GC 2020
59 results found
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Poonergy
Have city staff invent a machine to capture/burn the heat from your poo and transfer to hot water tank, or sell it into the city grid I mentioned earlier, exploiting a very domestic source of energy.
1 voteThe Neighbourhood Energy Utility (NEU) in Southeast False Creek provides space heating and domestic hot water to new buildings in the area. The system uses sewage heat recovery to supply most of the annual energy demand (70%). This approach is being considered in other areas. Read more here: http://vancouver.ca/sustainability/building_neu.htm
Metro Vancouver is also exploring opportunities to generate energy from liquid waste. See also: http://www.metrovancouver.org/about/publications/Publications/ILWRMP.pdf
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City Energy Grid
Let local solar, wind and other green energy producers (businesses and/or residents) sell energy into a city grid that supplies community infrastructure.
8 votes -
Cool Points: Resident Carbon Cap-and-Trade Scheme
Pilot the first municipal carbon trading scheme for residents.
Create citywide, scaleable carbon market where residents (and businesses, tourists) are assigned a personal/household ghg cap based on current avg ghg consumption. These cool points would need to be spent initially on ghg main offenders like gas, home heat, electricity. Over the cap? You'll have to buy cool points from wee emitters on our local carbon market. Buy, sell and save your cool points with a cool points visa-like card/number. The annual cap would gradually be reduced, and the price of carbon would increase.
Perhaps politically and logistically unfeasible, at least…
1 vote -
Sustainable Policing
Cut VPD fleet size in half. Boost their bike and footwear budget. (If necessary, create neighbourhood microjails by reusing phone booths - wherever they are - to hold perps until biopaddywagon takes them to the central composting centre),
4 votes -
All parks off the grid
Support alternative energy resources by installing solar and wind power for all parks in Vancouver. The hardest would be Stanley Park, of course, but most of the others should be easy to convert to alternative energy
8 votes -
Switch our power source from water (BC Hydro) to solar or wind
Reservoirs disrupt the natural water cycle, collecting dead biological material, resulting in massive amounts of carbon emissions, among other problems. And are NOT green. Let's switch it over to Solar or wind!
18 votes -
Utilities prices & consumption
I know, I know. It is not new and also it can be the most impopular idea but the reality is simple. People spent because it doesn't have to pay much more. There are many histories in the world probing this theory. Create some scale having a basic levels consumption and scales and increase prices for higher volumes and for sure it will impact the "behavior" of people and all the industries.
But this idea has a special component, with the extra money received create a fund for the other green projects for the city.2 votes -
Green computing in all government offices
Cloud computing servers that run on renewable wind energy also minimize the need for computer upgrades, high-power servers that stay on all night, and costly software licences. Google has invested hundreds of millions in green power and offers government grade office services at a fraction of current costs. They also recycle computer parts to create their data centres. By using these services, we become greener.
http://gigaom.com/cleantech/google-buys-wind-power-first-deal-for-google-energy/
http://www.google.com/apps/intl/en/government/index.html
http://www.google.com/corporate/green/datacenters/server-retirement.html
12 votesGood ideas. We are looking for all kinds of opportunities for renewable energy generation, waste heat recovery and energy conservation. Current good examples of waste heat recovery are in newer swimming pools and skating rinks. See a good example though the following link: http://vancouver.ca/parks/info/2010Olympics/pdf/Hillcrest.pdf
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Hydrogen Powered
The power of Hydrogen is very green and useful. It is already used to power some cars. Using hydrogen instead of fossil fuels will reduce our carbon footprint, get out of our dependency on oil and reduce global warming. The only output of hydrogen is water. This technology can power your car and maybe your house. Unlike nuclear fission, it has no harmful emmisions. You can use it in a fuel cell (safe) or maybe liquid hydrogen as to fuel engines for a thought. Even cold fusion can be an alternative to nuclear fission. Hydrogen has given light and energy…
3 votes -
Solar Powered Lights
Use solar powered street lights, they look cool and very futuristic, and they can help us use less energy
6 votes -
Monitor electricity on computers
Have software on your computer that monitors how much electricity you are using at any given time in your home, and how much per appliance/outlet etc.
