Latest news with #WhatonEarth
CBC
10-04-2025
- Business
- CBC
Robots pitched to fill labour gap as Japan eyes offshore wind expansion
What on Earth? | CBC News | Posted: April 10, 2025 6:23 PM | Last Updated: Just now Also: Rescuing native plants from bulldozers and new development Image | What on Earth logo slimmer (Sködt McNalty/CBC) Open Image in New Tab Sign up here to get this newsletter in your inbox every Thursday. This week: Robots pitched to fill labour gap as Japan eyes offshore wind expansion Image | Full Depth team underwater robot Caption: Employees at Full Depth, a Tokyo-based company, show off an underwater robot that they hope will be used to inspect offshore wind turbines. (Cathy Senay/CBC) Etsuro Imamura stands in front of a small pool using a controller. But he's not playing a video game — he's demonstrating the future 'employee' for what he sees as a necessary yet dangerous line of work in Japan. Imamura works for Full Depth, a small company in Tokyo, which has developed a robot that can be used to inspect the underwater infrastructure of offshore wind turbines. The robot's camera sends live video to a laptop so that the operator can look for cracks and other damage, or signs of instability. That kind of work was previously done by human divers. But Imamura suggests that there aren't enough people for those jobs now, because of the aging population and that younger people aren't interested in becoming divers because it is a "very dangerousʺ job. Japan has the oldest population in the world, according to the World Economic Forum, which has led to a labour shortage that is forecast to grow. And so, some Japanese companies are turning to robots for help. New jobs as Japan develops wind power Like Canada, Japan has pledged to become carbon neutral by 2050, and so the government has been forced to review its energy policy. After the Fukushima nuclear power plant disaster in March 2011, the Japanese government shut down all of the country's commercial reactors for checks. That move forced the country to rely on fossil fuels, which now account for more than two-thirds of the country's power generation and make the power sector Japan's largest source of greenhouse gas emissions. The first large-scale commercial offshore wind power project in Japan, in the Akita area on the northwestern coast, has been in operation for just over two years. Soichi Inoue, president and CEO of Akita Offshore Wind Corporation, says the construction of offshore wind turbines will create new inspection jobs, as well as opportunities to develop new robot technology. He offers tours to drum up interest in the transition to renewable energy jobs. ʺWe have several visitors from schools, junior high schools, high schools, colleges, universities. They are coming to see our site and we explain to them what we do," he said. "We also invite companies that are developing the technology: drones or robots.ʺ In the city of Yokohama, Japanese multinational Toshiba is getting in the game, too. Senior manager Yoshihiro Taniyama acknowledges the future growth of offshore wind in Japan. "We'll need manpower," Taniyama warned, "But humans won't be enough for this job." That's why Toshiba has been testing a drone that can inspect the blades of a wind turbine. It hopes to have it operational by 2028. It's also developing a specialized robot to inspect and maintain offshore wind turbines. On that robot, a mechanical arm can reach into the wind turbine's nacelle, the housing at the top of the tower that contains the generator and other components that convert wind energy into electricity. Media Audio | What On Earth : The secret to Japan's wind power industry? Robots! Open Full Embed in New Tab Loading external pages may require significantly more data usage than loading CBC Lite story pages. Wind power makes up a small fraction of Japan's power generation today — about one per cent. And most of the wind power produced so far is from onshore wind turbines. But with its densely populated land and extensive coastline, there's a lot of potential for offshore wind. Toshiba calculates that robot technology could reduce inspection and maintenance costs by 25 per cent. The robots are faster at inspecting wind turbines than humans, which means the turbines are stopped for a shorter period of time, says Toshiba's Taniyama. "The less we stop offshore wind turbines, the more electricity they can generate," he said. "My dream is to provide robot technology to all future offshore wind turbine plants in Japan.