ABSTRACT

There have been two previous DWAB blog posts, “Information Gleaned from FOIP Request Related to the Plan to Electrify Cochrane’s Transit Fleet” (Sept. 23, 2023) and “Cochrane Mayor Genung ‘Excited’ About Advancing the Goals of Trudeau and the U.N.” (July 17, 2023), related to a study undertaken by the Town to look into electrifying its bus fleet.

The $103,800 study, jointly funded by the Town of Cochrane, carrying $20,760 of the cost and the Government of Canada carrying the remainder of the cost through its Zero Emission Transit Fund, was carried out by the Canadian Urban Transit Research & Innovation Consortium (CUTRIC), a consulting firm endorsed by the Trudeau government.

The study, spearheaded by Devin LaFleche, the town’s Sustainability and Transit Coordinator, whose mandate included a responsibility to “implement greenhouse gas emission-reducing projects”, had its beginnings in September 2022. Josipa Petrunić, President and CEO of CUTRIC, attended the town’s Committee of the Whole meeting on March 18, 2024 to provide a summary of CUTRIC’s technical report.

Despite expecting a green light to be given for the town to proceed with the replacement of its COLT gasoline-powered fleet of buses with battery-operated buses, the Committee of the Whole Report prepared by the Administration, concluded that “due to potential changes in COLT service models and the lack of necessary infrastructure, the implementation of electrification is deemed infeasible at present (emphasis added)”, as if this impractical technology was feasible at any time. That went along with CUTRIC’s recommendation that “The agency should await technological advancements before pursing complete electrification”. Despite the mayor declaring that the Town of Cochrane was “excited for the Government of Canada’s investment in our community and pleased to provide our support as we work towards our commitment to environmental stewardship and enhanced connectivity”, thankfully for the Town of Cochrane, such unbridled enthusiasm for fulfilling Trudeau’s ideological drive to net carbon zero was brought back to reality.

Ms. Petrunić, concluded her presentation declaring that the mission of her organization, CUTRIC, ‘proudly recognized as the Government of Canada’s Zero Emission Transit Fund National Planning Service’ and retained to do consulting for the government, is “basically to get rid of cars and advance public transit (chuckle)”. No question of having both in her mind!

The entire EV push is driven by ideology rather than practicality. One has to seriously wonder about a technology that a state forces upon its citizens to adopt by government fiat, as well as, pushing it along by giving lucrative incentives to do so with tax-payer money.

To no surprise, given that this town’s municipal office (the unelected Administration, as well as, the elected Town Council) appears wedded to Justin Trudeau’s net carbon zero by 2050 ideological agenda, the door to this impractical technology may be opened in the future.

FULL BLOG

There have been two previous DWAB blog posts, “Information Gleaned from FOIP Request Related to the Plan to Electrify Cochrane’s Transit Fleet” (Sept. 23, 2023) and “Cochrane Mayor Genung ‘Excited’ About Advancing the Goals of Trudeau and the U.N.” (July 17, 2023), related to a study undertaken by the Town to look into electrifying its bus fleet.

The $103,800 study, jointly funded by the Town of Cochrane, carrying $20,760 of the cost and the Government of Canada carrying the remainder of the cost through its Zero Emission Transit Fund, was carried out by the Canadian Urban Transit Research & Innovation Consortium (CUTRIC), a consulting firm recommended by the Trudeau government.

The study, spearheaded by Devin LaFleche, (He, Him), the town’s Sustainability and Transit Coordinator, whose mandate included a responsibility to “implement greenhouse gas emission-reducing projects”, had its beginnings in September 2022. Josipa Petrunić, President and CEO of CUTRIC, attended the town’s Committee of the Whole meeting on March 18, 2024 to provide a summary of CUTRIC’s technical report. The Town of Cochrane’s Committee of the Whole Report for that agenda item, initially included a copy of the full report, but it was subsequently removed as CUTRIC considered it to contain proprietary information.

As a result of “Information Gleaned from FOIP Request Related to the Plan to Electrify Cochrane’s Transit Fleet”, I concluded that “while the project may be looked upon as a ‘feasibility’ study, it most likely is the first step to replace Cochrane’s bus fleet with electric buses, or more correctly, battery-powered buses”.  I noted that there was “extensive evidence to support such a conclusion”, such as the quote by Josipa Petrunić, CUTRIC’s CEO, in the June 1, 2023 press release for the study, saying, “Decarbonizing public transit isn’t just a choice, it’s a necessity, and today’s announcement in a small municipality like Cochrane showcases a bold step toward not only reducing our carbon footprint, but enhancing the quality of life for residents…Cochrane is seizing another opportunity to be a leader in Canada’s sustainable future.”

