Muskoka’s Community Energy and Emissions Reduction Plan (CEERP) was introduced at the District of Muskoka’s Community and Planning Services Committee on March 21, 2024.
The plan outlines strategic actions to achieve Muskoka’s goals for Greenhouse Gas (GHG) reduction and responds to commitments made by the District Municipality of Muskoka and member councils to reduce GHG emissions in Muskoka by 50 per cent by 2030 and to net-zero by 2050.
“This is a bold and ambitious plan created by the community for the community, and achieving the goals will require collective and inspired action from everyone,” noted District Chair Jeff Lehman in a press release on Mach 22, 2024. “Residents have told us that protecting and preserving Muskoka’s environment is a top priority and taking action on climate is essential to community and health and well-being. We owe it to future generations in Muskoka.”
Key Action Focused on Top Emission Sources
The CEERP was shaped by a task force of community members and partners from across Muskoka, who were asked to consider the best path to meet Muskoka’s GHG reduction goals.
The plan targets Muskoka’s top emission sources by focusing action on three key areas:
- Transportation: Accounting for 74% of Muskoka’s GHG emissions, the plan focuses on promoting electric/low-carbon vehicles, public transit, and active transportation to decrease reliance on fossil fuels.
- Buildings: Accounting for 20% of the region’s emissions, initiatives include energy-efficient retrofit programs and integrating renewable energy sources to reduce the carbon footprint of Muskoka’s infrastructure.
- Community Systems: Addressing the remainder of emissions through waste reduction, sustainable tourism, education, and community design to foster a resilient and environmentally friendly community.
Cross-Sector Collaboration and Community Engagement Critical to Success
The CEERP calls for urgent, collaborative action from all community members, including residents, businesses, and government, as well as substantial financial investment across various sectors over several years.
“All sectors – government, businesses, community groups, and residents – must come to the table and do their part to create a sustainable future for our communities,” according to District Community and Planning Services Chair, Nancy Alcock.
Building awareness of sustainable practices and the importance of reducing energy consumption is central to the CEERP’s implementation strategy, along with innovative financing and strategic investments. As per the District, another critical factor will require continually evaluating and adapting the plan so that emerging technologies can be incorporated to deepen emissions reductions.
Leveraging CEERP to Accelerate District Efforts
The CEERP includes actions that will help reduce the emissions that are generated from delivering District programs and services (potable water, garbage and recycling pickup, etc.). According to the district, financial forecasting is underway to estimate the costs associated with implementing these actions, which can be prioritized in the 2025/2026 Budget and accelerated through investments from the newly established District Climate Change Reserve Fund.
To learn more or stay up to date on work underway to implement the CEERP, CLICK HERE.
Don’t miss out on Doppler!
Sign up here to receive our email digest with links to our most recent stories.
Local news in your inbox so you don’t miss anything!
Click here to support local news
Tim Sluman says
Being retired from the electric company that services a lot of Muskoka and knowing that 74% of emissions comes from transportation. I feel that the District should do a study on the environmental effects that electric/low carbon vehicles have on it. There should be a short and long term study done! Starting with the mining and production of materials used for making the batteries and low carbon fuels and the fuels used to move them both! Be it electricity for charging or production of low carbon fuels! Then look at the cost of purchase and maintaining of such vehicles? Then look at whether the electrical grid and supply of low carbon fuels is a sustainable source for such vehicles in Muskoka! I understand that in Muskoka, we would like to bring our carbon foot print as close to zero as possible, but there are a lot of issues with producing the raw materials needed to supply and maintain these vehicles! So my question is, in the over all picture, is it a smaller carbon foot print to produce and maintain and use gas and diesel vehicles or electric/low carbon vehicles? Just something to think about!
Hugh Holland says
Tim Sluman, like you I worked 40 years as an engineer, planner, and manager for a major auto company. I can tell you those supply chain studies were done long ago before the entire global auto and mobile equipment industries industry decided to go with Battey-Electric technology for light-duty vehicles and equipment and Hydrogen-Electric technology for long-haul and heavy-duty vehicles and equipment. The global industry is scrapping some 400 very costly engine and transmission plants and replacing them with plants to make batteries, hydrogen fuel cells, and electric motors for both technologies. Those are decision the industry made after 40 years of investing heavily in powertrain research. General Motors first BEV was produced in 1985 in response to a serious air pollution problem in Los Angeles County.
Of course, the other and equally compelling reason to go to BE and HE technologies is that oil and gas are finite resources which, according to BP analytics will be depleted in about 50 years at current rates of consumption. The biggest users, the EU, China, and the USA will be out of domestic oil and gas in less than 20 years. It will take 20 to 25 years to replace the global fleet of oil-powered vehicles and equipment at global production capacity, so we had better get at it ASAP. If we don’t get that transition done on time, we will face a global energy crisis on top of a global climate crisis. Who wants to take a chance on that?
