The report, Falling Behind: Canada’s Lost Clean Energy Jobs, says that Canada invested 18 times less per person on renewable energy compared to the U.S. in the last budget.

“Canada risks falling behind, not only the U.S. but Europe and Asia when it comes to clean energy,” said Gillian McEachern, the report’s author. “Clean energy is going to be one of the largest industries globally over the next decade and Canada is turning a blind eye to this.”

McEachern says that over the last two budgets the feds should have dedicated an additional $11 billion towards renewable energy initiatives, and had we done so, it would have created an additional 66,000 jobs.

The report says that in the 2009 budget Canada only dedicated 8.8% of its stimulus spending to green energy while the U.S. dedicated 12%, Australia 22.6% and South Korea 78.7%.

“At every opportunity the Canadian government emphasizes that it’s harmonizing its energy and climate policies with the U.S.,” the report reads. “Yet when it comes to investing in clean energy jobs, Canada does not even come close to matching U.S. efforts.”

The report also criticized the federal government’s decision to end the ecoENERGY Retrofit program that gives homeowners a rebate if they increase the energy efficiency of their homes.

Environmental Defence wants the federal government to match U.S. funding on a per capita basis, put a price on carbon and offer tax credits and incentives to green energy producers.

But Jack Carr, an economist and environmental skeptic at the University of Toronto, says the report is nonsensical and environmental policy should not be tied to job creation.

“There are plenty of programs that would create a lot of jobs but they would be a complete waste of time for people to do it that way,” says Carr. “The greenest way may not be the most efficient way … If it’s good to do something for the environment it should be good in good or bad times and should have nothing to do with stimulus spending.”

Carr says that borrowing money to stimulate the green energy industry could be highly wasteful because industries based on government subsidy are vulnerable to shifts in public policy.

www.torontosun.com

“The U.S. must be the leader in manufacturing and exporting clean technologies, not one that becomes dependent on foreign energy products,” U.S. Representative Doris Matsui, a California Democrat, said in a statement.

Clean energy comes from renewable natural resources, such as sunlight, wind and geothermal heat.

The U.S. Department of Energy has estimated U.S. exports of clean energy technology, also known as green technology, could reach $40 billion per year and help create more than 750,000 jobs by 2020, the lawmakers said.

“Right now, the global market for environmental goods and services is estimated at $700 billion … At present, only six of the top 30 global companies that lead in this sector are American-owned. This must change,” said Representative Bobby Rush, an Illinois Democrat.

The proposed legislation would create a $15 million fund administered by the Commerce Department to increase the competitiveness of the U.S. clean technology industry, boost exports and promote policies aimed at reducing production costs and encouraging innovation and investment in the industry.

Lawmakers said the bill would help President Barack Obama reach his goal of doubling U.S. exports in five years.

“Initiatives such as the one proposed in this bill will help our country gain a competitive edge in the export of the technologies the rest of the world wants and needs,” Representative John Dingell, a Michigan Democrat, said.

The effort came as the United States mulls an international agreement to spur international trade in environmental goods and services by eliminating tariffs and removing other trade barriers.

Last week, U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk asked the U.S. International Trade Commission to investigate the economic effect of eliminating U.S. tariffs on imported environmental goods and determine whether U.S. environmental goods exporters might benefit from trade liberalization.

Its first report is due in October, followed by another in February 2011.

Source

As a measure in that direction, the directorate of mines (DoM) will be vested with the task of identifying areas in mining processes where energy savings and emission reduction can be achieved.

While emphasis will be given on exploring cleaner technologies and best practices in coal mining, a study is proposed to be taken up to find out the potential of coal bed methane in coalfields of the state, official sources said.

A separate coal evacuation plan will be put in place for Talcher and Ib valley coalfields.

Similarly, an environmental restoration fund (ERF) is proposed to be constituted taking contributions from the mining houses.

A mechanism will be devised to implement a system of compensatory water harvesting and storage around mining clusters by the concerned mines and efforts will be made to protect and restore water harvesting structures in the catchment of the mining intensive areas.

