TEDxYYC – Calgary’s TEDx Videos
Posted by gordonmcdowell in Alberta, Calgary, Canada on March 10th, 2010
I’ve finished editing all the TEDxYYC videos, but they’re not yet indexed on the official TEDxYYC website. Until they do, the 2010 TEDxYYC videos can either be found at YouTube’s TEDxYYC Playlist, or right here (in chronological order)…
Rick Castiglione – Storytelling
John Manzo – Third Wave Coffeehouses
Chris Turner – Great Leap Sideways
Decidedly Jazz Danceworks – Wise Apple
Jennifer Martin – Innovative Spaces
Garnette Sutherland – Imaging, Robotics and Surgery
Eden Full – Changemaking & Solar Panels
Lorrie Matheson – Creative Process
Ben Cameron – Live Performing Arts in the 21st Century
Ruben Nelson – What Calgary Must Become
Dan Lui of BNetTV.com provided me access to additional coverage (footage swap!), and access to BNetTV’s mixing board audio. And thanks to Sarah Blue for letting me capture the event.
Oil Sands Extraction – LFTR in Alberta?
Posted by gordonmcdowell in Alberta, Calgary, Canada, Environment on November 23rd, 2009
THORIUM REMIX 2009 has been well received, so I’ve cut it down further to 10 minutes and put the subject in a Canadian context: How about using a liquid-fluoride thorium reactor to power oil sands crude extraction?
Bill Dickie (Alberta Minister of Mines and Minerals 1971-1975) pointed out the Stelmach government just polled 1024 Albertans and found only 25% object to new nuclear projects…
Calgary Herald: Alberta would welcome private nuclear power, Stelmach gov’t says (excerpt follows)
The Stelmach government opened the door Monday to nuclear power in Alberta — rejecting a moratorium and saying it will consider the controversial energy option on a case-by-case basis — but vowed no public dollars will be invested in any project.
The province announced its nuclear power policy the same day Energy Minister Mel Knight rolled out the results of the province’s public consultation on the issue. A telephone survey of 1,024 Albertans, which incorporated input from stakeholder groups, found about one-quarter of people want the government to refuse projects. Two in 10 said the province should encourage proposals and 45 per cent of people polled want nuclear power plants considered on a case-by-case basis.
With those numbers in hand, Knight said Monday that Alberta is open for business on nuclear power. But he stressed the province won’t cough up a penny and hinted the lack of subsidies might dissuade companies from proceeding in Alberta. “We’re not putting a moratorium on nuclear,” Knight told reporters. “We are not proponents of nuclear energy,” he added. “We need power and proponents that want to build (nuclear) in the system in Alberta are welcome to do so.”
Premier Ed Stelmach, however, said Monday in his “Ask Premier Ed” online video that nuclear energy is a “viable option” in Alberta.
“This is one way of keeping down the carbon footprint,” Stelmach said, noting the United States is “very high” on nuclear energy.
The premier acknowledged nuclear waste is a worry for many, but said new technology is key to addressing concerns.
I’m got some useful feedback on REDDIT, and forum pertaining to LFTR’s potential in Alberta…
Depleted uranium can be used as fuel in fast reactors. However, it is not usable in CANDU. CANDU is a thermal reactor, not a fast reactor: it does not breed fuel. It runs on fissile U-235. It can run on (0.7% U-235) natural uranium because it is very efficient at using U-235, not because it burns U-238 (not self-sufficiently, anyway). Conventional reactors are extremely wasteful, as they throw away over 99% of the starting material (because they can not feasibly burn U-238). A closed fuel cycle, with reprocessing and fast reactors, increases fuel efficiency by 100x – hence decreases fuel demands by 100x, and waste production by 100x. The transuranic elements, the most important of nuclear waste, are not left over but are consumed as fuel. Fast reactors can import these waste components from other reactors and burn them. They are waste incinerators. Thorium fuel cycles are basically the same – substituting U-238 with Th-232, and Pu-239 with U-233. They have the same basic advantages as plutonium-cycle fast reactors – fuel efficiency, waste burning. - deleted
Somewhere around 1/3 to 1/2 of a barrel of oil is needed to extract 1 barrel of oil. This is a very significant amount. I can not speak for other people. My primary concern with nuclear reactors are the usual concerns about cost, fuel production, safety, disposal, and cost. If the benefits of nuclear can be had without the drawbacks, then I will dance a little jig. It’s the promise of fusion, after all. - MechaBlue
