Dear Colleagues,
Сурва, Сурва Година
Весела 2006 Година
The year 2006 will be a third year since ABEC exists as organized Association. Will be very important to complete our work for corporate sponsors that we started last year. Lets us wish ourselves health and success in faster reaching our goals.
Please find attached January workshop schedule. If you have any questions, please contact the office at 905-669-5627
COSTI Vaughn ERC Staff
http://www.skillsforchange.org
Providing
learning and training opportunities
for immigrants and refugees so that they can
participate in the workplace and wider community
Skills for Change (SfC) is a non-profit agency based in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
Our mandate is to provide learning and training opportunities for immigrants and refugees so they can participate in the workplace and wider community.
Download the HYPERLINK "http://www.skillsforchange.org/calendar"
Programs and Services Calendar.
Over 25 classes available! Full course
listing
here.
http://www.skillsforchange.org/techskills/index.html
Schools of the coop-education:
York Dale Adult Center
38 Orfus Road
Tel.416-395-3350
416-395-6505
Website: www.yorkdale.net
Brown Fleming Catholic Adult Center
870 Queen Street West
Tel.905-891-3034
Website: www.dpcdsb.org/coopcentre
For your information, I have attached a press release regarding the solicitation of nominations for the 2006 Ontario Professional Engineers Awards.
Please feel free to contact me f you have any questions.
Best regards,
David Smith
Media Specialist
Professional Engineers Ontario
1000-25 Sheppard Avenue West
Toronto, Ontario M2N 6S9
(416) 840 -1068
/news/Press Releases
Media Release
Engineers and Architects warn New Building Code Requirements could Harm Ontario’s Building Construction Industry
New legislation fails to address public safety and streamlining objectives
Toronto – (January 6, 2006) – On January 1, 2006, the Ontario government implemented amendments to the Ontario Building Code, despite the serious concerns and strong opposition of Professional Engineers Ontario (PEO) and the Ontario Association of Architects (OAA), the regulatory bodies responsible for licensing and regulating the province’s 70,000-plus engineers and architects. The two organizations are deeply concerned that the new requirements will have significant adverse impacts on Ontario’s $10-billion building construction industry and be a major detriment to the public’s well being.
“The public may perceive the new building code requirements as providing a more efficient approach, but they will ultimately result in public confusion around who is qualified to submit applications and will make it costlier to build,” said Robert A. Goodings, P.Eng., president of Professional Engineers Ontario (PEO). “Both the Harris and McGuinty governments said the main goal of the legislation was to improve public safety and increase the efficiency of building code enforcement. However, since the regime was first introduced, neither of these objectives has been met.”
“We share the engineers’ concerns,” said Lisa Bate, president of the Ontario Association of Architects (OAA). “Extra regulation creates unnecessary bureaucracy with no public benefit. We are committed to ensuring that our members are highly knowledgeable professionals, but object to the duplication of regulations that, ironically, may compromise the public interest.”
“Public safety will be negatively impacted if members of the public are misled into believing they have hired a 'qualified' individual to carry out their design when, in fact, the qualification is meaningless”, said Chris Roney, P.Eng., of Kingston, a newly appointed government representative on the PEO governing Council. “By law, anyone acting as a designer on engineering work covered by the Professional Engineers Act, including building officials, must be holders of a licence to practise professional engineering, regardless of whether they hold a Building Code Identification Number (BCIN).” PEO has recommended to engineers that they not put their BCIN numbers on drawings, as it may confuse the public that BCINs have replaced engineers’ seals. The OAA has issued a Practice Bulletin recommending that architects place their Building Code Designation Number (BCDN) only within a Code Data Matrix on one location on the documents supporting the application for a building permit.
According to Pat Quinn, P.Eng., president-elect of PEO and a major contributor to the building industry for over 40 years, “Why a government that was not the originator of Bill 124 would have pushed it through against the advice of the senior professions involved in the building industry is inexplicable.” In 2005, over 10,000 exams were written on a building code that will be fundamentally redirected and revised in 2006. “Professional offices serving the building industry, and every building department in the province, were unsettled, disrupted and inconvenienced, and more repercussions to a major economic generator are inevitable as the impacts of Bill 124 reverberate,” said Mr. Quinn.
In March, PEO Council will review a proposal for the introduction of a new Building Design Specialist designation that PEO developed with input from the ministries of Municipal Affairs and Housing and the Attorney General. Later this month, PEO representatives expect to meet with the Attorney General to offer support for his efforts in overseeing the mandates of the self-governing professions.
“Our task now is to work with Attorney General Michael Bryant to ensure we don’t go down this route ever again,” said Mr. Goodings.
