Race Rocks Sustainable Energy System Development

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Canadian Hydrogen Conference June 17-21, 2001, Victoria, BC.
RACE ROCKS SUSTAINABLE ENERGY
SYSTEM DEVELOPMENT
Taco Niet, G. McLean
Institute for Integrated Energy Systems, University of Victoria
Victoria, B.C., Canada V8W 3P6
Tel: (250) 721-8936 Fax: (250) 721-6323

Abstract
Race Rocks is a small archipelago located just Southwest of Victoria, British Columbia in the Juan de Fuca Strait. An important Beacon for Coastal Navigation in this busy area is located on Race Rocks, which is also home to a stunning variety of marine mammals and birds. The Race Rocks site has become Canada’s first Marine Protected environment and is now carefully managed by a group of interested partieScreen Shot 2014-02-24 at 7.48.10 PMs including Pearson College and The Canadian Coastguard. The environmental integrity of the site is often jeopardised to bring diesel fuel to the site and the noise pollution on the site due to the diesel generators is significant. IESVic has stepped forward to evaluate the potential of renewable energy sources on-site to power a sustainable energy system. A preliminary study was performed as an innovative graduate course at the University of Victoria that exposed students to sustainable energy system design. Our conclusion is that with Tidal currents of up to 3.7 m/s, average winds of 21.6 km/h and large amounts of solar insolation, there are ample renewable resources available on the site to develop a sustainable integrated energy system capable of providing reliable power for the site. Race Rocks is therefore ideally
suited to become a showcase for renewable energy generation. This paper outlines the results of the feasibility study, discusses the opportunities available at Race Rocks and examines the progress to date. Requirements for the implementation of a sustainable energy system on the site are discussed.
See the full PDF: tacopaper

Elephant seal Catastrophic Moult

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Race Rocks is at the northern limit of distribution of the Elephant Seal. They often number from 2 to 3 large males and 4 or 5 females. Arriving in January, they usually stay through the summer on the middle island and then leave for several months in the winter. Elephant seals often undergo a juvenile moult on the local beaches of Victoria when several years old. This individual may be at the end of such a moult as it still has a few sore spots on it’s coat. They end up on beaches where they wallow in the sand to keep the flies off. Members of the public often report them to the “authorities” as being diseased in appearance as their skin is blistered and raw. There has even been an example in the past few years in the local Victoria area when an animal in such condition was reported to the authorities as sick and due to ignorance, the animal was shot by an animal control officer. Of course this outraged some of some local residents who had been observing it for weeks as it was going through the moult, but the mistake had been made. So humans — leave well enough alone. Misguided intervention is not helpful for this rather rare pinniped

Archival images: Panoramic Views of Race Rocks.

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These QuickTime VR or virtual reality panoramas allow you to look 360 degrees around a scene. We have created a series of VR movies of the island for you to get a better idea of just what the core of the MPA looks like.

To view the panoramas. Click on the links under the map picture below. You need the QuickTime plugin to view the files. If you can see the rotating image above, you have the correct software to view the panoramas.

This set of panoramas was made possible by a donation by Richard Catinus, Account Executive, Western Region, Apple Canada, Inc . He provided the software QTVR to the racerocks.com Activity at Pearson College.
Damien Guihen and Jean-Olivier Dalphond, Lester Pearson College students, stayed on at Race Rocks for two weeks in June 2001. They did the photography using a digital camera. Damien did the html of the pages and the assemblage of the QTVR panoramas .
June 2001.

SORRY , These movies have not been converted to mP4 yet so please come back later

islandviews

Elephant Seal Moulting 2

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Race Rocks is at the northern limit of distribution of the Elephant Seal. They often number from 2 to 3 large males and 4 or 5 females. Arriving in January, they usually stay through the summer on the middle island and then leave for several months in the winter. Elephant seals often undergo a juvenile moult on the local beaches of Victoria when several years old. This individual may be at the end of such a moult as it still has a few sore spots on it’s coat. They end up on beaches where they wallow in the sand to keep the flies off. Members of the public often report them to the “authorities” as being diseased in appearance as their skin is blistered and raw. There has even been an example in the past few years in the local Victoria area when an animal in such condition was reported to the authorities as sick and due to ignorance, the animal was shot by an animal control officer. Of course this outraged some of some local residents who had been observing it for weeks as it was going through the moult, but the mistake had been made. So humans — leave well enough alone. Misguided intervention is not helpful for this rather rare pinniped.

Sunset on Race Rocks Video

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Race Rocks, with its location in the Strait Juan de Fuca, often gets illuminated in the evening by sunsets such as this one. It adds to the beauty of the site and reminds one of the importance of protecting such a place. In this video, the Pearson College Choir accompanies the video with the singing of the ‘Skidigate Love Song’. This video was made and edited by Jean-Olivier Dalphond (PC 26) in June 2001.

Saltwater Images of Race Rocks and music of Holly Arntzen

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When Race Rocks was declared Canada’s first Marine Protected Area, Holly Arntzen offered Pearson College the opportunity to use some of her songs as video backgrounds. Her CD entitled “The Salish Sea” is about the fading beauties of the oceans and it stresses the importance of their protection.

Using the song “Saltwater” as a background, this video shows images of divers and the bull kelp, Nereocystis leutkeana, a species of brown algae present in high density throughout the summer and fall at Race Rocks. Their lamina provide a special protective canopy for a delicate ecosystem with many species of invertebrates and fish under their canopy. This video was filmed and edited by Jean-Olivier Dalphond (PC yr26) and Damien Guihen (PC yr27) in June 2001.

Apple Representatives visit Race Rocks

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threeandtower

Keith Mitchell of the Apple Learning Interchange and Jeff , a rep from Apple visit Race Rocks

Keith Mitchell on the right in the picture above was instrumental in arranging for Akamai to carry our live streaming video for the first few years of the operation of racerocks.com. He had seen a presentation we did at an Apple Conference in New York where we had webcast live from underwater at Race Rocks.

We stayed overnight at Race Rocks  and did some 360 degree images the next day.

keithandjeff

Keith and Jeff viewing the wildlife  on the boat trip out.

gulls feeding

The guls were in a feeding frenzy near the island.

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PC students Damien and Jean and Ecoguardian Mike Slater had met us on arrival.

 

islandeaglemed

On our way out, Keith took this picture of an eagle on North Rocks.

 

RACE ROCKS MPA FEATURED ON the CBC IDEAS PROGRAM

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paulonOn Saturday May 26, 2001, we hosted at Race Rocks Paul Kennedy, the host of the CBC program “Ideas” (9:00 PM nightly Mon-Fri. ) .

Paul was on the West Coast that week preparing a special series on Canada’s oceans and marine issues. See Paul’s OCEAN JOURNAL entry for May 26 for an account of his trip to Race Rocks.

OCEANS EXPLORATIONS: LEARNING FROM OUR OCEANS is a project which will result in eight hours of programming on IDEAS in December 2001. Paul will spend much of the next seven months on each of Canada’s three ocean coasts. He’ll be on board fishing dorys, Haida canoes, off-shore oil rigs, and snowmobiles crossing Arctic ice. By talking with Canadians who live and work on the sea, he’ll begin to learn about many of the things that the oceans can teach us.threeandrr

Paul was accompanied by Garry Fletcher and Angus Matthews of Lester B. Pearson College, and Mark Pakenham, of Ocean’s and Fisheries It was a great day to be on Race Rocks as we were in there in the middle of the Swift Sure Sailboat Race, so the vessels kept making close passes through the islands of Race Rocks MPA . Photos by Angus Matthews.

Paul returned in the Fall of 2001 to do a webcast with the students.

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