, such
as high-voltage direct-current long-distance transmission and larger
transmission connections with neighbouring jurisdictions. These
approaches would encourage a higher level of regional integration and
facilitate more electricity trade where Ontario could benefit as a net
supplier of low-carbon electricity to coal-dependent neighbours.
Regional differences continue to hinder the development of national
and international carbon emission agreements of significance. In
Canada, fossil fuel and carbon emission intensive regions oppose and
delay carbon emission regulation. On the international stage, Canada
has deferred the responsibility of developing a strategy of substance
to the United States. If Ontario were to initiate carbon pricing to correct
the market failure of the unrecognized cost of carbon emissions, then
the province would experience the shifting of its energy diet to lowercarbon sources and technologies, mainly via electrification, and could
emerge as a global low-carbon and sustainability leader. For overall
sustainability, carbon pricing policy is preferable to the GEAs feed-in
tariffs for certain green power technologies because it encourages
more innovation, allows more flexibility toward the goal of reducing
carbon emissions and avoids overreliance on pure green but potentially
unsustainable energy technologies.
Arthur Yip is an undergraduate student in the chemical engineering program
at the University of Waterloo, where has been involved with various groups
and projects, including the University of Waterloo Sustainability Project. He
has enjoyed diverse co-op work experiences at the National Research Council
Canada, Energy Profiles Ltd., the Ontario Ministry of the Environment and
Petro-Canada. As a winner of OCEPPs 2010 Student Essay Competition,
Yip received a $1,000 award and presented his paper at the centres May 7,
2010, Public Policy Conference in Toronto.
REFERENCES
Independent Electricity System Operator (IESO). IESO Wind Tracker Homepage:
Wind Power Generation in Ontario. Available at www.ieso.ca/imoweb/siteshared/
windtracker.asp.
Lemonick, Michael. Top 10 Myths About Sustainability. Scientific American Earth 3.0
Special Edition, March 2009.
MacKay, David J. C. Sustainable Energy without the Hot Air. Cambridge, United Kingdom:
UIT Cambridge Ltd., 2009. Available at www.withouthotair.com.
Ontario Power Authority (OPA). Discussion Paper 7: Integrating the Elements A
Preliminary Plan. November 15, 2006. Available at http://www.ontla.on.ca/library/
repository/mon/15000/268163.pdf.
Statistics Canada. Report on Energy Supply-Demand in Canada, 2007. Ottawa:
Minister of Industry, 2009. Available at http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/57-003-x/
57-003-x2007000-eng.pdf.
United Nations (UN). Report of the World Commission on Environment and
Development : Our Common Future. General Assembly Resolution 42/187. December 11, 1987.
Available at http://www.un-documents.net/wced-ocf.htm.

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