The “Winds of Change” Film Premiere Event

The video of the Winds of Change Film is now online. Click here to watch

“Winds of Change” TV Premiere from the historic Kingston City Hall Council Chambers Nov. 9, 2009 from 2 to 3.30PM
(Created, Produced and Presented by David McCallum, Volker Thomsen and TV COGECO Kingston)

We are presenting the film the “Winds of Change” which was initiated in conjunction with the very successful WWEC World Wind Energy Conference 2008 with 800 delegates from 60 countries at St. Lawrence College. It follows the theme in my book “Canada on Route to Prosperity” and features many prominent community leaders and innovators speaking on the issues of sustainability and green innovation.

Building on the successes like the Ontario Green Energy Act with it’s FIT (Feed in Tariffs) and on the original vision for Wolfe Island wind development (500 million Project implemented and running) we want to open our eyes to the attraction this change is bringing to encourage a strong collaboration between all parties. To continue a sustainable long range changeover, this film wants to help to overcome any hurdles and prepare the ground for more innovative and progressive economic development in all areas and all technologies.

Examples of the “Winds of Change” are Napanee’s $300 million solar farm of which the first 10 MW or $60 million have been implemented and opened last week. Another $250 million solar farm in Eastern Ontario is in the planning. All together we have projects for $ 1.5 billion in the Eastern Ontario region of which half are implemented. Furthermore, a solar film factory for $500 million is planned and announced for Kingston ( I would however, be moderately cautious about the timing on this one). In Cornwall and Brockville innovative PV Production Projects and PV Solar farms are in the planning and will hopefully solidify a very promising revival and redevelopment.
Two particularly innovative technologies are evolving:
>> In Cornwall: Verdant Power free-flow test turbines in St. Lawrence River http://dcnonl.com/article/id27638
>> In Kingston: AE Atmospheric Energy Storage Pilot http://volkerthomsen.com/ae-atmospheric-energy-storage-system/

The Dynamic Panel around the Council Horseshoe:

John Gerretsen Ontario Minister of the Environment MPP Kingston
Mayor Harvey Rosen Kingston
Anne Prichard Executive Director Frontenac Community Futures Development Corporation
Elizabeth Savill Chief Administrative Officer County of Frontenac
Lisa Webb Manager Ban Righ Centre Queens University
Patrick Finucan retired Executive educator and senior Community developer from Cornwall
Jen Mattice Coordinator Carbon Reduction Cornwall
David Beatty International high profile Entrepreneur and Community builder from Brockville
Mary Jean McFall Lawyer, Entrepreneur and President Chamber of Commerce Brockville
Dr. John Plant Retired Principal RMC, Retired Chair St. Lawrence College, Executive Director Engineering Institute of Canada
Dr. Jose Etcheverry Prof. York UNI and long time in Climate Change in the David Suzuki Foundation Toronto and Vancouver
Jens Naumann CEO Green First Technologies Inc Napanee
Patrik Snajdr Director Earth Real Networks
Matthew McTaggert and Courtney Marshall Students Napanee High School
George Knight Educator and inventor Napanee
Bryan Rahn CEO Enerquest Kitchener Ontario
Warren Mabee Director Queens Institute for Energy and Environment Policy

Host and Moderator Volker Thomsen

The “Winds of Change” film and the discussion that follows will first time be shown on COGECO on December 7 from 8.30 to 10 PM in Kingston.

Here is a full listing of the show’s air times on TVCogeco, Cable channel 13:
Monday, Dec. 7 @ 8:30pm-10:00pm
Tuesday, Dec. 8 @ 2:30pm- 4:00pm
Tuesday, Dec. 8 @ 7:30pm-9:00pm
Sunday, Dec. 13 @ 7:00pm-8:30pm
Monday, Dec. 14 @ 3:00pm-4:30pm
The show will be available on VOD (video-on-demand, TVCogeco digital cable #299) early in 2010, details to follow.
On-air promotions are now in full-effect on channel 13.

Brockville,  Smiths Falls. Cornwall, Belleville and Napanee please see  your program Community TV listings.

Some food for thought:

a) The GEA Green Energy Act & FIT Feed in Tariff simplifies and rewards the installation of small electricity generation systems. How can the broader public lose their angst to be trapped in a lot of bureaucratic hurdles if they decide to go for it? If anything what is missing to make this innovate policy the big success it deserves to be?

b) How can we introduce successful financing and insurance models that will enable Ontario farmers, landowners, homeowners and small developers and business? (Example more than 25.000 wind farmers, 5.000 biomass farmers etc where enabled and they created a landscape of thousands of wealthy and well developed rural communities in Northern Europe)

c) Canada is blessed with a lot of hydro electricity, which, if designed as a flexible base load, can accommodate any amount of fluctuating Renewable Energy and enable us in time to go for 100% green and clean energy. How can we overcome our perceptions about not being able to go for 100% clean renewable energy?

d) Other great gifts are our four seasons, with warm summers and cold winters. This combined with bedrock everywhere and heat being injected can store the unlimited summer heat in the ground without any loss for the winter when it is needed. The pilot of this Canadian made technology developed by the physicist Ron Tolmie has been proven to actually reduce the heating and cooling cost for a home by up to 90%. Originally when Minister Cansfield was the Ontario Minister of Energy in 2006 I was encouraged by her people to actively support this simple and brilliant Canadian development. I agreed to do that and tried for many month to convince my public partners in Eastern Ontario to install a public pilot of this promising design in one of the public or commercial institutions. That did not happen, so I took it upon myself to do the pilot at a residential level. Now we have succeeded in developing a system that has the potential to change Ontario and Canada. It enables us to reduce our heating and cooling cost drastically. This technology will help us to reduce our CO2 emissions dramatically, and enable any community to implement a more sustainable space heating system in it’s buildings. The obstacles we went through could fill a book. The question now being, how can we move forward to accommodate new innovations that hold the answers to the future living environments we build around us?

The conversion of the Thomsen House to an almost Zero Emission home, financially carried out of energy cost savings and affordable to the average Canadian family, has been done. Let us do this in every home in Ontario and enable the creation of 125,000 permanent new jobs at little cost to our society in the existing trades in all our communities “Community Power For Local Economies”

e) Eastern Ontario and Kingston is a centre of learning, education and training. It has the highest Canadian level of skilled people. A sleeping beauty! What to do and how to make this human capital the driver of “green” economic development?

Host and Moderator Volker Thomsen

The “Winds of Change” film and the discussion that follows will be shown on COGECO on December 7 from 8.30 to 10 PM in Kingston. Brockville and Smiths Falls. For showtimes in Cornwall, Belleville and Napanee please see back here, or see your program Community TV listings.