Professional Engineers Ontario (www.peo.on.ca) administers the Professional Engineers Act by licensing professional engineers, and setting standards for and regulating engineering in Ontario so that the public interest is served and protected. Rigorously educated, experienced, and committed to a Code of Ethics that puts the public interest first, licensed professional engineers can be identified by the “P.Eng.” after their names.
The Ontario Association of Architects (www.oaa.on.ca) similarly administers the Architects Act, and regulates the practice of architecture in order to preserve public interest. Those who have completed requirements that include a professional education in architecture, internship and examinations may use the designated term “Architect” after their names.
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For additional information or interviews, please contact:
David Smith Brian Watkinson, Architect
Media Specialist B.E.S., B.Arch., OAA, FRAIC, Assoc. AIA
Professional Engineers Ontario Executive Director
(416) 840-1068 Ontario Association of Architects
dsmith@peo.on.ca (416) 449-6898 ext.255
US Renewable Energy Firms Cash In
By Brandon Thurner, Washington (UPI) Jan 05, 2006
"All of the countries of the European Union are beginning to feel these broad environmental pressures," said Mark Farber, vice president of strategic planning for Evergreen Solar Inc. "Kyoto is an important piece of this puzzle."
Evergreen, a Marlboro, Mass., firm, specializes in the manufacturing of photovoltaic modules, which are used in the production of solar panels.
Moving into the European market in 2001, Farber anticipates doubling Evergreen's 2005 sales total with a projected sales count of 200,000 units in 2006. A typical solar panel system for a homeowner costs approximately $20,000, while commercial systems may cost up to and more than $2 million. Farber attributes brisk EU sales to several factors.
Strongest sales come from nations that subsidize to firms and consumers who buy renewable technologies. Germany, the world's leading market for solar energy, used a government buyback program for renewable energy that spurred 150 percent growth in the installation of solar panels in 2004 alone. Firms such as Evergreen hope to take advantage of such subsidies with continued aggressive expansion into EU markets.
Two-thirds of Evergreen's sales come from EU clients, said Farber. In 2005, these overseas sales resulted in more than $25 million for the firm. This led Evergreen to expand into Spain, Portugal and Italy in 2005 and Farber's forecasts continue to be optimistic.
"Most of the European countries take Kyoto seriously," said Farber. "Europeans take their environmental stewardship more seriously than those in the United States."
Chief Executive Jon Slangerup of Solar Integrated Technologies Inc., another photovoltaic firm based in Los Angeles, agrees with Farber's views on the expanding European market.
"It's a no-brainer to do business in solar in Europe," said Slangerup in an interview with The Los Angeles Times. "The only question is: How much can you allocate and how fast can you install it?"
Subsidies by European governments often outweigh the increased production costs of renewable energy sources. Solar Integrated produces a photovoltaic cell-based commercial roofing material whose method of production costs more to produce than a kilowatt of electricity, but government funding balances out the added generation costs.
Rhone Resch, executive director of the D.C.-based Solar Energy Industries Association, believes solar energy to be the next high-tech growth industry.
"Renewables have proven they are the source of energy going forward," said Resch. The sheer number of jobs created through renewables, the zero greenhouse gas emissions level and no water being needed to produce them all make renewable energy the source to beat in the future, he added.
Quantifying the economic benefits of developing renewable energy sources, Resch estimates solar energy generates 32 jobs per megawatt while wind produces approximately six to nine jobs per megawatt and natural gas or coal only two to two-and-a-half jobs per megawatt according to estimates by the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the Renewable Energy Policy Project.
Other benefits of solar power, according to Resch, are its time of production and the fact that solar panels last for 30 years. Typical hours range from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. each day. These times fall squarely within the peak hours of electricity demand, which exponentially decreases the costs to consumers.
Combining the tangible economic figures with the overall purpose and need to transition to renewable energy sources remains the top priority for advocates.
The Kyoto Protocol is only a first step, said George Sterzinger, executive director of the Renewable Energy Policy Project in Washington. Kyoto's primary purpose is to broadcast what should be done to realize emissions target goals while the real job remaining is to explain the problem of climate change in simple terms.
Key to emphasizing the environmental and economic benefits of renewable energy is getting the United States on board. Installing 18,500 megawatts of renewable technologies in the United States would stabilize carbon emissions and help the nation meet its "global responsibility" in greenhouse reductions, said Sterzinger.
The trickle-down economic effects of transforming energy use from fossil fuels to renewable sources are clear, Sterzinger added. There are approximately 70,000 manufacturing firms across the United States that has the capability to produce the solar components necessary for full panel systems.
Many of these factories are located near cities such as Cleveland or Pittsburgh, said Sterzinger, which have seen a downsizing of the manufacturing base over the last few decades. This gives renewable energy manufacturers the skilled labor pools they need to produce the solar panels while also reviving regional economies.