ʺ — Cathy Senay Cathy Senay is CBC's journalist at the National Assembly in Quebec City. She traveled to Japan in January with the media fellowship program of the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada. Check out our podcast and radio show. In one of our newest episodes: Students at some of Canada's top universities are demanding banks stop funding fossil fuel projects and are calling on their schools to cut ties with major financial institutions. What On Earth's youth climate action columnist Aishwarya Puttur explains the lengths that students are going to — from confronting bank executives to picking up protest signs — to support the cause, racking up some wins in their campaign along the way. Media Audio | What On Earth : These students want to boot big banks from campus Open Full Embed in New Tab Loading external pages may require significantly more data usage than loading CBC Lite story pages. What On Earth drops new podcast episodes every Wednesday and Saturday. You can find them on your favourite podcast app or on demand at CBC Listen. The radio show airs Sundays at 11 a.m., 11:30 a.m. in Newfoundland and Labrador. Have a compelling personal story about climate change you want to share with CBC News? Pitch a First Person column here. Reader Feedback Last week, we featured a story about a Quebec community that is making it mandatory for homeowners to have a tree in their front yard to reduce the urban heat island effect in a warming climate, and taxing those who don't plant a tree. Philip Lucas wrote: "The idea sounds good, though we need to look at more than the tree being a symbol and benefit to climate change. Does the community have a plan to manage the trees? Yearly pruning and disease control? Or is this left to the inexperienced home owner at their expense? What about climate changes we can expect in the next decade, or century? Will we see floods, extreme wind and ice events, and what damage mature trees will do to infrastructure? The community needs a plan to remove mature trees and use the wood productively, replant new trees all as part of municipal maintenance. Too often public policy is simply a 30-second sound bite, much like Trump policy statements, and little thought to the longer term effects of the 'idea'." Write us at whatonearth@ (And feel free to send photos, too!) The Big Picture: How will the cougar cross the 10-lane freeway? Los Angeles County animals such as mountain lions and lizards will soon be able to cross over 10 lanes of the Ventura Freeway thanks to the recent addition of soil over the Wallis Annenberg Wildlife Crossing. The bridge will be the largest wildlife crossing in the world, according to the Annenberg Foundation, crossing over the busy stretch of Highway 101 where it connects two parts of the Santa Monica mountain range. Once completed, the bridge, which is 64 metres long and 53 metres wide, will help prevent animals from being hit by traffic. It's estimated that vehicles hit large animals one to two million times each year in the U.S. State Farm, the country's largest insurer of cars, estimated that from July 1, 2023 to June 30, 2024, more than 1.8 million insurance claims involving animal collisions were filed across the industry. Research shows that wider structures encourage more animals to use these crossings. The soil, an engineered mix including light rocks and compost, will eventually be home to 5,000 native plants. Covering the entire surface of the bridge with 4,500 cubic metres of soil will take several weeks, but officials say that planting can begin in May weather-permitting. The Wallis Annenberg Wildlife Crossing is designed to be part of the natural environment. Planting native flora and keeping out invasive species will help the area be more resilient to climate events, Robert Rock, the landscape article who led the design, told The Guardian. The crossing also has its own native plant nursery where it has a collection of over one million seeds from hyper-local species. The bridge, which broke ground in 2022, aims to be completed by the end of 2026. Canada has worked towards building similar wildlife crossings, like underpasses and overpasses in Alberta, including ones used by bears in Banff National Park. — Hayley Reid-Ginis This group digs up and saves thousands of native plants from bulldozers at private development sites Image | Friends of Fish Creek - Katrina Terrill Caption: The Friends of Fish Creek Park Society says it'll take generations to restore native plants across the provincial park. (Dave Gilson/CBC) A Calgary group is leading the effort to restore native plants to Fish Creek Provincial Park — by rescuing them from private development sites before they're bulldozed over. The Friends of Fish Creek Provincial Park Society, in partnership with Alberta Native Plant Rescue, began the pilot project in 2024. Last year, they salvaged more than 15,000 plants and relocated more than 80 per cent of them to the park, according to Katrina Terrill, the society's executive director. The other 20 per cent went to members of the public and to a nursery space that will supply the park with plants for years to come. "We're really looking to restore the whole diversity of the grasslands, not just one or two species," she said. Now, in the program's second year, the group is working with three developers (Genesis Land Development Corp., Calbridge Homes and Qualico Communities) to rescue native plant species on the land before construction takes place, according to Terrill. "Because we're going to multiple different salvage sites, we're taking plants from all across these areas. We're able to put them in the park and have this really incredible diversity of species as well as individual genetics," she said. "That's much healthier for the ecosystem in total." Image | Friends of Fish Creek restoration Caption: Most of the park's native grassland habitat has disappeared, according to The Friends of Fish Creek