If I had my way….
Toronto would get rid of its island airport.
The island would be converted into a place called Cleantech Island Park, which would be a centrepiece of demonstration and deployment of clean technologies from southern Ontario-based companies. This island would be a unique way to show off regionally developed clean technologies to domestic and foreign investors and potential customers visiting from around the world.
The island would be a net producer of renewable/co-gen energy feeding into the provincial grid under the standard offer program — a place for solar farms (Arise; Cyrium), windmills (Magenn; Whalepower; Trillium; Skypower), geothermal heat pump installations (NextEnergy), energy storage (Hydrogenics), and other technologies to be showcased. These systems could be connected through energy management and demand response software produced by local firms. The island itself would be a demand-response aggregator, and its own local grid would be wired for intelligence (Ruggedcom).
All hot water on the island would be provided by a district solar thermal system (Enerworks; Mondial). All cooling would be provided by geothermal (NextEnergy and others) or from a deep-water lake cooling system (Enwave).
The island would have its own drinking water from a small filtration plant based on local technology (Zenon). New construction on the island would be a chance to showcase materials made from plant fibres and based on bio-oils, rather than petroleum and metal. Bio-pesticides would be exclusively used in gardens.
The ferries to the island would run on biodiesel from Biox. Solar-hybrid catamarans could be rented for leisure or commutes.
All residential lightbulbs would come from Group IV Semiconductor. Fluorescent systems would be made dimmable by Fifth Light Technology and automated by Encelium.
Only low-speed zero-emission vehicles would be permitted — in other words, ZENN Motor cars. But nobody would own them. They would be parked at specially created parking lots that provide electricity recharging, and people could drive them between lots for free like people borrow bicycles in the Netherlands. When plugged in, they would act as a power backup in the event of a blackout, letting intermittent solar and wind installations on the island provide electricity 24-hours a day. They would also help the mainland meet peak demand during the summer and avoid importing coal power from the United States.
Waste on the island would be minimized, but whatever is created would be converted into energy with a small energy-from-waste system built by Plasco. The CO2 from that system would be fed to an algae/solar bioreactor built by Menova Energy and the algae would be harvested to create biofuel for the ferries.
Restaurants on the island would recapture waste heat from kitchens (Martin Air Systems). All relevant appliances and power-using equipment would be cycled on and off to maximize efficiency (REGEN).
You get the picture. The island would remain a place for tourists but with a strong educational component — exposing and teaching visitors about the technologies on demonstration and the impact they can have on the environment and climate. All schools in the province would be required to organize class tours, and all jobs would go to students (perhaps as part of course studies). Finally, the companies demonstrating these technologies would be located across the lake in the Cherry Beach waterfront area, which would be designated a tax-free zone called the Southern Ontario Cleantech Cluster, or SOCC. It would be aimed at encouraging local investment and creating local jobs. Cleantech Island Park would be the D&D extension of SOCC.
The companies that located in this zone would be cutely known as Clean Socks. The Cleantech Island Park, because of its uniqueness, would become globally known and would make southern Ontario a global leader in clean technology development and deployment.
Okay now, back to reality…
Tyler Hamilton is editor-in-chief of Corporate Knights magazine and a business columnist for the Toronto Star, Canada's largest daily newspaper. In addition to this Clean Break blog, Tyler writes a weekly column of the same name that discusses trends, happenings and innovators in the clean technology and green energy market. This blog is a personal project started in April 2005. It is not an official blog of the newspaper.
August 16th, 2007 at 5:24 pm
It takes vision to see a world like you described. Sadly the answers are out there but big business and thus campaign contributions are controlled by the biggest and dirtiest company’s around.
August 16th, 2007 at 6:04 pm
It’s a great idea!
I assume, too, that universities would benefit from involvement and it’d increase their stature in this area of technology, too.
Would also be great to see some educational facilities around backyard (food) gardening, or balcony gardening
August 17th, 2007 at 8:23 am
i love it! I’d be there in a heartbeat!