To spur production, Sterzinger advocates an approach used in the automobile industry, which provided tax incentives to manufacturers who provide parts to the production of an advanced car. With renewable energy, tax incentives should be applied to those manufacturers who provide advancements in technology. Summing up the real economic benefits to developing renewable energy sources and the expected growth of the field is instinctive for Resch.
"You don't drill for it. You don't mine it. You manufacture it."
These may be just the words old manufacturing towns across the heart of America have been waiting to hear for years.
Source: United Press International
Related Links
TerraDaily
Proposal opens access to electricity grid
By Paul Henderson – Business Edge
Published: 01/05/2006 – Vol. 2, No. 1
http://www.businessedge.ca/article.cfm/newsID/comment.cfm/newsID/11634.cfm
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Paul Henderson, Business Edge |
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Solar photovoltaic panels on the Kortright Centre are one source of alternative power production. |
A proposal being considered by the Ministry of Energy could give access to the province's electricity grid to numerous small electricity generators including farmers, municipalities, individual homeowners, community co-operatives and private businesses.
If the program is implemented as proposed in a report the Ontario government commissioned from the Ontario Sustainable Energy Association (OSEA), it will mean that anyone can set up a wind turbine or put photovoltaic panels on their roof and be paid a premium to feed that electricity into the grid, making it not only financially possible to promote green energy, but profitable, too.
In August 2005, then minister of energy Dwight Duncan directed the Ontario Energy Board (OEB) and the Ontario Power Authority (OPA) to develop the terms and conditions for a program of standard offer contracts (SOC) based on the OSEA report.
Standard offer contracts - sometimes called feed-in tariffs or advanced renewable tariffs - allow renewable electricity producers to hook into the grid and be paid a fixed premium per kilowatt hour (kWh) generated.
This is aimed at small producers, generally less than 10 megawatts (MW), and depending on the technology and the resources, rates would vary. If adopted the way OSEA envisions it, this would make Ontario the first province in Canada and the largest jurisdiction in North America to open up the grid and pay a premium for small producers' renewable electricity generation.
Energy Minister Donna Cansfield was expecting the OPA to report back by Dec. 31 with its recommendations as directed by Duncan in August. A spokesperson in the minister's office told Business Edge they would prefer to comment after they have received the OPA's recommendations, which had not happened by press-time.
The OEB regulates the electricity and natural gas sectors in Ontario while the OPA is responsible for ensuring an adequate long-term supply of electricity in the province.
"A business with a large roof capacity would be able to put a solar power system in that would be financially viable," says Melinda Zatyruk, OSEA general manager. "The point is for it to be financially viable for these systems; to have a reasonable profitability."
William Kemp, author of $mart Power: An Urban Guide to Renewable Energy and Efficiency, said: "The government has been under enormous pressure from industry and private individuals for a good long time to get access to the electricity grid. All the stars are aligning for them to actually pull it off and do this thing right." The way things are looking, even if they don't do it "right" - that is, the way proponents are hoping - there still may be some interesting business opportunities.
In the OSEA recommendation, wind power would receive about 13 cents per kWh and photovoltaic panels about 50 cents. The cost is then borne by all ratepayers. While that sounds frightening to electricity consumers who believe they are already paying enough, the result "will be like a fly landing on the back of an elephant," Kemp says. Toronto Hydro customers currently pay five cents per kWh for the first 1,000 kWh used in a month and 5.8 cents per kWh for any additional electricity used.
The OSEA report says: "The maximum cost to Ontario ratepayers is expected to be $.0005 (approximately five one hundredths of a cent) per kilowatt hour from 1,000 MW of wind generating capacity in year 20." When Duncan first announced the plan, he said that he was sure that people "are prepared to pay a higher price for cleaner energy.” The reality, according to Kemp and the OSEA report, is that electricity prices are heading up no matter what, and 20-year SOCs with small electricity producers will actually help stabilize prices.
The OSEA is concerned, however, that the OPA recommendations to the government will be a watered-down version of its recommendations and will not look at the long-term price picture, or value-added benefits of such things as distributed generation, lower line losses, rural jobs, rural investment and local technological development and investment.
The association is hoping that the government will hear from businesses and community groups who want to participate in the SOCs.
"The big fear is that there is going to be a flood to the grid," OSEA executive director Deborah Doncaster says. "That the government is going to end up with 20-year contracts with 5,000 different developers all getting 13 cents a kilowatt hour.
"That's a worst-case scenario, but from a lot of people's perspectives that's a great thing. If we can get 5,000 megawatts of green power on the grid at 13 cents, that's looking pretty good compared to what nuclear and gas are going to go to." There were similar fears about a flood to the grid in Germany when an SOC-type system was introduced in that country, but they proved to be unfounded. Germany now has 16,000 MW of installed wind capacity.
