Edmonton Energy Emissions Webinar Overview
On December 11, the Alberta Land Institute (ALI) held the second webinar in our lunchtime webinar series. The session, “Edmonton Energy Emissions: Neighbourhood carbon footprint contributors” featured three guest speakers:
Sandeep Agrawal, director of ALI, Associate Dean in the Faculty of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies and professor in the department of Earth & Atmospheric Sciences
Nilusha Welegedara, research manager at ALI and the Urban Environment Observatory lab at the University of Alberta.
Amit Kumar professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Alberta and a global leader on energy systems, the Canada Research Chair in Assessment of Energy Systems (Tier 1) and the Deputy Director of Future Energy Systems here at the University of Alberta.
Dave Poulton, Senior Advisor at ALI, moderated the session.
During the one hour period, Sandeep Agrawal and Nilusha Welegedara presented first, discussing factors that contribute to greenhouse gas emissions in Edmonton, Alberta with a focus on neighbourhood emissions.
Amit Kumar’s presentation followed and discussed several options for reducing greenhouse gas emissions in Edmonton and Alberta as a whole from an engineering perspective.
Presentation from Sandeep Agrawal and Nilusha Welegedara
Agrawal and Weledegara presented findings from their research “Household energy-related carbon footprint in residential neighbourhoods in high-latitude cities: A case of Edmonton in Canada.”
Weledegara and Agrawal used Edmonton, the largest northern city in North America, as a case study to investigate the primary source of emissions in high latitude cities and the differences between neighbourhoods and different populations.
The study focused on high latitude cities in particular for a number of reasons including temperature extremes (hot summers and cold winters), fossil fuel dependency, higher automobile use and lower density.
Some findings include that emissions from dwellings are 45 per cent higher than emissions from transportation, though emissions from transportation and dwellings vary throughout the city based on a few factors.
Neighbourhoods with better access to public transportation and lower transit times for residents had lower emissions from transportation. Inversely, neighborhoods with less access to public transportation and longer commute times had higher emissions from transportation due to reliance on personal vehicles.
Other factors impacting household emissions include floor area, due to heating and cooling needs, and energy leaks through windows and doors.
Emissions also differed based on socioeconomic status. Higher income households tended to have higher emissions due to owning larger houses and higher use of personal vehicles, whereas lower income households were more likely to have dwellings with smaller floor areas and higher public transportation use.
Agrawal and Weledegara ended their presentation with some suggestions for reducing emissions in Edmonton and other high latitude cities.
The suggestions are mixed land use in neighbourhoods, increased access to transportation, more dwellings with lower floor area, increased green cover, use of green energy sources, incentives for retrofitting and the implementation of neighbourhood level climate action plans.
Presentation from Amit Kumar
Amit Kumar’s presentation took an engineering approach to suggestions for reducing emissions from households on provincial level and touched on other sectors such as transportation.
In his work through Canada Research Chair Program, Kumar and team used technology assessment to understand how development can impact different sectors, including the residential sector, as well as the impact on energy systems across the province and across all of Canada. This process informs policy formulation and investment decision-making.
The residential sector in Alberta accounts for 8.5 per cent of energy use,with 65 per cent of residential energy being used for heating.
Some options for mitigating energy use include improving energy efficiency, the use of renewable energy and the utilization of carbon capture and storage technologies.
By analyzing all energy sources in Canada and the transportation required to utilize the energy and where the energy is used within each sector, technology options can be assessed.
Within the residential sector, energy efficient lighting, appliances, heating furnaces, & boilers have the highest GHG mitigation potential.
Alberta is also one of the highest producers of hydrogen which could be blended in natural gas streams to reduce natural gas use.
In fact blending 15 per cent hydrogen in natural gas lines for residential use could mitigate 0.5 million tonnes of CO2 per year. Kumar noted that blending more than 20 per cent hydrogen with natural gas would require costly infrastructure changes.
All of the mitigation options that Kumar suggested for reducing residential emissions could also be used to reduce emissions across other sectors.
Q&A
Some interesting takeaways from the Q and A are:
- Renewable energy implementation is costly and is therefore a less cost efficient option than hydrogen mixing under 20 per cent which can utilize existing infrastructure, and improving energy efficiency.
- Hydrogen can be used to decarbonize sectors that can not as easily make use of renewable energy.
- Despite having lower floor area, mature neighbourhood homes have higher emissions than newer homes because older homes are resultantly less energy efficient
- Using emission mitigating technology in the construction sector can offset emissions from the embodied carbon in construction materials used to construct residential buildings
- Mixed land use and compact development requires less building materials which can reduce emissions from embodied carbon
A recording of the session will be posted on ALI’s website at a later date including the entire Q and A session.
Thank you to all attendees and guest speakers. Keep an eye out for announcements for future webinar sessions.