Despite expecting a green light to be given for the town to proceed with the replacement of its COLT gasoline-powered fleet of buses with battery-operated buses, the Committee of the Whole Report prepared by the Administration, concluded that “due to potential changes in COLT service models and the lack of necessary infrastructure, the implementation of electrification is deemed infeasible at present (emphasis added)”, as if this impractical technology was feasible at any time. Despite the mayor declaring that the Town of Cochrane was “excited for the Government of Canada’s investment in our community and pleased to provide our support as we work towards our commitment to environmental stewardship and enhanced connectivity”, thankfully for the Town of Cochrane such unbridled enthusiasm for fulfilling Trudeau’s ideological drive to net carbon zero was brought back to reality. Noticeably, not a peep from the mayor in the Q&A period that followed the CUTRIC presentation.

The presentation to Council by CUTRIC’s CEO, Josipa Petrunić, and the accompanying discussion is found within 2:02:30 to 2:58:55 minutes of the video for the Council meeting. She began saying that she had asked that the technical report which had originally accompanied Administration’s Committee of the Whole Report for that agenda item was to be removed as it was “confidential and contained intellectual property”.  I had an opportunity to peruse that report prior to its removal and did not see much to require it to be confidential. So much for transparency. Despite her claim, as per the press release, that “decarbonizing public transit isn’t just a choice, it’s a necessity”, she began by advising that their preliminary simulations revealed that “you really just don’t have a clear winner in Cochrane”.

As shown in the table below, the economics (without facility and labor costs) don’t look good for the battery electric bus (BEB) options – Scenarios 1 and 2.

However, it was pointed out that “with the current federal funding, it would chop those in half. You start to look like parody with your gasoline case”, with Scenario 1 dropping to $4.7 million and Scenario 2 dropping to $5.8 million. She noted, “right now if you buy what’s in the marketplace now and you don’t get any federal money it’s very expensive to electrify”. CUTRIC, not surprisingly being strong believers in Trudeau’s decarbonization program and financially benefiting from it, declared that “one way to decarbonize is the primary way to get people out of cars” (emphasis added), which presumably is the viewpoint of Cochrane’s municipal office. As part of a social equity analysis, the recommendation was to put your best vehicles in the poorest communities, the most disadvantaged ones.

Note the recommendation at the bottom of the table that, “The agency should await technological advancements before pursing complete electrification”, where one technological advancement identified was as an increase in the number of players in the market as very much a “monopolistic market” right now with two bus manufacturers so not a very competitive landscape. Of course, it doesn’t help as occurred in Edmonton where the company, California-based Proterra, from which it purchased 60 battery operated buses failed its contractual obligations and has gone bankrupt. As a result of the hardware issues, more than half of the buses are regularly out of service, which seems to be a common problem. Noteworthy, “In December the city approved money for 20 new buses. All of those will be diesel (emphasis added)”. Being on the “bleeding edge” is a lot different than being on the “leading edge”. And now a report that Province considers move to ‘audit’ City of Edmonton, where “The bus fiasco exemplifies how city council has a propensity to think in grandiose terms on issues like climate change but overlooks its main job of delivering basic city services efficiently”. A lesson for Cochrane’s Town Council.

While the transition to battery-operated buses was primarily dismissed on economic grounds there are a lot of other factors that need to be considered in determining the practicality of this new technology, including:

• The cost upfront is much higher.
• They depreciate at a higher rate than internal combustion vehicles.
• The insurance is more expensive.
• Repairs are much more expensive, if you can get them done at all, and take longer. Any motor vehicle accident that impacts the battery can lead to repairs higher than the value of the car, that is totalled with so much as a scratch.
• The wear and tear on roads is much worse due to the sheer weight of the vehicles, which can weigh up to 50 percent more than internal combustion motor vehicles. Guardrails, installed to minimize damage when traffic goes awry, will become under-designed. Many parking garages would have to be rebuilt with new reinforcements. A Ford truck weighs in at 8,240 pounds, nearly a ton more than the gas-powered version of the same pickup.
• Electric vehicles and harsh winters don’t mix.  Chicago’s extreme cold in January knocked out a bunch of Tesla cars which someone described as ‘dead robots’.
• Tires are more expensive and don’t last as long because the car is so heavy.
• EVs are more emission-intensive to build. More greenhouse gases are emitted in the manufacture of EVs than by the drilling, refining, smelting, and assembly for gas-powered cars, which means it can take several years of driving an EV before there is any benefit in terms of emissions.
• Those concerned about greenhouse gas emissions may also be worried about the negative effects on the environment of mining for battery components.
• Then there is the strain on the grid. Where is all that extra electricity going to come from to charge these things? What would owners of electric vehicles (EVs) have done during the critical emergency alert issued in January urging Albertans to reduce electricity use to essential needs only to minimize potential outages across the province?
• They’re prone to experiencing “thermal runaway“, bursting into approximately 5,0000°F (2,760°C) flames, creating quite an inferno that firefighters have difficulty extinguishing.

With respect to the latter, in the discussion that followed Ms. Petrunić’s presentation, Councillor Reed raised the issue of “battery safety which I know has been a problem just by reading the news.” In response, Ms. Petrunić acknowledged that “it is a significant concern” and that battery fires that have occurred in transit have “been a long-standing issue”. A quick perusal of the technical report before it was removed revealed that there were about 6 pages devoted to fire safety and suppression.