3 votes -
Increase overnight rates for energy consumption in offices
Every night thousands of lights, computers, printers and other office equipment are left on needlessly in empty office buildings across the city.
By imposing a tariff on this sort of waste, business might be forced to evaluate their policies and work to reduce energy waste.
Of course, some equipment must be left on – servers, refrigerators etc. – so the tariff would need to scale and offer exemptions for critical equipment.
BC Hydro estimate that 40% of employees in B.C. leave their computers on after working hours and this wastes 500 gigawatt-hours of electricity (http://www.bchydro.com/powersmart/technology_tips/managing_energy_costs/computer_power_management.html?WT.mc_id=b-10-08_computers)
82 votesBC Hydro and other energy utilities make rate proposals to the BC Utilities Commission who are the regulator for energy rates. For more info check out: www.bcuc.com
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Sodium Carbonate CO2 Scrubbers
See http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/big-idea/13/carbon-capture. If Vancouver could allocate land and funding for prototype scrubbers, it would not just be the Greenest City, but its local action would have a global impact - as removing CO2 from the air benefits the entire planet.
6 votes -
Utilize local building materials in City projects
COV Parks just let a contract to use Made In China Granite shipped across the Pacific for the seawall instead of local granite. I suggest that the contract is amended to utilize local materials.
2 votes -
convert heat to FREE hot water
Encourage all those stores that vent their unwanted heat from A/C units as well as from coolers/fridges and freezers grocer types and pump that heat into hot water tanks! The technology is available "off the rack". Known as Fre-Heaters..we should be capturing all that vented heat and convert it into hot water. NEW stores should not have such old equipment and instead be encourage to convert at the time of building!
5 votesGreat idea. We’re looking for all kinds of ideas to encourage the reuse of waste heat. We will to understand opportunities to include these ideas in amendments to the building code.
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3 votes
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Get rid of refrigeration energy hogs
Refrigeration consumes ridiculous amounts of energy. More energy-efficient appliances help, but we could do a lot better than that:
No matter how energy-star compliant, fridges consume energy in proportion to how much they have to cool the air. Our houses are warm places year round. Coastal BC on average has cooler temps outside in the shade year round, including being very close to perfect fridge temps about six months of the year. Why are our fridges inside our warm houses? Build fridges into house/apartment kitchens such that most of the appliance projects outside, with just its insulated door in the…
2 votes -
Change the City's tendering procedure to allow for electronic notification
[Submitted by email]
We are a General Contractor that bids on City projects. The City requires that we submit our bid the day prior to opening of the bids. They also require, that if we want the information about the bid opening (bid results) to see if we are successful we must attend at the opening. This requires that we drive from Langley back and forth to deliver the bid one day, and again back and forth on the day of the opening. I thought as I drove over the old Port Mann bridge and watched them constructing a new…
0 votes -
2 stroke scooters
The 2 stroke engine requires both gas and oil to burn, the emissions of a 2 stroke lawnmower are worse than even large trucks, a 2 stroke scooter is even worse than a lawnmower as the engine is bigger. It's great that a 2 stroke scooter is not so bad on fuel consumption and is smaller in need of materials to build. But 4 strokes and electrics are readily available. I think that we'd all breathe easier if 2 stroke scooters weren't allowed to belch out noise and pollution in Vancouver.
1 vote -
Free parking for scooters and motorcycles!
Create free parking for scooters and motorcycles, especially in congested areas like Downtown! It just makes sense: Two-wheeled vehicles take up less space on the road and are more fuel-efficient than cars. We just need safe, affordable and accessible parking.
Vote to support free scooter and motorbike parking!!!
13 votes
