This week, the Ontario Liberals jumped onto Richard Branson’s latest campaign to save mankind and the planet. Called Flick Off, the campaign is yet another attempt to convince people that electricity is bad for the environment. This notion is dubious, but common sense vanishes in the presence of celebrity. Hoping some of the cool...
Energy conservation
Combined heat and power: friendly to the environment, or just the gas industry?
Two weeks ago, on The Agenda with Steve Paikin, I participated in a debate on the pros and cons of nuclear power expansion in Ontario. One of the other debaters, Dave Martin of Greenpeace, suggested that industrial power users could reduce their environmental footprint by using combined heat and power. Also called cogeneration, combined...
Hybrid cars vs. compact fluorescents: how not to nickel and dime our way to Kyoto
Last week I talked about the proposed ban on incandescent lights that is sweeping across the country. I said that the energy savings from replacing incandescent bulbs with energy efficient compact fluorescents are negligible. Let me quantify that statement. I have 16 100-watt incandescent lights. If I replaced them today with 29-watt compact fluorescents...
Conservation proponents set to score Pyrrhic victory on incandescent lights
Advertising guru David Ogilvy once wrote that good advertising is the fastest way to sink a bad product. This applies just as much to dumb ideas. We’ll see how right he was if and when various provincial governments across Canada jump on the stupid ban-the-incandescent-lightbulb bandwagon. When Canadian consumers respond to the hype about...
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