Besides, the government proposes to take up a regional hydrological survey for mining clusters of Joda-Barbil, Koira, Talcher-Angul, Ib valley, Sukinda valley areas, limestone and dolomite belts and eastern ghat bauxite zones.

The draft action plan prepared by the sectoral group on mining also proposes to conduct studies to identify the potential of beneficiation of low grade iron ore, manganese, graphite and chrome ore.

It also seeks to leverage the best practices in metal mining for fighting the impacts of climate change.

Source: www.business-standard.com

The 15-mw project, supplied by Suzlon Energy, consists of 10 units of Suzlon’s S-82 and 1.5-mw wind turbine generators. These generators were earlier installed across Gujarat, Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu.

The path breaking project forms an important part of SBI’s strategy to reduce its carbon footprint and sensitise clients on the need for adopting efficient processes. The electricity generated from the wind turbines will power various SBI facilities and operations across the three states. The project was completed by Suzlon in record time — going from concept to commissioning in just four months, covering equipment supply, construction, project commissioning, power evacuation, and comprehensive operations and maintenance services.

Speaking on the occasion, Bhatt said, “Among the players in the financial services sector, State Bank has taken the initiative to be in the forefront in initiating steps for combating climate change and reducing carbon footprint, and we propose to take the initiative forward for which this beginning has been made in acquiring green power, with a view to making the bank as nearly energy neutral as possible over the next five years.” The windmills are set up with a definite objective of reducing the dependence on the polluting thermal power and not on purely economic and business considerations. The project directly results in reducing the carbon footprint of the bank and paves the way for others to follow, he added. The bank is planning to set up an additional 20 mw capacity of windmills in Gujarat.

Speaking from Coimbatore, Tulsi R Tanti, chairman and managing director, Suzlon Energy, said, “This project demonstrates SBI’s far-reaching vision in recognising the challenge of climate change, and our collective responsibility to combat it. As an Indian company, and the world’s third largest wind power group, it gives us great pride to partner with SBI in its first green banking initiative, harnessing wind to reduce its carbon footprint.”

Full Source

The B.C. Liberals have introduced a new Clean Energy Act that puts unprecedented pressure on BC Hydro customers to cut their consumption of electricity.

Legislation introduced Wednesday in the B.C. legislature calls on Hydro to meet 66 per cent — two-thirds — of new power demand through energy efficiency and conservation by 2020, rather than expanded development of new electricity supply.

That’s up from a 50-per-cent conservation target in 2007.

The Liberals have ordered Hydro to proceed with a pair of so-called ’smart’ initiatives to support that target — development of a high-tech electricity grid that detects cheaters and guards against blackouts, and a $1-billion program to install interactive power meters in every home by 2012.

Other measures announced in the act include a confirmation of the government’s interest in developing electricity for export — but only if there’s no risk to ratepayers — and a merging of the BC Transmission

Corporation into Hydro.

The smart grid will allow Hydro to implement “complex” electricity rate schemes that squeeze the last electron out of every kilowatt of power, and provide two-way contact between Hydro and the smart meters in its customers’ homes.

Those schemes will likely be too complicated for an average customer to manage, involving electricity prices that can shift two or three times a day as well as on a seasonal basis — thus the technical support. For example California, one of the models for B.C.’s strategy, has a five-tier electricity rate.

The smart meters are promised to trim annual household electricity bills by $145 to $450 a year, with Hydro interacting via the meters to help customers manage their power consumption — through options such as switching on dishwashers and washing machines at times when electricity demand and rates are lower.

The government is also pitching the meters as adaptable to future technology “such as plug-in electric vehicles, a self-healing grid, home automation and energy management systems.”

A government press release says more than 150 jurisdictions worldwide, including 116 in North America, are moving to install the technology, including Alberta, Ontario and California.

The act affirms that Hydro will continue in public ownership — and it also requires BC Transmission Corporation, which was split off from Hydro in 2002 as a separate Crown agency, to re-merge with Hydro.

In a note to employees, obtained by The Vancouver Sun, Hydro chairman Dan Doyle and BCTC chairman David Emerson state that the unification will take effect in early July when the Clean Energy Act becomes law.

