Sir, your room in the ice hotel is currently flowing down the St. Lawrence River

A couple of years ago, the biathlon (normally includes cross country skiing) at the B.C. Winter Games had to be replaced by haha the "summer biathlon".

This year, if you had a room booked at the Montreal Ice Hotel during the last two weeks of March, you room is now flowing down the St. Lawrence River!

Just followed a bus that had an ad on the back for the "Village des Neiges" (Snow Village) in Montreal. It said, "...until March 31". Obviously they weren't counting on five straight days of 22+ C (75 F) temperatures in the middle of March. Great for bike riding - but if you had a reservation at the Ice Hotel, your room is now one huge wet bar!

Lighting a Biogas Fire Under Canadian Municipalities

About 12 years ago, we were at the stage of saying, "Holy Crap! Lookit all the free biogas they're making in China!

Now, 12 years later, we're at the stage of studying the implementation of this in Canada. A few biogas and composting plants are slated for the Montreal area: one each in Laval and Longueuil, and a few in Montreal.

One of the affected Longueuil "Agglomeration" cities, Brossard, is not on board with the $930,000 study, because they have not had a chance to review the preliminary report. Which is just weird.

The illustration above represents something like what the Longueuil facility will look like.


These plants are going to process table scraps and other organic material to produce methane gas which will be used in turn to generate electricity for sale to Hydro Quebec. Reports state that each of the Longueuil and Montreal (Ville d'Anjou) plants, estimated to cost about $30 million each, will process about 100,000 tons per year of scraps and organic material and produce 3.8 MW of power capacity, enough to supply the electrical needs of 2000 families.

Public information on these projects is scant. The numbers vary from report to report.

Considering that the principles of biogas digestion are basic enough that small scale units can be largely self-installed on any Chinese peasant's family farm, one wonders why so much studying is needed.

One also wonders why such comparatively small projects are being conceived. And, what about sewage? How much power could be generated with all the sewage that is produced in a large metropolitan area?

Montreal's Green Lifestyles - Transit System Named Best in North America

On the heels of having the city's transit system named the best in North America by the American Public Transportation Association, Montreal has launched a new green living handbook. (link to online English version)

Montreal won the transit award for a number of reasons, chief among them the highest efficiency/lowest cost per passenger mile of all the transit systems on the continent.

The green living handbook is called "Consume Differently" and builds around a theme of "Reduce, Reuse, Recycle and Valorise". There's also a guide to "Eco-Centres", reuse centres and other facilities around the city's communities. Also a blurb on the championship transit system itself, where the conversion of the entire fleet of buses to biodiesel is described:

Since June 2008, STM buses have operated

with biodiesel, a fuel made from non-fossil

materials, which generates considerable en-

ergy savings without harming the environ-

ment. Did you know that not all types of

biodiesel fuel are beneficial to the environ-

ment? The STM was very careful in selecting

a biofuel, known as B5. Now used by all the

fleet’s buses, it is manufactured from recy-

cled cooking oil (80%) and animal fats

(20%) rather than oils derived from com-

mercial grain crops like corn.

Did you know that the STM burns nearly 50

million litres of fuel annually to operate their

buses? The use of B5 biodiesel has cut CO2

emissions by about 4,000 tons, or the equiv-

alent of 800 fewer vehicles on the roads.

 Montreal's "Bixi" bike borrowing / exchange program has also been very successful and is worth checking out. The Bixi system has already spread to several other cities, including London, Boston, Ottawa, Toronto, Washington D.C. and others.