Future of rural economies linked to smarter energy solutions

Now that the closure of the Bowater Mersey Paper Co. Ltd. mill is threatening to reduce the value of woodland in western Nova Scotia to dirt and the forestry sector has been beaten to a pulp, it’s time to take a hard look at rural economics.

In particular, we need to pay attention to the connection between land management, economic development and alternative energy production.

The fracas over wind turbines in Kings County is a microcosm of all three issues. It shows how interlinked energy and economics are in rural communities.

But as necessary as they may be, endless debates about the pros and cons of wind energy can distract from the real underlying issue for rural communities, which isn’t about feeding the monolithic electricity system, but how to establish credible and sustainable alternatives to it.

It’s time for the public debate to move beyond which fuels are the best alternative to coal. It’s time to start asking which energy production models are environmentally acceptable and most capable of creating sustainable rural economies which, with the exception of solar power, is where most renewable-energy production will occur.

We also need to look to rural communities to generate their own solutions.

Wind turbines are only on the horizon because government policy has made them attractive to developers, landowners and most municipalities. But there are other ways — equally as good or better — to wean ourselves off fossil fuels and generate new economic opportunities.

Take the enlightened example of Universite Sainte-Anne in Church Point. Its architecturally appealing roofline is punctuated by solar panels and its biomass furnace burns sustainably sourced, locally supplied fuel. This includes wood salvaged from demolished homes, which is ground down by Spec Resources Inc., an enterprising company in Digby County.

This kind of local ingenuity, arising naturally within regional economic ecosystems, points a way forward for rural communities that want to chart their own future, freed from the heavy hand of government and the prevailing market winds.

There are many more examples of schools, hospitals, greenhouses, institutions and industry that already are, or could be, drawing heat from burning sustainably sourced waste. To support this kind of innovation, the environmental and energy policies of the provincial government need to be firmly linked to grassroots economic development.

Right now, however, these policies are primarily geared towards attracting foreign capital to invest in new energy projects and to subsidizing community-owned wind projects to supply the grid.

Like our forests, which for decades have been devalued and cut over to feed the global demand for pulp, our electricity system is also feeding a tired old capitalist model of energy production, in which the fat cats at the top lick off the cream. The rest of us pay unnecessarily high power rates to keep this antiquated, inefficient, highly regulated, profit-driven system ticking over.

A brighter future for rural Nova Scotia may require us to turn the lights off on this monopoly and support alternative energy solutions generated in the community, for the community, by the community.