Howie Chong

Here’s an interesting fact:  according to Ontario’s Independent Electricity System Operator (who’s responsible for connecting all users and producers of power in Canada’s largest province), the demand for electricity shot up significantly during the Canada-US Gold Medal hockey game of the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.

The IESO measured an increase of 300MW right before the game began – more than enough to power a city of 150,000 people.  Electricity demand dropped significantly very shortly after Sidney Crosby’s overtime goal at approximately 5:40pm Eastern Time.

The IESO also measured power demand spikes during commercials, when, one supposes, millions of Canadians simultaneously opened up their fridges to grab a beer and strained municipal water pumping stations by unknowingly flushing toilets in concert with their fellow countrymen.  The total demand spike of 300 MW would equate to about 180 tonnes of greenhouse emissions throughout the two and a half hour Olympic final.

Changes in Behaviour Count

It’s estimated that 80 percent of Canadians watched the Gold Medal game on February 28th, making it the most watched televised event in Canadian history.

“Consumer behaviour has a significant impact on the demand for electricity,” said Mark Wilson, a Manager at the IESO. “The patterns we saw yesterday are very different from the demand profile for a typical Sunday in late February.”

I guess that goes to show that behaviour changes can really make a difference.

(via Treehugger, Clean Break, IESO)

Over the past few months the National Film Board of Canada has been releasing its movies online.  Among many of the excellent films and documentaries is this dry, yet fascinating gem from 1976 exploring various green- and energy-efficient building methods during the oil crisis of the 1970s.

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Just a thought:

Recent stock volatility in the world economy presents a crisatunity for The Next Great Project of humanity: namely, the development of clean, green energy.

There are several reasons why this crisis has a bright, silver lining.

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The New York Times reports that solar panels are being nicked right off of buildings, like from Jim and Shayna Powell’s roof in Palm Desert, CA. (pictured).

Many of the panels are ending up on eBay or Craigslist.

Mark Dykeman makes an interesting analogy on how broadband internet service drives today’s economy in the same way how cheap oil powered the industrial economy

Cheap oil was a hallmark of recent economic boom periods, permitting stable, continued economic development. Today, more expensive oil (not withstanding any recent price fluctuations) is leading to price increases in many sectors of the global economy, slowing growth by making it more expensive to travel, manufacture goods, heat our homes, and so on…

Cheap broadband Internet access has worked the same as cheap oil, powering the expansion of e-commerce, Web 1.0 and Web 2.0. At one time people were limited to dial up access for either Internet or other private online services (e.g. the original America Online, CompuServe, the Well, etc.) As telecos and other technology companies gradually built a high speed communications infrastructure –- first in major centers across the world and then expanding to wider areas of coverage -– applications gradually began appearing that could take advantage of increasing communications bandwidth. Images, audio, and video applications grew tremendously as broadband Internet access became available.

It reminds me of a talk given by ZipCar founder Robin Chase on (the excellent site) TED.com, where she notes that the explosion of car sharing services around the world would not be possible without the leaps we’ve made in communications technology over the past 15-20 years (video here).