To the Expositor:
This article is taken from the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives Monitor, January 2012. It reads as follow: “A massive store of clean, renewable energy, the ‘hot rocks’ that are close to the surface in Western and Northern Canada, could generate more electricity than the entire country now consumes. This was the finding of a recent report on geothermal energy by 12 scientists for the federal Geological Survey of Canada.”
“Canada’s in-place geothermal power exceeds one million times Canada’s current electrical consumption,” the report asserts. The heat is closest to the surface in large swaths of British Columbia, Albert, the Yukon, and Northwest Territories, but exists in substantial amounts all across Canada.
The report points out that geothermal has distinct advantages over not only fossil fuels and nuclear energy, but also wind, solar, and biofuels, since the plant’s internal heat is available 24 hours a day, year-round.
Reading this report brought many questions to mind:
Why isn’t Canada utilizing this power source to its full extent?
Why are governments and electrical companies burdening taxpayers with the heavy cost of cancelled electrical natural gas plants, inefficient and intrusive wind turbines, etc. when there is an alternative?
Whose corporate toes would be stepped on by using this power source?
Why isn’t this “clean energy” potential being brought forward and openly discussed as a “viable alternative?”
Does the gagging of scientific research by the Harper government have anything to do with this?
Are Canadians deliberately being kept uninformed so large corporations can maximize profits at the expense of our environment?
These and many more questions need to be asked? What are your thoughts on this?
Michael Medwig Sheguiandah