Park Society. (Dave Gilson/CBC) Open Image in New Tab The group plans to take some plants from the site of Qualico Communities' Southbow Landing development, near Cochrane's southern boundary. "It does have a lot of that natural space," said Emily Smith, Qualico Communities director of marketing and customer care. "We want to keep as much of that as we can. But also, knowing that we can't keep all of it, if we can contribute to areas that need [native plants], why wouldn't we?" The site is under development now, but according to Smith, much of it hasn't been touched yet, including land along the Bow River where native plants are growing. "These are areas that are essentially sitting and waiting to be developed. So they're kind of the perfect opportunity for groups like these to come in before any construction work happens," said Smith. Terrill said she's mainly looking for plant species like rough fescue and oat grass to put into the park, but also plants like wild rose, Saskatoon berries and sage grass. "Long term, it's going to increase the resiliency of the park," Terrill said. "Native plants are more drought tolerant, so they're going to survive better in changing conditions. They're also a lot more tolerant to fire and present a lower fire risk because they don't grow as much over ground." Most of the restoration work for the program is happening in the Bow Valley Day Use Area — where new plants are being put directly into the ground. Less than one per cent of native grasslands that once swept across the Fish Creek Provincial Park area are left, according to Terrill. "We have a huge task ahead of us, for sure. Obviously, restoring the park is going to be the work of generations. It's not going to all happen within the next five to 10 years," said Terrill. The group is also planting trees and shrubs along the creek to stabilize the bank and create shade for fish. In a statement, Genesis Land Development Corp. said it's proud to support the restoration program. The developer added it's sharing seeds from these native plants with homeowners moving into its Logan Landing community, to help "carry that connection to the land forward." What on Earth? comes straight to your inbox every Thursday.
CBC
27-03-2025
- General
- CBC
Young people want to work on climate. This group is helping
Also: See how to recycle an office building into apartments Image | What on Earth logo slimmer (Sködt McNalty/CBC) Open Image in New Tab Sign up here to get this newsletter in your inbox every Thursday. This week: Young people want to work on climate. This group is helping Image | Ann Ralls at the BC Insulators training centre Caption: Ann Ralls went through three months of training as a mechanical insulator. The training was set up by the Youth Climate Corps B.C., a program that offers young people paid training in a variety of jobs that help with climate change. (Rachel Sanders/CBC) Ann Ralls had never considered working in the construction industry. But after three months of paid training — coordinated by a non-profit called Youth Climate Corps B.C. — she loves it. "It's a lot of work but it's fun. It's like doing arts and crafts every day," she told CBC Radio's climate solutions show What On Earth. Ralls, 23, trained as a mechanical insulator, a trade focused on insulating equipment such as pipes and ducts using a variety of materials like fibreglass, PVC and metal. The work can improve the energy efficiency of buildings and lower their carbon footprints. The climate benefits are what attracted her to the work. "I was really just trying to find a job in the climate industry," she said. Ralls said, in recent years, wildfires, drought, extreme heat and supercharged storms have threatened the people and places she loves. "It's kind of scary, especially when people you know have farms and they are at risk," she said. "I feel like it's so important to find how you can make a difference." Despite the fact that she'd "never really touched a power tool before," Ralls took to mechanical insulating quickly. She said the work is interesting and well-paid, and it gives her a sense of satisfaction to be contributing to climate solutions. Ashley Duncan, the president of union Local 118 with the B.C. Insulators, which partnered with Youth Climate Corps B.C. on the training program, said the climate link seems to attract young people who are considering the trades as a career. "When we've done trade fairs and things like that, that piece brings a lot more people over to us than a lot of the other stuff we discuss," she said. Duncan said attracting more climate-motivated young people to this work could help solve the shortage of trades workers in Canada. "When I first started out [in this trade], I didn't see a lot of women. I didn't see a lot of diversity," she said. "So being able to bring people in now, especially under climate literacy, I think it's so important." Media Audio | What On Earth : Move over Peace Corps, meet Climate Corps. Enlist now! Open Full Embed in New Tab Loading external pages may require significantly more data usage than loading CBC Lite story pages. Ben Simoni, executive director of Youth Climate Corps B.C. (YCCBC), said the organization has heard from young people that they're