Ottawa Blowing Off Major Event? Energy Conference Draws Global Interest, but not Canada's
This article by Jennifer Pritchett appeared in the Kingston Whig-Standard
May 2008
An international wind-energy conference to be held in Kingston next month has attracted support from governments around the world. Canada is not one of them.
The Seventh World Wind Energy Conference, to be held at St. Lawrence College June 24-26, is expected to attract as many as 800 delegates and experts from 80 countries. It's the first time the annual event has been held in North America. The Environment Ministry of Germany, the world leader in wind-energy production, has pledged $50,000 for this year's conference. The province of Ontario has promised $100,000. Environment Minister John Gerretsen, who's also MPP for Kingston and the Islands, will present the cheque at St. Lawrence next Friday.
John Baird, Canada's Environment Minister, has declined to attend or participate in the conference in any way.
Volker Thomsen, co-chair of the conference and former president of St. Lawrence College, said it is both unfortunate and surprising that foreign governments are supporting an environmental event the Canadian federal government is ignoring.
"For me, it is a blow in the face," Thomsen said. "We have a once-in-a-lifetime event coming to Canada. Forget for a moment that it's coming to Kingston. That's a special privilege."
Without the sponsors, he said the conference wouldn't be possible. St. Lawrence, Queen's University, the Community Foundation of Greater Kingston and Kingston's Economic Development Corporation are some of the organizations supporting the event.
"A conference of this calibre isn't a thing that you can do out of inspiration alone," said Thomsen. "You need strong infrastructure." He has appealed to Kingston and the Islands MP Peter Milliken for assistance in processing visas for visitors from other countries.
China alone is expected to send as many as 65 delegates.
Yesterday, neither Milliken nor Baird could be reached for comment. The 2008 conference, held in previous years in Argentina and India, will focus on communities using their local resources to power themselves through wind, biomass, hydro and solar resources.
Thomsen said Kingston - and St. Lawrence in particular - were chosen to host the conference in part because of its leadership in renewable energy education. This spring, the first class will graduate from a new, three-year program called Energy Systems Engineering.
"This is the first program in Canada with a focus on renewable energy," said Thomsen.
He also said it became his personal mission to bring the wind-energy conference to Kingston after the Ontario Sustainable Energy Association attracted the event to Canada for 2008. He said Kingston was a logical place to hold the conference because it is the location of the World Wind Energy Institute, a virtual university he founded two years ago to bring together students and experts from around the world.
"This triggered the world community to acknowledge St. Lawrence College's keen leadership in this area," said Thomsen. The title of this year's conference is Community Power: Energy Autonomy for Local Economies. "This is instead of having huge, centralized systems that are very vulnerable," said Thomsen. "Neither Gananoque nor Cornwall [lost power] during the blackout because they have independent utilities that could disconnect automatically from the grid if there's a problem. They are self-sufficient."
The conference will hear 120 scientific, commercial and policy papers presented. Those papers were selected by an international group of experts who reviewed the work. The event will include four days of discussions on wind energy, a gala dinner, as well as other educational and networking opportunities, including a trade show.
"The theoretical development of the engineering around [wind-energy] equipment needs an outlet where the international community can compare," said Thomsen. "They will be able to ... see what their colleagues are doing in the U.S., Australia, India, China, Spain and Germany."
Forty per cent of the world's installed wind-power capacity is located in Germany.
Thomsen urges the public to attend the conference, but he admits the cost of attending the entire conference is pricey. It costs $975 to attend the event - $900 for members of the World Wind Energy Association. Those prices go up after May 15 to $1,200 and $1,050 respectively.
To help offset those costs, Thomsen said there are affordable accommodations available at local dormitories.
There will be a series of community power workshops from June 23 (all day) through June 26. The June 24-26 sessions take place from noon to 5 p.m. Cost to attend only those workshops is $350.
The workshops are designed to educate individual landowners, First Nations, non-profit organizations, farmers, co-operatives, non-governmental organizations and municipalities about community ownership, financing, policy and virtually every aspect of overseeing renewable energy projects.
The conference's keynote speakers include the internationally renowned David Suzuki and Hermann Scheer, who won a Nobel Prize for his work in environmental energy projects. Time magazine has also named him one of its five heroes for the "green" century.
There is a job fair that's taking place at St. Lawrence College from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. on June 26. Next year's world wind energy conference, organized by the World Wind Energy Association, will be held in Cairo.
jpritchett@thewhig.com
