Toxics Watch Society of Alberta

Submission to the Transportation and Public Works Committee
City of Edmonton

On Behalf of the Toxics Watch Society of Alberta 
June 10, 2008


Introduction

Founded in 1986, the Toxics Watch Society is a non-profit, environmental advocacy organization working to reduce the emissions, exposure, and use of toxics chemicals in Alberta. Early projects of the society include establishing and participating in the annual Toxic Round-up with the City of Edmonton and the Alberta Special Waste Management Corporation between 1986 – 1994, and advocating for the creation of a Right-to-Know Bylaw for the City of Edmonton in 1993. 

In addition to work at the municipal level, Toxics Watch also works at the provincial and federal levels on air quality policy and climate change. 

Toxics Watch would like to voice its concern about the recent report by Dr. David Checkel recommending that the trolley system be phased out in 2009 and 2010. 


Peak Oil and Its Impact on Transportation Fuels

There is widespread agreement among interested parties that the world is at or near its maximum ability to produce oil. Once the world peak of oil production is reached, the amount of oil available to the world will decrease every year thereafter. Although there is widespread disagreement on the exact timing of the peak, evidence of it being sooner rather than later is mounting. Both the recent price of oil and the frantic pace at which the multinational oil companies are rushing to develop the Northern Alberta Oilsands – the world's most expensive source of oil – are evidence the we are at or near Peak Oil.

Peak Oil has very important implications for transportation, because the fuels that oil produces are very difficult, if not impossible, to replace on a large scale (the current biofuels experiment, even if successful, will only replace a small fraction of the fuels in demand today). In the medium- to long-term, then, diesel fuel will become extremely expensive. In fact, diesel fuel will at some point become impossible to obtain.


Flexibility of Energy Sources

Trolley buses can be run on electricity from a variety of energy sources, including wind, solar, hydropower, biomass, nuclear, coal, and natural gas. Electricity-driven transportation, then, offers Edmonton a hedge against shortages of any one fuel source. 

In 75 years, Edmonton will have electricity of some kind. Optimistically, it will be clean wind or solar electricity, but one way or another the lights will still be on. Diesel fuel and gasoline, on the other hand, could be so precious that burning them for mass transportation is simply not viable.

As Edmonton struggles to cope with the Peak Oil-driven world transportation fuels shortage, it will be well-served to have the infrastructure to power some of its transportation network by means other than diesel fuel. 

Recommendation

Toxics Watch urges the Transportation and Public Works Committee to reject Dr. Checkel's recommendation that the trolley system be phased out in favour of hybrid buses. Instead, Toxics Watch would like the Committee to file a motion that City Council investigates the benefits that a healthy and expanded trolley system would provide in a transportation fuels-constrained world.


Submitted by:
Conrad Nobert, President
Myles Kitagawa, Associate Director