Events

The Duke of Kent, 2315 Yonge St, Toronto

On Yonge Street, east side, at Roehampton Avenue, just north of Eglinton Avenue East. Parking underground across Yonge, or surface lot on Roehampton. 

Our speakers are Professor Neil Robertson, Head of Inorganic Chemistry, and Dr. Arno Verhoeven, Senior Lecturer (Associate Professor) in Design, and ECA Director of Sustainable Development, University of Edinburgh. The backdrop to their talk is familiar: if the world is to remain livable, all countries have to intensify their efforts to lower greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs). Currently, about 17% of global energy is derived from renewable sources. The speakers will argue that we should be looking to solar power to be the most reliable of those renewable sources for providing much of the world with the energy it needs over the long term. They will cover the development of solar energy to date and possible future trends, including discussion of the key technologies involved, and what it will take to realize a sustainable and equitable society, while providing the energy needed.

The talk should enable EDUCT members to be in a stronger position to assess Canada's plans to become an energy superpower. While those plans have yet to be fleshed out, they will presumably be designed to enable Canada to attract manufacturing and services that are major consumers of energy, and to export energy. But to the extent that such domestically generated energy or exported
energy is derived from coal, oil and natural gas, it will still be contributing to the continuing rise in emissions of GHGs. If Canada is to contribute to a rapid lowering of global GHGs, it should be giving farmore attention to how it can help the world, including Canada, to move to renewables and, in particular, solar energy.