Saw three little turbines just at Huntingwood and McCowan (from the pleasantly slow 169 Huntingwood bus). They’re probably the nearest (working) wind turbines to my house.
I’ve tagged this post with their location, so you can see it on my geo mashup page.
Update: they are at the Ontario Electrical Construction Company building, and they are Fortis turbines.
Canadians are remarkably profligate in their energy use, and I think I know why. It’s not to do with the oft-cited scale of the country, the size of our houses, our cold winters or our hot summers, it’s something simpler than that; it’s what we call our electricity.
Power here is generally known as hydro, and with it comes images of tree-lined rivers with bears happily fishing for salmon. Local electricity companies tend to have that watery thing in their name: Toronto Hydro, Hamilton Hydro, London Hydro (Crieff Hydro is something quite different, though). Some happy green images, eh?
I propose that we stop using the term hydro, and replace it with the snappier smog belching, nuke leaking, only fractionally hydro. It’d certainly make yer average Kathy or Doug drop their double-double (or donut, or dumaurier) when they got their smog belching, nuke leaking, only fractionally hydro bill in. Energy use would plummet, and at no cost to anyone!
Where was everyone in Toronto today? Doing their taxes?
If I see another $2500 full-sus disk-braked mountain bike, I’ll puke. There were a few tiny things of interest here; please comment if you want the details.
Mayor McCA is touring in Canada soon!
May 4-Ebar Guelph ON May 5- The Jane Bond. 004 Princess St, Waterloo ON May 6- Music Gallery- The Over The Top Festival Toronto ON (advanced tics recommended for this one). May 7- Casbah. Donut Rock City (Hamilton) ON, May 8-10- TBA May 11- The Paramount. Moncton NB May 12- World Cafe 2412 Agricola St , Halifax NS May 13- Gus' Pub 2605 Agricola St, Halifax NS May 13-17- TBA
From OSEA:
The moment we have all been waiting for has arrived! The Ministry of Energy, the Premier, David Suzuki and OSEA will be announcing the Standard Offer Program on March 21st. We are organizing a celebration and press event in partnership with the Ministry of Energy that will take place at 3 pm at Exhibition Place, Toronto, home to Ontario’s first community wind turbine.
Please mark this date in your calendar and watch for further notices (via email and at www.ontario-sea.org) on details regarding location, speakers and entertainment.
This is a celebratory event – please everyone, let us celebrate the positive role the Standard Offer Contract program will play in Ontario for renewables, for community power, for cost effective power, and for our air quality and health!
Thanks to everyone for their efforts!
If the province has got this right, we really will see a lot more wind power in Ontario.
Something’s not right with the wind turbines on this megabin. The fact that they weren’t turning in a mild breeze made me worry. A close-up of one of the units is below:
(In both cases, clicking the thumbnail will get a full-sized image.)
Jet lag, lack of sleep, and a whole day of company orientation isn’t doing much for my clarity of thought right now. What I need is steak and beer.
Last night’s flight was supposed to get in at 10:30, but what with WestJet‘s faffing around, we got in well after midnight. It was about 1am (or 03:00, Toronto time) before I got settled in the hotel room.
I’ve never been in a city with trolley buses before. Guess I can’t say that any more. It’s also the furthest west I’ve ever been.
I wonder if the snow drawing below (as seen from my hotel window) is supposed to be a hometown homage to Bob The Angry Flower?
Paul Gipe posted pictures of the Toronto’s WindShare Coop AGM 2006.
Green Drinks Toronto was good last night. Had a chance to catch up with Jim Prall, too.
They’ve just discontinued my razor of choice — the Wilkinson Sword/Schick Diamond — so I’ve decided to go old-school. Now that Wilkinson Sword has the four-blade Quattro, and Gillette their five-bladed monstrosity, I’ve realised that the whole multi-blade thing is a load of hooey.
Consider this: if the first blade was supposed to do most of the work, then draw the hair out a bit to be cut below the skin level, further blades would have less and less effect. It’s just as likely that the whole multi-blade cartridge thing was a scam to sell more, and non-standard, blades that could easily be made obsolescent by the time generic manufacturers caught on —Â the old Instamatic effect.
So I bought a Merkur safety razor (from Toronto Salon Supply, at Bay and Dundas), and a bunch of Merkur blades. I didn’t shave particularly close today, but it’s just as close a shave as the old twin-blader I used to use.
The plus side is that I’m throwing away no plastic with every blade, so I’m shaving the planet.
To: Etymotic Research Inc. Customer Support
I recently placed an order with you for accessories for my Isolator ER-6i headphones. I was very disappointed when UPS added an additional brokerage charge of approximately US$27 (plus taxes and duties) to the order. Since the value of the the order was only $43, your courier’s brokerage charge was almost two-thirds the value of the goods ordered.
Please consider using another courier for Canadian orders. USPS/Canada Post’s brokerage charges are much smaller, of the order of $5.
I would also like to note that none of your agents in Toronto seems able to stock these spares. I visited all three of the dealers mentioned on your website:
Up until now, I have been widely recommending your products. Until I know that you’re serious about supporting your Canadian customers, however, I cannot recommend your products to anyone in this country.
Take the TTC: Platform Video Screen Survey. Those video screens suck.
Further to Toronto Subway Station GPS Locations, I now have them in GPX format: ttc.gpx. Google Earth reads GPX files, but loses some of the metadata.
It would seem that someone has done this before, but using a different approach. I did search the forums, but there were no stations in the community overlay — honest, guv.
After seeing the various nifty web-enabled transit maps, I realised I had the data handy to get things started. A while back, I georeferenced the TTC Ride Guide, and digitized all the station locations. I cleaned them up today, and in the hope of being useful, here are the files:
These are simple three-column CSV files, stating latitude, longitude, and station name. They should be in order of stations. Locations are probably within about 50m of real life, but don’t bank on it.
I’ll get these into more useful formats soon, like GPX and KML. For now though, if you can use ’em, go ahead and do something.
TEA sez:
EcoBunk Unplugged
the 15th Annual EcoBunk Awards
For advertising excellence in confusing the public & compromising the environment.Our annual fundraiser and comedy show pokes fun at the most outrageous corporate green advertising of 2005. Sometimes we even point the finger at ourselves. We present nominated ads under nine different categories and reveal the winner. The laughter lasts for two full hours.
Of course, we don’t actually send awards to the winning companies.
Come celebrate with us! Ecobunk is a popular and favourite event among the environmentally-minded in Toronto, Waterloo and points beyond.
Thursday, December 8th, 2005
Plaza Flamingo
423 College Street
Show starts at 8:00pm
Doors & Cash Bar opens at 6:30pm
Tickets: $20
To reserve your seat(s) call TEA 416-596-0660*** Note we are asking for prepayment this year and can accept credit cards or cheques. ***
Don’t miss the event this year!
I’ll be there. Will you?