Uploaded on 2016-08-26 by Nyssa

I live in Canada. We appear to export more than we use within the country (export ~240Mtoe, produce ~440Mtoe of ~510Mtoe total imported/produced and utilize only ~200Mtoe). I'm not surprised most of the what we used is generated from primarily oil and natural gas, then electricity. We rely heavily on oil and natural gas! Both of those are utilized directly in largely transportation (56Mtoe!) and 34Mtoe into residential (which also comprises of a portion from electricity, though electricity sometimes is generated from coal, which is a fossil fuel). My photo is of the glacier in the Icefield Parkway receding... it used to be all the way to the road. Roads connect a lot of amazing places to each other in Canada but energy goes into creating and maintaining the roads (which need repair quite often due to freezing expansion and contraction between the seasons) and driving cars to get from place to place. With a growing population and the desire to explore, the requirement for energy sources to get us around just gets higher every year and aggravates the problems that may be causing the glaciers (the sights we strive to see) to recede. It's a paradox and we hopefully try to mitigate it, as there is no solution to stop or solve it. The reasons for such large consumption to for residential and transportation is probably to do with the land being very spread apart and requiring a lot of travel to get around cities and between cities/provinces. More high speed transportation (for example between commonly traveled between cities) would reduce energy consumption by providing quicker ways to travel between major locations, reducing driving requirements. Better public transportation within cities would also reduce reliance on fuels to move vehicles. Also, better biking lanes would possibly encourage less vehicle demands. As for the requirement for heating, just building things more efficiently would create less heating requirements. Better, insulated construction materials, and better heat-trapping designs for the house would reduce heating requirements, therefore decreasing requirements for electricity (which is generated by coal plants right now) and natural gas fossil fuel. Policies need to encourage replacement/recycling of existing, less efficient materials, and give benefits for upgrading. They also need to provide benefits to builders to want to use these better designs and materials. Taxation on fossil fuels (carbon tax) is one of the things that is being implemented right now. Policies along those lines that discourage wasteful uses of energy and promote sustainable energy would be important. To summarize: -Spend money on better mass transportation (higher speed, cost effective) to reduce transportation energy sink -Credits for energy efficient cars -Taxes on fossil fuel uses (gas, natural gas heating, etc.) for all users -Credits for more efficient building materials/design for new construction (builders) -Credits to replace less efficient existing designs and materials (existing homeowners) -Credits for low energy businesses and residences -Credits for mass transportation users or cyclists/pedestrians -Better infrastructure for cyclists -Higher taxes for businesses still generating electricity from coal -Tax credits for businesses investing in development of sustainable energy sources -Grants for those researching sustainable energy sources