VICTORIA SECULAR HUMANIST ASSOCIATION
NEWSLETTER
September 2022
Monthly Activities of the Victoria Secular Humanist Association
Pleasure and companionship: Sundays, 8am breakfast at Frankie’s.
Informative talks: are held every other Sunday at 10am, the September 18 and October 3, talks will be held at the Oak Bay Recreation Centre, 1975 Bee St. On the Second floor in the back room. There is an elevator.
Humanist Cafés: are held every month on the first and third Wednesday at the Cook Street Activity Centre, 380 Cook Street. Specific topics of special interest are introduced by a guest speaker, followed by a moderated discussion.
On Aug 17 2022, theHumanist Cafe presentation titled “PROSPECT OR PERIL? THE EFFECT OF ANTHROPOGENIC CLIMATE CHANGE ON THE EARTH’S BIOTA” was made by Thor Henrick and followed by discussion and Q & A. Heoutlined topics such as the 5 major extinctions and speciation events of the last half billion years, the anthropogenic rise of C02, the Ice Age extinctions, exponential growth of human population, effects of technology, and destruction of whole ecosystems and their biota, effects of rising global temperatures and greenhouse gases. Thor used ‘props’ to illustrate his presentation. Can the human population continue to grow on a planet with shrinking natural resources and especially fossil fuels? Most said no, but found it difficult to find viable alternatives.
ECO HUMANISTS
We are the EH Committee, volunteer members of the VSHA. The members, each with a special environmental project, are hoping to help counter this mad, man-made environmental disaster that is climate change.
Members
John Pope, Acting Chair
Fred Stepchuck, recorder
Al Wiseley, is preparing a proposal regarding the planting of trees with the Focus on the Paulownia tree
Glynne Evans, is working on Disinvestment Education
Joan Rossow,
Michael Rae, researched three companies to which the City of Victoria outsources recycling as part of a zero-waste initiative management.
Betty Lunam, puts together the VSHA News Letter to inform members at large and our contact people of VSHA and Eco Humanist activities.
Thor Henrich, over the summer Thor completed his thesis on
“USING THE RIGHTS OF NATURE TO PROTECT BC’S OLD GROWTH FORESTS.”
Simply put, Thor’s thesis is that Eco-humanism suggests a means by which humanity can live in harmony with nature, without destroying it in the process. His work has mainly focused on reasons why protecting the remaining 10% Old Growth Forests of British Columbia must be protected. Eco-humanism marries evidence-based, scientific information with morality and ethics, using the precautionary principle to do no harm, to nature or to humanity. In the case of old growth forests, two new developments demonstrate that old growth forests are more ‘productive’ ecologically than the second growth ‘managed forests’ that replace them. One is that all plant root systems are interconnected by mycorrhizal fungi, which assist plant growth with sourcing water and other essential nutrients, which are in turn fed by ‘mother’ (ie. old) trees to their young and even different species; the other is rapid advances in DNA and physiological processes, to greatly increase our knowledge about how to maintain healthy forests in perpetuity, and why the present system of clear-cutting is not sustainable. His project was approved on March 31, 2022, and his 9-page thesis is being distributed via the internet as of August 31, 2022.
Barrie Webster.
GEOTHERMAL ELECTRICITY
energy source for the existential emergency
In an existential emergency, it is important to focus on what can be controlled. In the case of climate change, sustainability of the response strategy is vital. Financial cost is a factor, but the necessity of finding and developing a viable remedy is paramount.
The 2022 report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) stresses the urgency of reducing our use of fossil fuels by 2030, and ultimately our dependence on them altogether; the time horizon is closing in.
The geothermal resource has a special place in the move to clean energy. It is the only sustained renewable source of energy capable of providing uninterrupted base-load electrical power in quantity. In fact, it has been estimated that the geothermal energy resource exceeds the entire current energy use levels in Canada. And geothermal electricity generation is scalable. Development at the pace required will be a massive task. Both reduced energy use and the installation of replacement energy sources will require major societal changes and involve hundreds of billions of dollars. Massive national and provincial investment in the development of our geothermal energy resource would be a bold step in this direction.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, our governments willingly spent hundreds of billions of dollars to deal with urgent societal health needs. Clearly, in the face of necessity, it can be done. The existential threat of climate change demands action with heightened urgency. We have only one planet. Canada has demonstrated that an extreme emergency can be met with the expenditures required.