Canadians are slightly anti-nuke, but the primary problem is that the oil companies already own the natural gas. They just drill a hole and it comes out of the ground to be burned for free, so from their point of view why would they use nuclear? They used to burn natural gas off as waste. You would have an easier time selling the idea of a Thorium reactor in terms of providing people with cheap power. Even then, in Alberta, the “lines provider” will be taking most of the profit from delivering that power. The reason why consumers are stuck with heavily polluting mines and power generation is primarily political. The current generators have used regulatory means to exclude newcomers because it isn’t in their best interest to lower their profits. - raghead
Use of nuclear energy for in situ gasification of coal (via high temperature steam) could reduce mining deaths. High ash coal deposits could also be exploited. Non-volatile poisons could be left in situ and the gas could be cleaned of volatile poisons and suspended matter before use. The process may also be feasible as an alternate for bitumen deposits like Alberta sands. - jagdish
Indian thorium solid fuel fast breeder will be up in 2011 at Kalpakkam This is unrelated to LFTR, which is a thermal spectrum reactor working with liquid fuels. - tt23
Oil Sands Debate with Elizabeth May
Posted by gordonmcdowell in Alberta, Calgary, Canada, Environment, Politics on November 20th, 2009
“Is Oil Sands Development Ultimately Irreconcilable with the Environmental Agenda?” was the question posed by Calgary Enterprise Forum. The discussion was held at Calgary Petroleum Club featuring Elizabeth May, Deborah Yedlin (Calgary Herald columnist) and Murray Smith (Energy Minister 2001-2005).
Despite the plethora of oil patch executives, Calgary Greens and red wine, no fisticuffs took place.
iPhone Banking & Contracts for Canadians
Posted by gordonmcdowell in Canada, iPhone on September 29th, 2009
In May 2009, Gazzard and Richerd assisted MJ teach a weekend-long iPhone development course. At the time of the lecture, I had only just bought a MacBook and hadn’t started any iPhone development. In fact, I hadn’t even set up my iTunes app store publishing contracts yet.
Which made the following portions of MJ’s iPhone lecture particularly useful to me: How to complete your contracts and receive an American Employee Identification Number (EIN). If you’re Canadian, and just on the cusp of starting iPhone development, I’d recommend giving the following video a look.
Calgary’s Low Carbon Future – The Summit
Posted by gordonmcdowell in Alberta, Calgary, Canada, Environment, Politics on September 14th, 2009
I haven’t had too many opportunities to stream live video since WireCast days at Cambrian House, so Calgary’s Carbon Summit was to be a live test of my new configuration:
- Dual core MacBook
- Wireless microphones feeding both the live stream, and HDV capture
- 3G iPhone with tethering capabilities (and my strong desire to max out ROGERS 6 GB data plan)
UStream.TV had broadcast flawlessly from my house the night before. What could go wrong? Well apparently SAIT’s WiFi was blocking ports to which the UStream responded by crashing the browser. Any browser.
Fortunately I had a ROGERS 6 GB data plan, an iPhone 3G, and a deep burning desire to use up as much bandwidth as possible. Do you know how HARD it is to eat up 6 GB with an iPhone? Finding a reasonably priced ROGERS data plan is IMPOSSIBLE, so I took SAIT’s blocked ports as a blessing in disguise. 753,100 KB later, and UStream.TV had rebroadcast the summit.
I’ve since had a chance to upload HDV coverage of the event to YouTube, and also to Internet Archive. The most viewer-friendly copy can be found at R4NT.com entitled “Calgary’s Low Carbon Future”, it is cut down from 101 to 56 minutes and follows the narrative woven by Skid Crease.
Outcomes
The summit adds value to other City of Calgary initiatives including the development of a Community Greenhouse Gas Plan, The City Manager’s Office Sustainable Development Strategy and the World Energy Cities Partnership. This is an opportunity to develop a multi-stakeholder developed and ratified action plan to address future energy challenges.
Bios for keynote speakers can be found here. Rob Macintosh’s presentation is also available as an isolated YouTube video, and downloadable MPEG-4 from Internet Archive.
Green Party’s Elizabeth May in Calgary
Posted by gordonmcdowell in Calgary, Canada, Politics on July 8th, 2009
July 2nd to 4th, the leader of Canada’s Green Party, Elizabeth May visited Calgary to attend fund raising and community events. After a fundraiser, Elizabeth allowed me to record a quick Q&A with her regarding one of my concerns: The Pirate Party launching in Canada.
The Pirate Party’s platform is not as outrageous as many assume. They don’t want to abolish copyright, rather limit its duration and focus its impact on commercial (for-profit) activities. The Pirate Party also wants to abolish software patents, which many software programmers consider a restriction on free speech. However, many of its policies are closely mirrored by the Green Party’s platform.