concerned about the future and want to work on climate change in their communities. "The younger generation really wants to be working in areas that align with their values," he said. Simoni said the program, which started in Nelson, B.C., in 2020, has to date hired approximately 100 young people who have completed around 10,000 paid days of climate action through the program. The four-to-six month training sessions are open to people aged 17 to 30. Trainees have worked in communities around B.C., from the Interior to the Lower Mainland and Vancouver Island, on a variety of climate related projects, including wildfire mitigation, ecological restoration, and home retrofitting. "We like to connect it to the needs of the community and also the job opportunities that are in the community so that … people are being set up for a really solid career," said Simoni. The program secures funding for wages by partnering with local governments and employers as well as by applying for grants. Last year, the B.C. government announced $3 million for the program over three years. Simoni said the group would like to expand the program to other provinces and offer longer training sessions to give young people hands-on experience in a wider variety of climate-related jobs. "I'm really excited to see where this goes because I do truly believe it is a program to meet the moment," he said. With youth unemployment high across Canada, Simoni said young people are facing economic uncertainty as well as climate uncertainty. "When we have wealth concentration and when we have the delegitimization of governments, that's when we see far right nationalism and that's where we see wealth inequality expand more and more," he said. "What I think is a big potential of Youth Climate Corps is giving people other stories of how we can be as a nation, how we can be as communities." As for Ralls, she's been hired on with the company she trained with and intends to continue with the work while she applies to graduate schools. She's not the only one continuing on as a mechanical insulator. The other six trainees in her cohort have also been hired on to work as mechanical insulators. Some, said Ralls, intend to pursue Red Seal certification and continue with the job long term. "Thanks to YCCBC some people are finding a career in trades," she said. — Check out our podcast and radio show. In our newest episode: Kids and veggies don't always go hand in hand, but this after-school workshop is introducing plant-based cooking to children as a climate solution. It's called EcoCooks. Producer Nick Logan stopped by a session to meet the kids aged nine to 12 who are learning to make, and appreciate, tasty, vegetable-forward food that also cuts emissions. Then, we learn about other community efforts across Canada to put more veggies in the spotlight and onto plates. Media Audio | What On Earth : Tasty, climate-friendly food that kids will make (and eat) Open Full Embed in New Tab Loading external pages may require significantly more data usage than loading CBC Lite story pages. What On Earth drops new podcast episodes every Wednesday and Saturday. You can find them on your favourite podcast app or on demand at CBC Listen. The radio show airs Sundays at 11 a.m., 11:30 a.m. in Newfoundland and Labrador. Have a compelling personal story about climate change you want to share with CBC News? Pitch a First Person column here. Reader Feedback Last week, we wrote about a student science project to test eco-friendly laundry water for watering garden plants. Francis Hill wrote: "I'm a member of the Native Plant Stewardship Group (part of Transition Salt Spring) and we're tackling invasive English ivy and discussing ways to dispose of it. Someone mentioned it contains the same chemical, saponin, found in the soap nuts, and I found recipes for making laundry soap from ivy leaves online. It would be wonderful if we could find a practical use for this invasive species." Merry Kern and Irene Mathias both wrote in to say they re-use their bath water to water plants. Irene added that not only does she pour bath water into the pots of houseplants, tomatoes and hanging baskets, but she also uses it to fill her toilet tank: "One bath equals about four flushes so that feels very worthwhile!" Write us at whatonearth@ (And feel free to send photos, too!) The Big Picture: Who wins and who loses with the carbon tax cut? Mark Carney's first move after being sworn in as prime minister was to end the federal consumer carbon tax and the rebate that came with it to offset the cost. The fuel charge was intended as an incentive for people to invest in clean technology such as EVs and heat pumps, and it applied in provinces without their own carbon pricing. It will be removed from consumer gasoline, diesel natural gas and oil bills on April 1. The April 15 carbon rebates will be the last one Canadians receive. But who will benefit from this? The chart above, created by CBC data journalist Robson Fletcher in 2023, shows the trends. For each income range, you can see what share of households gained or lost money under the carbon tax and rebate system, depending on their consumption habits — or specifically, how much they spent on gasoline, natural gas and other