Electrical energy is central to future sustainability. Alternatives to fossil fuels are
emerging, but the generation of electricity from our widespread geothermal storehouse is largely unsung; Canada is only now waking up to the opportunity.
Deep geothermal energy is virtually untapped in Canada. Vast thermally attractive strata underly parts of the western prairie provinces and British Columbia. Geothermal electricity generation is scalable. In some cases, it is possible to use existing abandoned gas wells by enlarging and extending them to depths where temperatures are more favourable for geothermal energy exploitation. Temperatures and geology at depth are already known for these abandoned wells. But the major hurdle overall has been the cost of drilling to the depths required (3,000 – 10,000 metres or more), and as is the case with fossil fuels, to confirm the best exact locations for these wells.
The use of solar and wind energy as alternatives to fossil fuels for the generation of electricity is increasing and costs are coming down, but each has the drawback of intermittency. Hydroelectric development is also considered clean, but methane emissions from decaying flooded vegetation are a problem in addition to the associated environmental and social disruption. On the other hand, geothermal energy does not have these disadvantagesPilot scale development by the Fort Nelson First Nation using abandoned gas wells is underway at the Clarke Lake site in northeastern BC. Development of geothermal energy at the other end of the Western Canada Sedimentary Basin, in southeastern Saskatchewan, is also being pursued by the DEEP Earth Energy Production Corporation. Each endeavour is small scale and has several years’ experience; each receives federal government support. Geothermal energy is beginning to be taken seriously in western Canada. BC and Alberta have already been mapped for temperature at depth as a result of drilling for the oil and gas industry. Geothermal energy development can springboard from this knowledge.
The major hurdle to the development of this resource is the high cost of drilling to the depths at which temperatures of the rock are sufficient. And the level of investment required has been judged to be well beyond what private sector capital is willing to risk; we cannot afford to wait for a willing entrepreneur. If we are to address the climate change existential emergency within the time available, investment in geothermal electricity generation needs to begin now.
- Conventional drilling technology uses diamond tipped drills to cut into the rock. Drill bits need to be changed frequently, and drilling to 3-4 thousand metres is laborious, time consuming, and expensive.
Recent research at MIT in the US has demonstrated the feasibility of new deep drilling technology that enables easier access to deep geothermal resources (10,000 m or more).
The new technique being commercialized by Quaise Energy uses a substantially less expensive and less time consuming technique than conventional drilling using high frequency energy beams to melt and vapourize rock.
This is not the only new technique being commercialized. Extensive discussions based on research and development of geothermal energy is now taking place annually in the US-based series of PIVOT conferences.
Fifty years ago, the vast hydrocarbon resources in the Alberta tar sands begged for development. Canada agreed and massive federal financial support was made available. Canada and Alberta have since derived great financial benefit from this fossil fuel exploitation. Similarly, the shale gas resource in northeastern BC has been given large provincial and federal subsidies to enable their development. But those resources have now been recognized as being environmentally unsustainable, and it is now time to develop more environmentally friendly energy sources.
Prices for solar- and wind-derived electricity are coming down, and there are intrinsic advantages such as the capacity for local electricity generation, reducing the need for expensive transmission lines. Though these sources are becoming cheaper, they take up valuable real estate and, as stated earlier, they are intrinsically intermittent requiring energy storage technology to bridge the gaps.
Nuclear reactors are also being considered, but permitting, construction and the development of acceptable methods to deal with radioactive waste will take decades. Small scale modular reactors may be feasible, but the need for clean energy is much larger than they can accommodate.
Then there is the concept of capturing CO2 from fossil fuel use, and the atmosphere itself, and sequestering it underground. Critics argue that it is not worth squandering our money on this technology: while it works at the pilot plant level, the massive quantities of CO2 that need to be sequestered to counter climate change are orders of magnitude beyond the capabilities of the full scale plants that have yet to be built. And they still need energy to operate. Carbon capture and storage is thus attractive primarily to those who want to justify continued fossil fuel use.
Our survival on our planet needs us to replace fossil fuels and it depends on the use of new feasible energy sources. Inaction will threaten our very survival and lead to destruction of our planetary biosphere.
We ignore development of geothermal energy at our peril.