Ride the wind

Carbon-free mass transit in Canada’s oil city From Calgary’s pristine downtown business district to the city’s suburbs, one cool choice of transport stands out. It’s North America’s first fossil-fuel-free mass transit system. Not a distinction you’d expect, perhaps, from a city built largely on oil. But the traction power for city-owned Calgary Transit’s 108 light rail vehicles comes entirely from wind-generated electricity, saving over 52,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions. “Customers don’t feel any difference in their journey, but they feel good knowing we have taken an important step towards reducing atmospheric pollution,” says Calgary transit communications co-ordinator Ron Collins. The C-Train, as the locals call it, serves 33 stations, across 20 miles of track. It was once powered conventionally, by electricity generated from coal and natural gas. In early 2001, however, the city council was persuaded to try the emissions-free ‘Ride the Wind’ alternative. Windelectric, the city-owned electricity distribution company, was behind it, while wind power producer Vision Quest, which was already feeding wind-generated power into the local grid, added 12 turbines to an existing wind farm in southern Alberta to create enough capacity to provide the required 21,000 megawatt hours of electricity. About 190,000 passengers ride the C-Train every weekday. And even in oil-rich Alberta there is strong support for the ‘Ride the Wind’ initiative. Marlo Raynolds of the Pembina Institute for Appropriate Development describes it as “an excellent example of how low impact renewable energy can make the first steps in an otherwise fossil fuel intensive economy”. - Alison Winward

14 March 2004

Alison Winward