Canada is well positioned to supply both battery materials and hydrogen to ourselves and others. Canada recently signed contracts to sell hydrogen produced in the Atlantic provinces to Germany. That will help to replace the problematic oil from Russia and OPEC. Our Western provinces are well positioned with skills and resources to sell natural gas to Japan using the Coastal Gas Link pipeline that is ready to open this spring. As the auto and mobile equipment industries transitions, Western provinces can then use that pipeline to sell hydrogen to Japan. Japan is focused on hydrogen because that small densely populated country cannot make enough electricity. They can import hydrogen, but they cannot import electricity.
And yes, the global energy transition will need every kilowatt-hour of clean electricity every country can produce from wind, solar, hydro, and nuclear sources. The Muskoka Energy and Emissions Plan is well synchronized with important global goals. By using Ontario’s ultra low overnight charging rate for most of my consumption, the annual energy costs for my soon to arrive EV will be about $320 compared to $3200 for a comparable gas-powered vehicle.
Jeff Cox says
Something sounds wrong about the emissions numbers with transportation 3 to 4 times residential levels. Everywhere else in Canada residential heating is equal or greater than transportation. Why would Huntsville be so different to the rest of the country? My own energy consumption shows our home energy costs to be roughly the same as vehicle energy costs.
Can we have some insight in how these figures were calculated?
Hugh Holland says
Jeff, most of your home energy comes from electricity, 80% of which comes from zero-emission nuclear and hydro sources. But all of your transportation energy comes from oil which emits 778 grams of carbon per kwh.
Alberta and Saskatchewan generate most of their electricity from Natural gas (443 grams of carbon per kwh) and a bit of coal (1050 grams of carbon per kwh)
Brian tapley says
Lots of goals here.
I’m wondering not so much about the initial creation of the necessary batteries but more about the long term use of EV’s.
I’ve never had any battery of any kind in my possession that lasted more than about 7 to 10 years. A good practical example is that smoke detector with the mythical “10 year battery”. I’ve owned over 20 of these things and not a single one of them made it anywhere close to the 10 years, not one! They all failed, some as early as year 3 but at most about 8 years.
I wonder, are EV batteries going to perform this well too?
What is the plan for battery replacement and recycling? I see precious little said about this but if we don’t recycle 1oo% of the battery chemistry we shall soon run out of raw materials just like we are going to run out of carbon fuels.
I know it is rare, but if you’ve seen an EV vehicle battery fire, you will not wish to park it closer to your home, most certainly not in that attached garage!! These fires are fast, blindingly hot and cannot easily be extinguished. They are not something a fire department looks forward to confronting.
The energy density of batteries and hydrogen fuel is much lower by volume than diesel fuel. All burn in an accident but diesel is arguably the least difficult to transport and store. A large highway truck would need to use a significant proportion of it’s current load capacity to haul around it’s battery (think about a third of that trailer) if it was to achieve distance and load capacity close to that of a current diesel.
I’ve talked to EV owners whenever I can to gain their practical insight. Most people report lesser distance achieved on a charge than the advertising says the vehicle will achieve. In winter it seems the distance is at best 80 % of the claimed amount.
If we get the electricity needed to run our homes and charge out cars from something like hydro, wind solar or nuclear then it all works out pretty well in the end of the efficiency and pollution analysis but if you get that electricity from any form of fossil fuel I think you are deceiving yourself about the overall pollution emitted by merely looking at the vehicle and it’s immediate cost to build and operate.
On the plus side, I suppose EV’s should in theory at least, be easier to build and maintain.
Also, and again in theory, a fleet of millions of plugged in EV’s might be able to help smooth out the peaks and valleys of electric grid demand. I have to stress that this is currently a theory only. Maybe Tim Sluman can provide a bit of insight on the practicality of this idea as I think he has years of direct experience with Hydro One.
On a very minor practical side. I remember a few years ago much fanfare was made about “solar powered garbage compactors” at our local District transfer site. Indeed two 240 watt panels were installed initially. I know little else about this system but I do know that an underground high voltage power supply was installed to the site and the compactors are hooked to that and I suspect that the amount of solar derived energy used by these compactors was probably just about enough to power the hoopla on the web about how they were solar powered.
I also know that today, one panel is sitting face down in the dark space beside the compactor and the other, although still installed is smashed up so badly it is probably only capable of generating less than 100 watts. I don’t know about the batteries, never saw them if they exist, but regardless I am 100% sure that at this point any solar power at the Dwight transfer station is a practical myth.
I’d like to see a cost – benefit accounting of this system, an honest one, from inception to today. Is District brave enough to post this I wonder? I suspect not. You should ask your councilor for this data. It might be interesting.