What is Elizabeth May’s response to Swedish Pirate Party members being elected to European Parliment?
I’ve posted my concerns in a R4NT.com article. Single issue candidates can not get elected to Parliament under Canada’s first-past-the-post electoral system. If a Green MP will defend consumers (and the economy) against Bill C-61 horror shows, is splitting the digital-rights-minded vote a smart move?
Another interesting moment during Elizabeth May’s visit was during her Saturday morning visits to a series of Calgary Stampede breakfasts. People started tweeting that she’d caved on animal rights for a photo op, thinking that her attendance at a Stampede function implied she was attending a calf roping type event.
Elizabeth May’s daughter, Victoria Cate May Burton was monitoring Elizabeth May’s Twitter account. They discussed and responded to the tweet in 15 minutes. I have no idea how other political parties manage their social networks, but clearly a tech-savvy daughter is one effective approach.
Stock footage of Elizabeth May’s visit to Calgary can be found on Internet Archive concerning copyright and volunteering, fund-raising and the economy. Elizabeth’s Twitter and Facebook collaboration with her daughter Victoria Cate is also recyclable via Internet Archive. All footage is creative commons licensed.
Alternatives to the CBC?
Posted by gordonmcdowell in Canada on April 25th, 2009
The above video is R4NT.com’s coverage of a April 17th Calgary rally protesting cuts to the CBC. A downloadable remix is available at Internet Archive. See OpenSourceVideo.BlogSpot.com for more footage links and Creative Commons licenses.
As CBC’s ad revenues fall (forcing the sale of $125 million in assets & 800 job cuts), the federal government is considering subsidizing Canadian private broadcasters with $150 million in aid.
While promotion of Canadian culture is important, the entertainment landscape has remained relatively unchanged over the past decade. Many download BitTorrents of pirated movies and music, pay to download legal copies, but by-in-large simply pursue pre-broadband forms of entertainment: People mostly watch TV, and rent DVDs.
Newspapers and news programs are where the real changes are occurring. Historically sustained by advertising revenue based on their subscriber base, newspapers have been losing audience share to television and now news aggregation services such as Google News and blogs (say 95% news aggregation and 5% original content). Newspapers cannibalize their own content as they find it necessary to post their stories online to retain brand loyalty (and hope of attracting new readers).
Conglomerates such as CanWest reduce costs by cutting local reporting in increasingly larger and larger municipalities. This again, makes free online alternatives (Twitter being an example of tools for local news monitoring) even more attractive.
That has been the slow, steady decline of the news media as broadband internet spread across Canada. No one is certain how the average Canadian will be absorbing news 20 years down the road, but it is clear very few will be reading newspapers or watching the same insert-your-city-name local news coverage on television as their neighbors.
Creative destruction will certainly be part of the evolution of news. The conservative government’s decision to potentially supply private broadcasters with $150 million in aid can’t be a easy one… the typical conservative mantra of “let the market sort it out” could result in job losses which would lengthen the current recession.
For simplicity sake, let’s create a false choice. The federal government can spend $150,000,000 on either supporting private broadcasters or the CBC. Which is a smarter move?
Support the CBC.
CBC shows itself to be extremely flexible in this broadband era (offering up podcasts, tweets and an iPhone friendly news page) which multiplies the value of every news report they file: A news story is only valuable if its consumed, and CBC News is by far the easiest to receive.
This flexibility comes at the cost of profitability. CBC does not launch such services with the goal of monetizing every new news feed. CBC’s goal is to simply service Canadians. This it does remarkably well.
Will any Canadian private news organization ever be able to match CBC’s effectiveness? The gap is widening, not closing. Conglomerates are reducing local news coverage to cut costs as people migrate from newspapers to online services (and video news in various forms).
What I would like our government to consider, is that perhaps no profitable model will emerge to replace the in-depth news coverage offered by newspapers.
There will always be news. But will there always be the same quantity and quality of investigative journalism? From this point forward, there will always be bloggers and “citizen journalism”. But a dozen hobbyists don’t fill the gap left by a salaried employee.
I’m hopeful a new profitable model will soon emerge. But until it does, it is extremely reckless to allow the CBC to diminish in any way. In the long run, it may be institutions like PBS, BBC and CBC are the only reputable news gathering organizations left standing.
“The basis of our governments being the opinion of the people, the very first object should be to keep that right; and were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter. But I should mean that every man should receive those papers and be capable of reading them.”
- Thomas Jefferson after 5 shots of Jagermeister.
-
-
You are currently browsing the archives for the Canada category.
Flickr Photo Feed
Recent Comments