Climate Change 2: Canadian Technology Development

Background

Establishing the program for a conference is an exciting venture. One is never quite sure of the end result when starting out. I'm pleased to say, on behalf of the Technical Program Committee and Session Chairs, that we have arrived at a Conference Program, which is very timely and relevant to Canada's international commitment to manage atmospheric greenhouse gas.

The conference was conceived in early 2000 as a forum to discuss Canadian GHG avoidance and mitigation technologies. The goal was to solicit policy and technical papers on the broad range of technologies established by reference to the National Climate Change Process Technology Table Options Report. The Call for Papers requested abstracts on the following and related topics.

   .  Fossil Organic Resource Production
   ·  Energy Production
   ·  Energy End Use
   ·  Non-Energy Greenhouse Gas Emissions (eg. agriculture, cement)
   ·  Greenhouse Gas Management
   ·  Enabling/Cross-Cutting Technologies (eg. hydrogen, electricity)
   ·  Greenhouse Gas Technology Evaluation Methodology
   ·  International Opportunities (eg. exportable technology, joint technology development initiatives with other countries)

Human energy use is often cited as the root cause of greenhouse gas emissions. We are cautiously optimistic that human use of energy may also be the key to helping control greenhouse emissions. We have thus structured the conference program to bring out the role the wise use of energy can play in helping us to control greenhouse gas through opportunities to create and enhance natures sinks for carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. We have arranged the papers and presentations in six sessions to consider:

   ·  Canada's Opportunities for GHG Technology Development
   .  Sources of Energy and Materials
   ·  Services Provided by Energy
   ·  Sinks and Salvaging of GHG Emissions from Energy Use
   ·  Societal Issues
   ·  Encouraging Canada's Opportunities

The Program

The program is generally focused on greenhouse gas reduction technology development. Since there is still some uncertainty with respect to the reality of climate change issue, we have commissioned Jay Ingram, of the Discovery Channel, to speak to us on that topic to open the conference on Wednesday evening. We anticipate that Jay will provide us with useful background perspective on the international consensus that greenhouse gas emissions need to be controlled.

We have also provided opportunities for federal and provincial ministers responsible for our environment and energy supplies to elaborate on government policy. The Honorable Lorne Taylor, Minister of the Environment, Alberta has accepted our invitation and will be represented by Allan Amey of Alberta's Climate Change Central, our Conference Chair. The Honourable Ralph Goodale, Minister of Natural Resources Canada has also accepted and will be represented by Deputy Minister Peter Harrison. We anticipate that the Honourable David Anderson will be accepting our invitation to open the Conference.

We begin the technical discussions Thursday morning with a plenary session titled, "Greenhouse Gas Technology Development and Energy". This session sets the stage for the subsequent more technical sessions by establishing the context for Canadian greenhouse gas technology development. It begins by reflecting on the climate change issue in context with humanity’s role in the carbon life cycle and energy use with an address by Stuart Smith of the National Roundtable on the Environment and the Economy. A second paper, by Robert Morrison, David Layzell, and Ged McLean of the Conference Technical Program Committee provide an overview of the conference theme and subsequent technical papers. Leaders from Canada's National Climate Change Process, David Oulton and Graham Campbell, provide updates on Canada's position on climate change technology development in the overall context of international negotiations, and national and provincial actions, respectively.

On Thursday afternoon two technical sessions will be undertaken in parallel. One of these, "Sources of Energy and Material" focuses on major expectations for future energy and material supply - with the emphasis turning out to be energy supply. The opening paper in this session, by Bob Meneley, reviews Canada's natural gas resource base, as it is an important source of relatively low greenhouse gas emitting energy. Other papers consider the role of renewable energy, the potential for energy from coal without emissions, and nuclear energy. The session closes with a paper that cuts across all session topics. It addresses the utilization of animal manure in the context of energy production, ghg emission reduction and the production of composting material. Bernard Masse of Hydro Quebec and Alan Johnson will be chairing this session. The second session, "Energy Services and Enabling Technology" opens with a paper by David Moore of Alcan Global Automotive solutions, which quantifies ghg reductions that can be brought about developing the technology to employ lightweight materials for use in transport. Most of the papers contributed are related to transport technology although two do consider centralized energy systems. The session closes with a summary of technology development possibilities in transport by Jim McKenzie of the World Resources Institute. Nigel Fitzpatrick of Azure Dynamics, and Ged McLean of the Institute for Integrated Energy Systems of University of Victoria will be chairing this session.

Friday morning brings two more technical sessions. One, "Technology to Salvage and Sequester the Products of Energy Use" will be opened by David Layzell of Biocap Canada Foundation. David's presentation, Biological Sinks: Canada's Potential and Technology Development Needs" provides an overview of the potential for biological systems to remove ghg from the atmosphere and to provide energy and materials. Most of the papers in the session are devoted to biotechnology related to the reduction of ghg emissions and the sequestration of carbon. An important paper provides an overview of the potential for geological sinks that nicely compliments a paper in Session 2a on reducing emissions from coal. The session closes with a technical presentation by Richard Pharis, "Finding the Best Trees for the Job" that evaluates the efficacy of different tree species as biological sinks. Karen Haugen-Kozyra of Alberta Agriculture, Food and Rural Development and Claudia Wagner-Riddle of the Canadian Society of Agrometeorology chair the session. The other Friday morning session, "Societal Issues and Technology Development" opens with a paper by Marc Rosen of the Ryerson Polytechnic University which discusses the application of engineering principles to the evaluation of ghg control technology. Other papers in the session cover a variety of topics from life cycle assessment to the role of the Clean Development Mechanism in technology development. The session closes with a paper, "Soft Energies - Hard Choices" by Ray Burge which examines the implications on society of alternative energy supplies of limited capacity. Betty Rozendal of Atomic Energy of Canada and Holly Mitchell of BIOCAP Canada Foundation chair the session.

The final plenary session, "Establishing Sustainable GHG Mitigation Technology" looks forward to the establishment of policy to encourage the development and deployment of ghg technology. Alan Glasgow of Ontario Power Generation opens the session from the perspective of a major Canadian electricity supplier. Paul Fauteux of Environment Canada provides participants with an update on the negotiations relating to the Kyoto Protocol. Bob Page of Transalta Corporation provides an industry oriented view of actions needed to promote ghg technology in Canada, Sue Kirby of Natural Resources Canada closes the session with an outline of government plans for action and policy development.

The program will close with a formal panel session comprised of plenary session speakers and others to provide a final opportunity for questions and discussion.
Additional program details are available on this website including speakers abstracts and biographies. The "Short Program" identifies all of the presentations and speakers. Please note that many of the papers there are identified in bold type. These papers have been designated as being on an "Overview Track by" the Technical Program Committee. The purpose is to guide participants through the parallel sessions to catch the papers we think will provide the broadest understanding of greenhouse gas reduction technology. Please note that the Overview Track papers are grouped at the beginning or end of the sessions to minimize seat shuffling.

As you can see from this summary, we have established a comprehensive multi-disciplinary program. We expect that the interaction of such a wide range of expertise will generate some new ideas and understanding of greenhouse gas technology issues. Please come prepared to participate with searching questions and focused discussion. We are looking forward to a productive conference.


Duane Pendergast

Chair, Technical Program Committee
Climate Change 2: Canadian Technology Development
 

The Conference Website

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