She also noted, “the issue with battery fires is you can’t put them out you have to let them burn out”, and a big overall issue for the transit world and fleets where you have a whole bunch of vehicles lined up next to one other is that once one starts on fire you have only a few minutes before the toxic fumes mean you cannot enter the vehicle to remove it. As a result, there is a risk that it will light the other vehicles on fire. Consequently, to be safe you may actually need spacing between the vehicles and if it is double the space, then for Scenario 1 one would need space for 28 buses and for scenario 2, space for 16 vehicles, which would double the facility cost. Ultimately, describing the situation with respect to safety as “a bit of a wild west”.

Ms. Petrunić concluded her presentation declaring that the mission of her organization, CUTRIC, ‘proudly recognized as the Government of Canada’s Zero Emission Transit Fund National Planning Service’ and retained to do consulting for the government, is “basically to get rid of cars and advance public transit (chuckle)”. No question of having both in her mind!

To no surprise, given that this town’s municipal office (the unelected Administration, as well as, the elected Town Council) appears wedded to Justin Trudeau’s net carbon zero by 2050 ideological agenda, the door to this impractical technology may be opened in the future.  As noted by Cochrane Now’s report, “Too early to electrify town transit buses”, on the CUTRIC presentation, “Cochrane’s transit buses will continue to be gas-fired for the time being (emphasis added).” A similar sentiment was contained in a Cochrane Eagle report, “Town not pursuing electric buses for now (emphasis added)”, clearly favouring this technology, explaining “Town of Cochrane will consider electric buses somewhere down the road – not now”.

As noted by the Administration’s report, “The Government of Canada is laying out plans to ban the sale of gas or diesel-only powered vehicles by 2035; furthermore, $25 billion dollars in grant funding has been allocated to support this transition for municipalities. All of which may contribute to adopting new energy vehicles in the future”. As announced by the Government of Canada, “The Government of Canada is investing $14.9 billion over the next eight years in reliable, fast, affordable, and clean public transit. This funding includes $3 billion per year in permanent, predictable federal public transit funding which will be available to support transit solutions beginning in 2026/27.”

Minister of Environment and Climate Change Steven Guilbeault’s policy announcement that by 2035 all light duty vehicles sold in Canada must be electric demonstrates his commitment to a command economy, which makes sense when one considers that in November 2023, he stood in the House of Commons to proudly declare, “I’m a Liberal and a proud socialist.” 

The entire EV push is driven by ideology rather than practicality. One has to seriously wonder about a technology that a state forces upon its citizens to adopt by government fiat, as well as, pushing it along by giving lucrative incentives to do so with tax-payer money.

UPDATE, April 2, 2024

As CUTRIC’s in its presentation to Council on March 18, 2024 made frequent reference to a “phase two of this study”, on March 25, 2024, I sent an email to the Manager, Community Services, asking, “Is that in the works? If so, will it still fall under the $103,800 cost for this “phase one’ study or will it require additional funding?” As well, I asked if CUTRIC’s final report to be received by Council will also be  be publicly available?

Received a reply a week later on April 2, 2024, advising me that, “Phase two of the study has not been confirmed. At this point because it has not been confirmed I cannot confirm if additional funding is required or not. The CUTRIC report is not publicly available”.

I, in turn, replied, “Very disappointing that the CUTRIC report is not publicly available, although I am not surprised by this serious lapse of transparency for a town not noted for transparency. The report does not belong solely to the administration and council, but to the citizens of Cochrane who helped pay for this questionable study to the tune of $20,760. I had a brief look at the report before it was taken down and saw nothing in it that would justify such a demand for confidentiality on CUTRIC’s part.
How about issuing a redacted version which protects CUTRIC from its supposed proprietary information?”

As well, an email, “Where Do You Stand?”, was sent to Town Council on April 2, 2024:
“Thankfully, there was a touch of reality in response to that bone-headed study to electrify Cochrane’s COLT fleet, a study which so ‘excited’ the mayor.
During her presentation to Council on March 18, 2024, Josipa Petrunić, President and CEO of CUTRIC, the company, chosen by Trudeau that carried out the study to the tune of $103,800, declared that the mission of her organization is “basically to get rid of cars and advance public transit”, and followed up that comment with a chuckle.
Not a word in response that night from Council, which prompts one to ask the question, do you as a Council Member agree with Ms. Petrunić’s perspective, that is, “basically to get rid of cars and advance public transit” to supposedly meet Justin Trudeau’s net carbon zero agenda?

Given past experience, I don’t expect to receive a reply from any of the council members.

UPDATE, April 9, 2024

Received a reply from Ms. Michelle Delorme, Manager, Community Services, regarding my April 2, 2024 enquiry related to the availability of the CUTRIC report. Disappointingly, I was advised, “While we understand your concerns about transparency, please note that CUTRIC’s confidentiality requirements are something we must follow”. I responded, “Surely, not everything, every last word, in that report is confidential, just because CUTRIC says so! Pretty shoddy if that’s the way CUTRIC operates. It now seems that I would need a FOIP request to get a copy of the report. Very disappointing, but, again, not surprising given that the town is not noted for its transparency”.