[Thanks to Gord McNulty for alerting us to this article and its companion about Richard Gilbert, the author of the report Hamilton: The Electric City. - Ed.]

Hamilton has a reputation for polluted waters and billowing industrial smokestacks. But what if it developed a new reputation as an environmental leader in energy conservation?

By Gord McNulty

Daniel Lerch sees hope in Hamilton.

Lerch is an expert in energy conservation. He is the program director of the Post Carbon Institute, a California-based think-tank looking at strategies to adapt to an energy constrained world. In his own career, he assists local governments on how to deal with peak oil demand and climate change issues. And now he has a new book looking at how cities can plan for energy and climate uncertainty.

He chose Hamilton as one city to profile. Hamilton -- a city with a reputation as a heavily industrialized centre with an aging infrastructure.

Lerch sees something different. He is encouraged by signs that Hamilton is looking seriously at an economic blueprint less dependent on oil. In his view, Hamilton has set an example among municipalities in tackling energy and air-quality concerns since the oil crises of the 1970s.

Building a healthy economy and a green image as a city that conserves energy and creates environmentally friendly jobs will be a challenge, but encouraging news is that the city's efforts to reduce its appetite for energy are being noticed.

In his new book Post Carbon Cities: Planning for Energy and Climate Uncertainty, (Post Carbon Press, $30), Lerch chose Hamilton as a case study of how a medium-sized city can build a more sustainable future.

The city's strategy includes measures such as a new energy office, making Hamilton one of four cities in Ontario that have one.

Advanced, fuel-efficient vehicles, including hybrid cars and pickup trucks, and renewable fuels such as biodiesel are being introduced into the city's vehicle fleet. The HSR is promoting eco-friendly transit with lower emission diesel buses and diesel-electric hybrid buses.

Six new hybrid articulated buses along the Upper James corridor, connecting Hamilton airport to downtown, announced last week, are a precursor to future rapid transit improvements along Upper James. The feasibility of rapid transit, including light rail, is also being studied for a corridor from Eastgate Mall to McMaster University.

In November, council endorsed a corporate energy policy calling for a 20 per cent cut in the energy intensity of city-owned facilities and operations by 2020. Savings from energy conservation, expected to top $3 million this year, are projected to increase to more than $49 million by 2020.

Energy intensity refers to a process of using a common benchmark over a specific time frame. By measuring intensity rather than straight energy reductions, planners can account for additions or deletions in the city's building stock, building expansions, and seasonal weather changes.

Critics of an intensity strategy, however, are skeptical that it will be as effective as hoped in reducing oil and gas consumption.

Don McLean, a volunteer with Citizens at City Hall, noted a new study by CIBC World Markets Inc. economist Jeff Rubin questioning energy intensity-based targets. Rubin said that improvements in efficiency have led to a seemingly perverse result of more consumption, as people take advantage of better technology to buy more and bigger energy-guzzling products.

McLean called the city's energy initiatives a positive step but he described the goals as modest. He's also concerned that city council's decision to raise HSR fares twice in one year will likely decrease ridership, negating progress in greening the fleet.

The energy used in residential and commercial buildings is about 25 per cent more than what is used for transportation.

"The key for the city is that we have drawn a line in the sand and set out on a process that incorporates an energy efficient mindset for the way we tackle new and retrofit projects," energy office manager Geoff Lupton said.

Hamilton's tool kit will include a gamut of policies from energy-efficient standards for new and renovated buildings to an after-hours lights program.

The 20 per cent target, Lupton added, can be increased in time as the city learns more and as technology and costs improve.

He described energy conservation as a culture change for staff and management who "need to buy into changing the way we traditionally do business. This will take time and resources."

Lerch, meanwhile, applauds Hamilton's attempt to be proactive rather than hope for the senior levels of government to come to the rescue.

"If cities don't look into their individual vulnerabilities, and don't address them, no one else will."

He has some concerns about what is happening in Hamilton. Lerch supports more compact, energy-efficient development, something that runs counter to some of the conventional thinking in Hamilton. In 2003, the city began developing a 30-year growth management strategy which called, in part, for a massive aerotropolis industrial park centred around Hamilton Airport.

The aerotropolis proposal, now known as the Airport Employment Growth District, is touted as a solution to the city's shortage of employment lands and is currently under study. Lerch doesn't favour the aerotropolis plan.

Lerch was in Hamilton last month making a pitch to city government on sustainable development. He gave a similar talk later in the day to a capacity audience of about 350 at the First Unitarian Church in Hamilton, organized by the Friends of Red Hill Valley, warning of working under assumptions that cheap oil prices will continue.

Lerch noted the ramifications of peak oil -- the coming high point and subsequent decline of world oil production -- extend well beyond the prospect of $4 a litre gasoline that some experts predict could be a reality within 12 years.

"Everything we do in our society, in our lives and in our businesses and especially our governments, assumes that oil and oil products will be there tomorrow and that they will be relatively affordable," Lerch told the Hamilton event, part of a five-week tour designed to help cities avoid the economic and social upheaval that worries observers as world demand for oil begins to exceed supply.

"If we could not make that assumption, we would not be making pretty much all the decisions we make," he continued.

"We would not be investing tens of billions of dollars into massive highway or airport infrastructure, we would not be launching business enterprises that assume that people can drive to certain stores and that people can get to those stores on gasoline and diesel cars and trucks."