Hydro has more than 5,800 employees. BCTC has about 400.

The split was undertaken earlier in the decade after energy traders including BC Hydro’s Powerex trading wing pounced on a botched attempt by the state of California to deregulate its electricity utilities, generating huge profits and prompting North American industry regulators to call for a separation of generation and transmission system operators.

“Since then, regional transmission organizations did not develop in the Pacific Northwest, and the movement toward greater independence for transmission was halted,” the BCTC note states.

Doyle will remain as chair of the Hydro board of directors after the unification, but the note says nothing about Emerson’s future role.

The act makes several changes to B.C. Utilities Commission’s role as Hydro regulator, including a decision to exempt more than $10 billion worth of public projects that until now would have been subject to commission approval.

They include the $6.6-billion Site C dam project on the Peace River, the $400-million Northwest Transmission Line, the $1-billion Smart Metering and Smart Grid program, and the Clean Power Call, which is still underway to contract new private sector sources of electricity to meet Hydro’s domestic needs.

Groups such as the BC Old Age Pensioners organization, which intervene in the BCUC’s reviews of Hydro capital projects, will also be sidelined.

“The Clean Energy Act is the removal from regulation of virtually every significant expenditure BC Hydro has on its books for the next 20 years,” New Democratic Party energy critic John Horgan said.

“Cabinet will now be setting rates by approving these projects and then directing the utilities commission to raise rates to meet those capital costs. It is outrageous that the premier in 2000-2001 said that he would restore the so-called independence of the utilities commission and today he signed its death warrant.”

Minister of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources Blair Lekstrom said the government has “always” had the ability to give direction to the utilities commission.

“We think that with this piece of legislation, as we see it today, we have been transparent, we have put the projects forward that we’re going to move forward on, but it’s very important to recognize that the British Columbia Utilities Commission will still have oversight on the price setting for rates in British Columbia, and that is an extremely important part of this,” Lekstrom said.

The legislation appears to address one of the primary concerns that environmental groups have about the development of renewable power such as run of river hydroelectric — a lack of attention to anything other

than the specific impacts that projects have on the streams in which they operate.

In response to that concern, the government announced it will “strengthen” the environmental assessment act to provide for study of the broader, long-term or “cumulative” effects that the projects have throughout a watershed in which a project is proposed.

The government confirmed its support for development of an export electricity market.

But it appears to have been listening to Hydro’s industrial customers and the Business Council of B.C., which have urged that all the financial risk of selling power into other jurisdictions be borne by companies developing power for export — as is the case for the province’s forestry and mining industries.

Industrial customers in particular have warned that western North American market prices for power are significantly lower than the price Hydro would pay private power producers to develop new sources within B.C. for export.

The legislation calls for Hydro to “partner” with private operators to market the energy, using the Crown agency’s hydro dams to ‘firm and shape’ intermittent green power sources such as wind and run of river into a high-value premium electricity product.

“The Clean Energy Act explicitly requires the B.C. Utilities Commission to ensure that any expenditure associated with exports is not included in domestic rates,” the province said in a backgrounder accompanying the legislation. “The affordable rates that are one of the benefits of B.C.’s existing and future heritage assets will, by law, continue to flow exclusively to British Columbians.”

Lekstrom said “there will be no subsidy from the ratepayers or taxpayers of British Columbia to develop and execute the export policy.

On the other hand, the export policy will generate revenue that the ratepayers and the taxpayers of British Columbia will enjoy. It is a very good model.”

Paul Kariya, executive director of the Independent Power Producers Association of B.C., described the act as welcome news for the provincial economy, particularly in rural and first nations communities.

“Overall I think they have been thoughtful. I think it protects the ratepayer and I think that’s important in this debate. I think it has a real good parsing of making sure that the public sector, BC Hydro, has a role but also mates that with the private sector, all for the betterment of British Columbians.”

The NDP’s Horgan countered that the act is “opening up the floodgates to independent power producers to use BC Hydro’s comparative advantage of reservoirs to shape and firm power and then use Hydro staff to find markets and then use their expertise to deliver that power.”

Craig Orr, executive director of Watershed Watch Salmon Society, attacked the government’s decision to continue its support for export power development.