"Germany is one-third the size of Ontario," Doncaster says.
"They have the largest installed capacity in the world and 55 per cent of those projects are owned by local communities and individuals, and are under 10 megawatts. And Germany doesn't have substantially better wind regimes than Ontario." Potential revisions to the OSEA recommendations could include a cap on production or participation, eligibility restrictions on participation or price limits.
"In limiting the price you are really talking about limiting it to the private sector who may have capital assets and financial resources to capitalize on these kinds of resources," Doncaster says.
OSEA estimates that currently any utility grade project, using wind as an example, costs from $500,000 to $600,000 to do the complicated development and legal work.
A turbine costs approximately $1.5 million. With payment between 10 and 13 cents per kWh and a 20-year SOC, the investor would need 10 years to recoup costs, and then have 10 years of profit. They estimate $120,000 of gross revenue per MW of production.
OSEA sees substantial opportunities for the business sector if SOCs are implemented, such as the possibility of developing a wind turbine and photovoltaic panel industry in the province, and gaining a foothold in what could become an emerging North American market.
In Germany, 45,000 people are directly employed in the wind industry and that number is expected to increase to 110,000 by 2010.
Overall, Doncaster is hopeful, but a little pessimistic about what the government will decide.
"The whole point is to make distributed generation viable, but to not gouge the ratepayer," she says. "What it all boils down to is how concerned the government is to promote renewables. And I don't see from the supply mix study that they're serious about renewables."
(Paul Henderson can be reached at henderson@businessedge.ca)
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Published in CIM Bulletin December 2005 / January 2006, Volume 99 No. 1091
We, as a Bulgarians, we share knowledge, experience and Engineering traditions with our European neighbours. In the environment of a globalization however, Europe is still on a higher Engineering technical standard and innovative cutting edge technology front, than the rest of the non-western globe. That is why; I take the liberty to publish some important historical discoveries in Europe during the last century, which shaped the industry in the entire European sphere, for many years to come.
For example,
There
is no doubt, however, that many of the scientific results obtained in Bulgaria in the field of Optoelectronics and Microoptoelectronincs (in view of their
essence and level) are of interest for the European optoelectronics. That is
why, in case of intensive dissemination and exchange of properly structured
information it can be relied on true European integration of mutual benefit.
Some of the more important and perspective scientific research works and their
results could be specified, emphasizing on:
-
building and development of new types of metal vapour lasers, namely CuBr
lasers;
- physical investigations of the active medium that led to the invention of a
new highly effective mixture (hydrogen) in the copper vapours;
- development of the corresponding measuring devices;
- building of optoelectronic devices to register and interpret bio-signals from
tissues and organs through optical emission that is reflected by them of passed
through them;
- investigation of the bio-physical processes in the cells by means of digital
images which can be applied in the autoimmune diseases diagnostics;
- building of laboratory models and prototypes of laser location systems of
high quality indicators at world level, intended for remote investigation and
ecological monitoring of the atmosphere;
- designing of original and highly efficient methods for gathering and
processing of laser-location data, namely, based on the method of the
"time variables" to measure the vector speed of the movement of
statistically uniform and non-uniform random fields in the atmosphere;
- finding new effects related to the increase of the
"signal-to-noise" ratio and to the development of unified
mathematical models of remote radiometric investigation of media and objects in
the infrared and visible optical ranges;
- creating new laser diagnostics and therapy methods in medicine; development
of specialized laser systems;
- designing methods and building devices for spectrometry of the sun (and
especially UV) radiation;
- development of methods and devices for spectral radiometric control on the
agricultural crops development (including the registration of eventual stress
conditions);
- development
of optoelectronic elements - photo resistors, photo diodes, photo detectors with
positional sensitivity, infrared LEDs (light emitting diodes).
http://www.arc.online.bg/artShow.php?id=1385
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ABEC’s News
- On 26th of December ABEC had 2005 Christmas and New Year’s Gathering in Madera Restaurant Inc.- 836 Danforth Avenue. The environment was cozy with a Bulgarian cuisine and live music. The good mood and camaraderie lasted into the late evening with dancing, merriment and laughter - a pleasant time.
- Membership fee, due for 2006 year is $50 per year. Please send your cheque (making it payable to ABEC) to our Treasurer at the address: Mrs. Tonya Bojkova, 903 – 91 Cosburn Ave., Toronto, Ontario, M4K 2G2.
- We are reminding to all Members that we have a set of the books for the OPE licensing exams.
- New Members are welcome.
Best Regards to all ABEC Members,
Pauline Loultcheva Lawrence
President of ABEC
(905) 832-4451