The Watch the facility for now. Its ultimate fate remains unclear. But the plant’s closure doesn’t mean solar energy isn’t feasible in the region. An Irish renewable energy company, Cork-based DP Energy, is looking to build a 1,000-acre, 200-MW farm, and it will use the more established photo-voltaic technology. Saamis Solar will make use of fallow land that’s home to tailings ponds left over from fertilizer production from the 1950s to the 1980s. Don’t expect a ribbon cutting soon, though. Environmental remediation will likely take years. DP Energy has also proposed a similar but much smaller farm on 156 acres of land in Calgary. With an estimated construction budget of $45 million, this project would involve construction of an array of 1,576 solar panels to generate 25 MW of electricity. It could provide power for as many as 4,000 homes. This farm would also be built on fallow land left over from fertilizer production. A single tailings pond—a photo gypsum stack—was capped with earth in the early 2000s, after decades of production at the site. That makes the land viable for development that does not disturb the capped stack.
LATITUDE
MEDICINE HAT’S SOLAR INDUSTRY EXPERIENCES GROWING PAINS For generations, Medicine Hat has been affectionately known as Gas Town, thanks to the area’s abundant reserves of natural gas. But fossil fuels won’t last forever, so when the city wanted to lessen its dependence on gas, it looked way, way up. Solar seemed a bright idea, given that Medicine Hat is one of the sunniest spots in the country: 2,544 sunshine hours and 330 sunny days a year. In 2014, with about $13 million of public funding— about half from the city and the rest from the provincial and federal governments—Medicine Hat built a concentrated solar thermal plant on its western outskirts. Unlike a photo-voltaic panel system, this plant created heat, not electricity. Parabolic mirrors focused the sun’s rays on piping, over a period of nearly five years. Although praised for being innovative, the city says that plunging natural gas rates (ironically enough) and high maintenance costs have made the plant financially unfeasible. This spring, the city announced it would shutter Post-secondary institutions are sometimes called ivory towers, suggesting that they’re untouched by the real world. But everybody knows that those hallowed halls aren’t isolated from crime, and therefore that improving security systems is usually welcome. This spring, Calgary’s Mount Royal University replaced its 20-year-old closed-circuit system with 360-degree, high-resolution cameras. But this was way more than a hardware upgrade. MRU also became the first Canadian organization to use iCetana, a black- screen AI system that teaches itself what threats look like. Developed in Australia and used throughout the U.S., the software system analyzes pixels of data from each camera to learn to differentiate between normal activity and potential threats. At the first sign of trouble, the triggered camera flags security staff to investigate, allowing for a real-time response. When all is well, monitors are black; hence, the technology is called black screen. The university says the software removes the MOUNT ROYAL UNIVERSITY PUTS AI ON SECURITY DETAIL
human error inherent in having a single member of a security team monitor, all at once, as many as 300 live feeds from across the 118-acre campus. One more important piece of information. The technology does not incorporate facial recognition technology—Big Brother may be watching, but he won’t know who you are. HALL MONITORS The halls—and a lot more of Mount Royal University in Calgary—are alive with a surveillance system that relies on artificial intelligence and its ability to learn.
36 | PEG SUMMER 2019
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