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Plan of Action :: Links
Energy is a basic requirement of all activities at U of T Scarborough,
whether it be in the form of lighting for a classroom, electricity for
a computer, or heating for working environments. We live in an age where
we have many economically feasible options to satisfy our energy demand,
but are becoming increasingly limited by the associated environmental impacts.
Oil and natural gas prices have been increasing recently, but with constant new
discoveries of resources - such as Canada's own oil sands - we are not immediately
threatened to lose these completely. Even without oil and natural gas, we are
nowhere close to exhausting our vast coal resources, which remains one of the
cheapest means of producing electricity. The problems with these fossil fuels is
not that they are overly expensive or in limited supply, but that they release
emissions when combusted that lead to acid rain, smog, and climate change.
Other financially viable energy sources exist besides fossil fuels, such as nuclear
and hydro-electric energy, which do not have harmful emissions. These sources of
energy are also not without their problems. At present, there is no widely accepted
means of safely disposing of nuclear waste, and the release of radioactive contamination
can affect large areas surrounding nuclear generators for decades. Even hydro-electric
dams have very adverse impacts on the aquatic ecosystems they interrupt.
The scientific, engineering, and business communities are constantly working to discover new sources of
renewable and clean energy, develop methods of harnessing them, and working to make their
widespread implementation financially beneficial. Examples of technologies that are already
becoming commonplace are solar heating, solar electricity generation, and wind turbines.
The only form of energy that is 100% clean and renewable, however, is the energy you don't
use, so new methods of energy conservation are always desirable as well.
The reality at U of T Scarborough is that we import energy; our electricity comes from the grid, and our heating is delivered to us in the form of a fuel stock, which at present is natural gas. We are not likely to be able to generate a significant amount of renewable energy on campus any time in the near future. Consequently, efforts to reduce the environmental impacts of our energy consumption will come primarily through energy efficiency schemes. A number of retrofit projects have been undertaken to reduce energy consumption as well as CO2 emissions, and in the future we will continue to identify and implement energy conservation initiatives.
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