A plea for context in publishing green energy articles

The Herald prints articles on green energy projects lacking sufficient inclusion of context. Last week, two examples:

“Stirling solar program helps reduce energy costs”

“Canadians among biggest energy users”

Whether it’s a description of a “wind farm” in the rolling hills of Enchant, a “solar pasture” near Burdett or a “collector” in the Gobi desert - what is the takeaway for the average reader?

In the Herald article on the Stirling solar program there is no connection to the headline.

So HOW does Stirling’s solar program, in fact, “reduce costs”? Is the reader to assume that this is the point of the final paragraph which references the community’s information?

Then, the Stirling online website which presents no comparative cost analysis reveals only that Stirling rooftop and ground installations in the course of one year capture 346 megawatt hours of electricity.

The Stirling solar panels produce electricity for public buildings and municipal consumption equivalent to power requirements of about 50 homes.

Let’s take this one step further. How does the energy necessary to power one home compare to the total energy use per capita in Canada?

According to the The International Energy Agency’s (IEA) World Energy Outlook which is the reference for the second Herald article of last week - we Canadians use a total of 300 gigajoules annually for our households, our transportation and our industry.

This World Energy Outlook also states that our homes, on average, annually consume only 25 of this 300 gigajoules.

Here’s take-away: 1. Considering our census data of two and half persons per household - individual Canadians power consumption at home is equal to three per cent of the total energy per person that is used to fuel our country.

2. The Stirling solar program captures energy equal to the power requirements of about 50 households which equates to the total country averaged power consumption of just four Canadians.

3. Massive solar energy programs will be required to elevate renewable sources to levels significantly higher than their current four per cent contribution to total Canadian energy production.

4. Using “households powered” or “communities powered” terms to describe meeting energy needs is misrepresentative of power generation and consumption; potentially blurring the enormity of the fossil fuel replacement challenge and skewing allocation of resources.

The underfunding of nuclear power research may be one example.

Will Scott