'As municipalities ready themselves for significant growth, there is an opportunity to build better and cheaper,' columnist says

Oakville’s annual climate change update reveals why emissions are up despite tree planting, geothermal and education drives.

As part of an ongoing research collaboration, Clean Air Task Force (CATF) examined how existing research test centres and collaborative R&D programs can inform the design of future geothermal testbeds. The series is published by CATF in collaboration with the Cascade Institute.

In a survey Cascade Institute recently conducted of roughly 2,500 Albertans and British Columbians, half reported low or no familiarity with geothermal. That’s less awareness than for any other major source of energy.

"We actually have not yet crossed those technologies over into the different regions and the main reason that we’ve focused on solar in Alberta and geothermal in Ontario so far is we’re chasing the most affordable carbon reduction within each market and there’s very differentiating characteristics between the markets.

The program is a natural extension of ACET’s work with the Village of Cumberland on a potential district energy project that could use water trapped in abandoned mine shafts and tunnels to produce geothermal energy to heat and cool buildings.