One question:
Why get rid of the airport? It takes up barely 1/10th the land area of the entire island and it would be a great place to showcase environmental advancements in line with air travel/transportation in general. If anything, i’d say the airport is where your dream should begin!
Considering it’s already there, it’s closer to your ultimate vision than anything else you mentioned in your write up. And could ultimately be used as the ‘spark’ to bring funding to your Island Utopia.
I find many people so closed minded by automatically not thinking outside the box and jumping on the political bandwagon when it comes to a pre-existing operation like the island airport.
Take a lemon and make lemonade….or at least use it to jump start an idea, but don’t just throw it away because that’s the flavour of the week.
Get rid of it and 10 years down the road everybody will be wondering why we’re spending millions to build an airport where ‘green travel’ ideas can be showcased on the island!
August 17th, 2007 at 9:16 am
I always had this Back to the Future notion of the future, with flying cars and neon lights but what you depict would be more accurate and a more healthy vision. If Hollywood could take that picture when creating their Sci-Fi, futuristic movies then people may believe that change is cool and attainable. My only adds to your picture, is people would still be riding their bikes and ice could be stored to help meet peak demands for daytime cooling.
August 17th, 2007 at 9:40 am
I take your point on the airport. I guess I said we would get rid of it because air travel, as George Monbiot so accurately described, is one of the worst contributors to global warming from a per person per kilometre travelled perspective. And the companies I mentioned in my “vision” are all existing companies demonstrating existing strengths in the southern Ontario cleantech sector. To the best of my knowledge we don’t have any local strengths in aviation technology — but I could be wrong. The best possibility would be biomaterials development for manufacturing new aircraft. That said, it would be a convenient place to fly in dignitaries and investors coming to look at the park and the technologies being showcased.
August 17th, 2007 at 2:07 pm
We could turn the Island Airport into the worlds first dedicated air ship terminal. During a week of operations, even the largest of zeppelins uses less fuel than a Boeing 767 uses to get from gate to runway.
August 20th, 2007 at 11:41 am
Corporations are not allowed to give political contributions in Canada.
August 21st, 2007 at 6:24 am
The “Back to the Future” vision of the future is the product of a relatively short era in human history, when we were obsessed with the notion of progress for the sake of progress. Of course when Hollywood picks up on this fad, they’ll take the most visual, easily communicable aspects of progress: nifty gadgets and shiny space suits. It’s interesting how we invent people from the Future to impress us with their miraculous inventions, exactly as Europeans mesmerized native Americans with things like bells and shiny beads.
A more subtle version has it that ‘progress’ serves basic human desires that haven’t changed much in millenia. If anything actual progress has only increased our desire to get back to nature, even if we fly to an ‘unspoilt’ tropical beach to get it. Last week I spent several hundred dollars on a vacation of camping and tramping around in the mud: something my farming ancestors would have thought me crazy for, but something I see as restoring some sort of balance.
Sometimes the desire for gadgets and excessive convenience takes on a life of its own, an expression of a basic human desire for acquisition and excess, but that is just as easily countered. Eventually, almost all of us, even Paris Hilton, feel the need to get back to the ‘Simple Life’.
August 22nd, 2007 at 5:14 pm
Realistically, there’s no reason it has to be on Toronto Island, either. You could build this utopia in a slightly more remote area as a destination showcase for future clean technologies. As the technologies grow, mature, improve, etc. at least you would have room to expand your utopia. Building it on an island is rather short sighted.
And to remove an airport for absolutely no reason is just insane. Just take a look at the travesty of Miegs field in Chicago, removed to satisfy Mayor Daly’s paranoia and ignorance about air travel post 9-11.
November 7th, 2007 at 4:28 pm
Fifth Light Technology -Is this really a valid technology?
…In conclusin the fifth light technology is a technology that takes a step backward by supporting the high copper magnetic technology the world is trying to eliminate. It also takes a step back in moving man back to dark caves versus the beautiful bright environments we love….
http://community.discoverychannel.ca/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/462105011/m/666105341
April 23rd, 2009 at 8:40 pm
Nice idea, but I think the airport should stay. Lets pay more attention to the ever so exspensive 2010 Olympics.