This week’s series of federal announcements on renewables, wind power, tidal power, etc., sounded a lot like Liberal redux. To be fair to the government’s critics, that’s because a lot of it was Liberal redux. But this accusation has an extremely limited shelf-life. The Conservatives have finally realized the value of genuflecting to wind and…
Hybrid cars and the GST: taking the giant step
How can Canada reduce emissions from transportation vehicles? These emissions account for twenty-five percent of the country’s greenhouse gases (GHGs), most of the carbon monoxide, and big proportions of volatile organic compounds and nitrogen oxides. The latter, combined with warm air and sunlight, are a big source of smog. The answer is actually very simple:…
Are federal Conservatives set to support Ontario Liberals’ nuclear expansion?
Word has it that the prime minister and Ontario premier have been talking about heavy water and uranium. Specifically, they have discussed the prospect of the feds providing financial support for the purchase and commissioning of at least two CANDU reactors, probably at the Darlington generating station on Lake Ontario east of Toronto. The Conservatives…
Star offers bizarre energy policy
Today’s Toronto Star carries an editorial criticizing Dalton McGuinty for “dragging his feet on global warming with a plan that would be likely to see [the humungous coal-fired generating station at] Nanticoke replaced by a new, clean nuclear generating facility a decade or more from now.” McGuinty is dragging his feet all right, but not…
Baird steps back into Ontario nuclear minefield: Harper assembles his election lineup
Now that John Baird is the new Environment minister he gets to revisit the Ontario electricity file, over which he recently presided as Ernie Eves’s Energy Minister. This will be interesting. As the most recent Ontario Conservative to hold that job, Baird inherited the Pickering unit 4 near-fiasco from his predecessor Jim Wilson. The unit…
“Conservatives go big on wind power”
Imagine it’s Monday, April 2, 2007. The Wind Power Production Incentive (WPPI), a federal government subsidy that pays wind power producers 0.8 cents for every kilowatt hour they feed into any Canadian power grid, wrapped up last Friday. It wasn’t renewed. But rather than ending federal financial support for zero- and low-emitting electricity generation technology,…
Industrial strategy and Kyoto implementation in Canada
Earlier this week Prime Minister Harper linked, for the first time in public, progress on climate change with a comprehensive national industrial strategy. He’s thinking big, and he’s on the right track. The conflation of environmental progress with industrial strategy need not be overly complex. Electricity generation represents a fifth of Canada’s greenhouse gases (GHGs),…
Epic battle shapes up over power-sector emission caps in U.S.
Will a national cap-and-trade system be established in the U.S.? The answer depends on whom you ask. The two areas of the U.S. where a cap-and-trade system is either planned or about to be implemented—California, and the seven northeastern states that formed the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI)—say yes. Fitch Ratings, a ratings service, says…
Sunsetting wind power program spells opportunity for major emission reductions in Canada
In previous posts I have suggested extending the Wind Power Production Incentive (WPPI) to include other low- and non-emitting forms of electricity generation, including nuclear and coal gasification. But now I wonder if instead of a subsidy like the WPPI, a tax credit might be a more effective way of spurring investment. A tax credit…
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