products covered by the tax. (The further to the right side, the more money gained. The further to the left side, the more money lost.) Back then, the carbon tax was $65 per tonne and it's now $80 per tonne, so the actual dollar amounts would be higher in 2025, but the trend would be the same. The chart shows lower-income Canadians largely benefited from the carbon tax and rebate. For example, 94 per cent of households with incomes below $50,000 received rebates greater than the carbon tax they paid. When the carbon tax and rebate are gone, higher-income Canadians will benefit the most, while many lower-income Canadians will lose money. — Emily Chung How do you recycle an office building into apartments? Check out this reno. In less than a year, someone will be living in what used to be the finance department of a local insurance company. Someone else will be taking a shower where lawyers held meetings or cooking where human resources staff signed paycheques. Work is underway to turn 195 Dufferin Avenue in London, Ont., an eight-storey building that once housed insurance companies and law offices, into apartment units. It's the first project that's using incentive money from the city to convert empty or under-used offices into much-needed housing. "We're doing something that is better for the community and better for London," said Richard Sifton, CEO of Sifton Properties, which is heading up the conversion. Sifton leases the building, which sits on land owned by St. Paul's Cathedral and the Anglican Diocese of Huron. Homes Unlimited, London's largest provider of non-profit housing, will eventually run the apartment building. "It just seemed to be the right project at the right time," Sifton said, standing on the ground floor of the building, which will eventually house a laundry room, an office, and community rooms. "Those of us that have done well need to ensure that we are there for the communities that we work in and help people out as best we can, wherever we can." Converting an office into residential units comes with unique challenges. Commercial buildings tend to have only one set of washrooms — and the required plumbing — per floor. "Obviously, you have to have washrooms and a kitchen in every unit, so we have to relocate all of that plumbing and the mechanical systems because each unit has to have its own heating and cooling and fresh air," Sifton said. "It's not as simple as just putting up some walls and hoping that everything works." Media Audio | London Morning : Converting a downtown office building into affordable housing units Caption: One of London's oldest builders is converting a downtown office building into affordable housing units. CBC reporter Kate Dubinski got a tour of the work in progress by Sifton Properties CEO Richard Sifton. Open Full Embed in New Tab Loading external pages may require significantly more data usage than loading CBC Lite story pages. Crews have used radar equipment to see what they're cutting into before drilling holes into each floor to feed mechanical and electrical systems through, as well as plumbing. Sifton said starting from scratch would have been simpler, but there are many advantages to converting an existing building. "We have the good bones of the structure, so we're able to make this project happen a lot faster." Normally, he said, an apartment building would take two and a half years to construct. In this case, construction began last October, and he expects people to be able to move in by the end of this year or early 2026. The units tend to be narrower than ones that would have been created in a new build, Sifton said, but many will have very large windows and views of downtown. "Some of the bedrooms don't have windows, per se, but we do have lighting cells so they get natural light coming into the bedroom, which will make it much more appealing for the resident. It just has to be a little bit different in order for the layout to work." All of the windows are being replaced to be more energy-efficient, as are heating and cooling systems. Sifton said the biggest surprises have come from opening up walls, floors, and ceilings and finding unexpected challenges, such as asbestos piping wrap. "The renovators of the world are used to this, but we're not," he said. "Sometimes, when things are built, the plans show you how it's supposed to be built, but that doesn't necessarily how it actually was built, so that takes some more time and effort." Sifton is also working with other major London developers Tricar, Auburn and Drewlo, to convert a former long-term care home into 40 supportive housing units, where people can move after getting the stability they need in one of the city's homeless hubs. "That's people coming together and doing something with a common cause," Sifton said. "We're normally competitors, but not in this process. We're all contributing as much as we can, thinking that we want to contribute to the community and try to fill in where we can make things better." — Kate Dubinski Thanks for reading. If you have questions, criticisms or story tips, please send them to whatonearth@ What on Earth? comes straight to your inbox every Thursday. Editors: Emily Chung and Hannah Hoag | Logo design: Sködt McNalty