“I would say that damming and diverting hundreds more rivers in B.C. for exporting seasonal power hardly seems like good environmental stewardship, especially given the large number of stresses our fish and wildlife already face,” Orr said.

“And given the pitiful track record of government on dealing with cumulative impacts, it will take more than a vague promise to convince me they are serious about assessing multiple project impacts in a meaningful way.”

Source

It’s called clean technology’s “competitive conundrum’’: how to get people to pay for cleaner energy when electricity produced from traditional sources like nuclear power, coal, or natural gas costs less.

Today, several industry specialists plan to address that question at GoingGreen East, a clean technology conference designed to bring together executives from green technology companies with investors and other players.

Organizers at the online media firm AlwaysOn Network expect to draw 450 to 500 participants to the conference at the Four Seasons Hotel Boston by the time it ends tomorrow.

Hemant Taneja, a managing director at the Cambridge venture capital firm General Catalyst Partners, will sit on the panel discussing how to make sure emerging clean technologies are successful.

He said companies must have patience to create new technologies that may take years to bear fruit, but that will ultimately appeal more to eco-conscious consumers.

“We have to shoot for really, really disruptive things and we have to have the patience to wait for them to happen,’’ Taneja said. “Squeezing costs out of the existing solutions is not going to be competitive.’’

The more renewable resources – wind turbines, solar panels, and fuel cells, for example – that are up and running, the more they will be widely used, and the cheaper the electricity they produce will become, industry insiders say.

“The thing is, if we have tight credit and conventional energy prices are 2 cents a kilowatt . . . how are you going to convince the American public to pay 40 cents a kilowatt just because it’s cleaner energy?’’ asked Ed Ring, clean tech editor for AlwaysOn.

To build that kind of buy-in, the industry needs a clear and consistent federal environmental policy that will give polluters, like companies that run traditional, coal-fired power plants, financial incentives to cut back on the greenhouse gas emissions they produce, several said.

Once the cost of pollution is factored in, advocates say, clean technology becomes more attractive.

“Clean tech is always in a boom-and-bust cycle,’’ said Matt Moscardi, manager of investor programs at Ceres, a green investment coalition based in Boston. “Without a price on carbon, or some other mechanism by which you measure pollutants and emissions, the playing field will not be level.’’

Paul Maeder, cofounder of the venture capital firm Highland Capital Partners of Lexington, agreed, saying that when it comes to backing clean technology, he focuses on the long-term because venture capital investments often can take several years to pay off.

The best thing the government can do, he said, is institute something like a cap-and-trade system – which forces regulated companies to pay for the pollution they emit – to bring consistency to the world of clean tech.

Of some things consumers can be sure, Maeder said:

Energy prices “are only going to get more expensive, the atmosphere is only going to get worse, and people are going to get more concerned about it.’’

www.boston.com

Continuing an annual tradition, Cleantech Group Executive Chairman Nicholas Parker offers ten trends to watch for in 2010.
For several years now, as each year comes to a close, we’ve been issuing predictions for the coming one.

While we certainly acknowledge we’ve not necessarily gotten each one right in years past, a great number of our predictions have proved prescient (see Eight cleantech developments to watch for in 2008 and Nine clean technology predictions for 2009).

Why such a good record? We’re fortunate to be able to formulate these predictions from our unique position at the heart of the global clean technology value chain. The trends we’ve identified here are informed by the Cleantech Group’s global network of relationships, from our newsgathering, research and advisory activities, and from speaking at or attending dozens of high profile conferences internationally—including all five of the Cleantech Group’s own worldwide Cleantech Forums® every year. As a company, we speak to entrepreneurs, investors, corporate executives and service providers on a daily basis.

What we’ve heard in the marketplace has been synthesized and threaded together with our own data, collected on the cleantech industry since 2002, and our ongoing research to inform this mix of viewpoints on financials, politics, sectors, industries and geographies.

What follows is an abridged version of a more detailed document available to members of the Cleantech Network (see Ten predictions for 2010 – member login required). Members receive more context and data supporting the below.

Private capital growth recovers, record fund year
All in all, given the global recession, 2009 was not such a bad year for cleantech investing. Global cleantech venture capital flows (startups and growth) receded to around 2007 levels, still the second highest amount ever, and in the U.S., cleantech pulled ahead as the largest single venture investment theme in 2Q09 and 3Q09, surpassing biotech and software (it’s easy to forget that only a few years ago cleantech barely registered; it was only 3 percent of all VC/PE in 2004).

In 2009, the pool of investors focused on cleantech continued to widen, yet remained shallow as investors held back on deploying capital.

We predict global venture and private equity in cleantech in 2010 will exceed that in 2009, and exceed it by a healthy margin. We also think 2010 will be a record year for general partner fundraising. The sector has gone from $100M funds to $250M funds to $500M funds over the past six years since Cleantech Group identified and defined the asset category in 2002.

Further, watch for more blockbusters like Khosla Ventures’ September $1.1 billion new fund announcement. And watch for greater capital formation in Asia, particularly in China with domestic RMB capital joining with international counterparts. Above all, watch for greater innovation in fund strategies, for example those that bring “innovation and infrastructure” together or those that focus on cross-border plays.

Clean economies become the new space race
Agreement on a new global climate regime, as well as one in the U.S., will make halting progress over the coming year, likely disappointing many. Yet the race to dominate the emerging clean economy has already begun and will accelerate regardless. This race will become front-of-mind in 2010, simultaneously impeding, eclipsing and hopefully fostering attempts to reach climate accords.

Fueled by unprecedented quantities of “green and clean” stimulus money, cities, states, provinces and countries are now competing to grow cleantech businesses, to bring innovation to market, to attract inward investment and to brand themselves as hubs of cleantech growth. It’s no longer about trading our way out of the carbon crisis, it’s about inventing new industries.

Look out for changes in momentum, admittedly starting from very different starting points, from places such as Australia, Singapore, France, Germany, Scandinavia, Israel, parts of the U.S., Ontario in Canada, Maharashtra in India and numerous cities planting their flags in clean ground. The downside will be increased protectionism, so companies, investors and export agencies will need to navigate around this with bilateral deals involving research, manufacturing, investment and deployment.

Electric cars take the back seat to smart mobility
In 2009, electric vehicles and hybrids eclipsed fuel cell vehicles as the undeniable new center of gravity of the auto industry. Virtually every car company in Asia, Europe and North America announced ambitious clean car strategies, and many brought new models to market, in addition to startups funded by venture capitalists.

In 2010, clean cars will form part of a broader shift to smart mobility. Smart mobility will quickly permeate beyond simply the transport sector, and will be integrated into the new energy paradigm and influence the design of urban systems, even shipping ports. Look increasingly in 2010 for eco-city designs based on concepts such as “new urbanism.” Leading governments around the world will rethink tax systems, fiscal incentives and budgets to encourage greener forms of work and transport based on smart mobility concepts (SNCF, the French state-owned rail operator, set up a fund in 2009 specifically to invest in e-mobility.)

Continue Reading Full Source

While there is no standard definition of “clean technology,” it has been described by Clean Edge, a clean-tech research firm, as “a diverse range of products, services, and processes that harness renewable materials and energy sources, dramatically reduce the use of natural resources, and cut or eliminate emissions and wastes.” It notes that “Clean technologies are competitive with, if not superior to, their conventional counterparts. Many also offer significant additional benefits, notably their ability to improve the lives of those in both developed and developing countries”

Investments in clean technology have grown considerably since coming into the spotlight around 2000. According to the United Nations Environment Program, wind, solar and biofuel companies received a record $148 billion in new funding in 2007 as rising oil prices and climate change policies encouraged investment in renewable energy. $50 billion of that funding went to wind power. Overall, investment in clean-energy and energy-efficiency industries rose 60 percent from 2006 to 2007.^[1] By 2018 it is forecast that the three main clean technology sectors, solar photovoltaics, wind power, and biofuels, will have revenues of $325.1bn. ^[2]

In the United States, the clean tech industry is largely based in Silicon Valley ^{[3] [4]}

Source