THE GALLON ENVIRONMENT LETTER
Canadian
Institute for Business and the Environment
Fisherville,
Ontario, Canada
Tel. 416
410-0432, Fax: 416 362-5231
Vol. 16, No. 2, May 18, 2011
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ABOUT THIS
ISSUE
While researching another issue we came upon a
very strange rule restricting the labelling of the term local in Canada to foods
produced within 50km. Our editorial explains further.
Our theme is this issue is CleanTech.
Interestingly the government sees fit to tell us, in a restrictive way, which
foods can be labelled local and which foods cannot but no one has properly
defined CleanTech. We have seen all kinds of polluting technologies labelled as
clean tech and all kinds of promising clean technologies not labelled with any
claim of environmental responsibility. Even so, governments are pushing clean
technology as a key component of the environmental salvation of humankind. We
bring you a range of articles on many aspects of clean technology, from oil
sands to organic agriculture and from renewable energy to electric vehicles and
their batteries, which may help make everything more clear or maybe they just
show how foggy the clean technology field actually is. We would draw your
attention to the article entitled SDTC: Cleantech Report 2010. We think this
recent report is especially insightful.
We also mention a couple of upcoming events
that are relevant to clean technology and sustainable development. We will in
future be mentioning more such events on our Gallon Letter events page, now
moved to gallonevents.com. If you are organizing an event of interest to the
sustainable development, renewable energy, and/or environment and business
audiences in North America please send information and web link to glevents@cibe.ca for
our information.
This issue also includes two book reviews: How
Bad Are Bananas? and Time To Eat The Dog. What is it about Life Cycle Assessment
that inspires such amazing titles?
Guess what? The State of Oregon is actively
considering legislation to tax electric vehicles and plug-in hybrids to
compensate for loss of gasoline tax revenue. How uncreative! How soon before the
governments of Canada or of a province do the same?
Next issue we will look at the issue of food
waste and maybe at the regurgitated federal budget and Speech from the Throne.
Meanwhile, we encourage you to send your comments to editor@gallonletter.ca. We will publish a selection.
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THE
GALLONDAILY BLOG
Gallondaily is a new free daily (mostly Monday
to Friday) version of Gallon Environment Letter. Gallondaily focuses somewhat
more than our monthly version on current environment issues that we consider may
be of interest to the broader business community. Recent Gallondaily headlines
have included such topics as:
Ban on Inefficient Lightbulbs
Postponed
New Bipartisan Energy Efficiency Bill in
Congress
Renewable Energy Becoming More
Competitive
PAH Concerns: Pavement Sealant
Ban
Sustainably Produced Bananas
We are not suggesting that you visit gallondaily.com every day, though we certainly invite you if you wish to
do so, but a once a week quick browse will help you to keep up with a business
perspective on some of the many Canadian, North American, and global
environmental topics. It is a quick, and currently no cost, way to keep up with
the flow of environmental issues.
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SUSTAINABILITY
APPLIED: JUNE 9-10 IN WINDSOR, ONTARIO
The following notice is provided by the event
sponsors:
Sustainability Applied 2011, which is the
successor to the Canadian Pollution Prevention Roundtable, will be an
interactive event focussed on inspiring and driving sustainable behaviour and
breaking down barriers to change. It will highlight experiences, approaches and
expertise of leaders and practitioners on the practical application of
sustainability solutions in the private and public sectors.
Experts across Canada and the United States
will be collaborating to frame sustainability issues and discuss opportunities
to apply and adopt sustainable solutions to enhance competitiveness, minimize
business risks, and reduce our environmental footprints. We are targeting a wide variety of attendees, including:
- Senior Executives from large companies in the
automotive , chemical, food and beverage, energy and other sectors;
- Senior Executives, Environmental Health and
Safety Representatives, and Plant Managers from small and medium-sized
enterprises (SMEs);
- Government Officials at the National,
Provincial and Municipal levels;
- Engineers and Consultants;
- Technology and service providers;
- Non-profit Organization;
- Academia
Information on this event can be found at
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WHERE HAVE ALL
THE LOCAL FOODS GONE?
The Government
banned them, every one
When will they
ever learn?
Well not quite every one, but 75% of the foods
that most of us would consider local foods are prohibited from being labelled as
local by the federal regulatory agency, the Canadian Food Inspection
Agency.
Most people think of local food as food that
is produced within 100 km, or maybe even 100 miles, but CFIA has established a
limit of 50 km. We asked them why and have not yet received an answer. Their
only answer is to tell us that the only food that can legally be labelled local
is food produced either in the municipality where it is being sold or in a
municipality that is within 50km. If any other food is being sold as 'local' the
seller is breaking the law, the product may be seized, and the seller may be
prosecuted.
To give some examples (Google maps provided us
with the data), fruit from the Annapolis Valley cannot be sold as local in
Halifax because Wolfville, one of the easternmost communities in the Annapolis
Valley, is 89 km from Halifax. Food from Flamborough, a very productive
vegetable growing area in the rural part of the City of Hamilton, cannot be sold
as 'local' in downtown Toronto because Flamborough (village of Waterdown) is
68.5km from downtown Toronto. Food grown around Abbotsford, BC, said to be the
dominant agricultural community in BC, cannot be sold as local in downtown
Vancouver because Abbotsford is 77km from Vancouver.
Of course, not everyone abides by the rules
and we have yet to hear of any strict enforcement but clearly the CFIA
regulation is inhibiting large grocery chains from advertising 'local' food.
Some rule may be needed. For example, the Beef Information Centre recently
advised beef producer to beef up their business with the theme “Canadian beef is
local”. Most beef is shipped to a few large centralized processing plants and
the information doesn’t tell producers how to ensure their claim of locally
produced is legal. But surely the role of the federal government should be to
support and encourage Canadian agriculture, and especially small farmers, to
expand creative marketing opportunities. Gallon Letter urges the Federal
Government to extend the definition of local food to at least 100 km from the
centre of the community in which the product is being offered for sale. That
way, even people living in West Vancouver could support Abbottsford farmers by
buying local.
By the way, our claim (above) that the
government regulation of 50km radius is eliminating 75% of foods that could be
advertised as local if the rule were 100km is based on the area of a circle. A
circle with a radius of 50 km has 25% of the area, and therefore, on average,
25% of the number of farms or area of farms, of a circle with a radius of 100km.
We welcome your thoughts and will publish a
selection of those received. Email your letters to editor@gallonletter.ca and, if you choose to support CFIA's position, please
try, if you know, to let us know where the 50 km limit for local food may have
been conceived.
For those who are looking for complete details
of CFIA's rules, a summary of the most recent responses to Gallon Letter from
CFIA on this topic will be posted on the Gallon Daily blog at gallondaily.com. Our inquiries on this issue have attracted quite a bit
of attention from local food advocates and we will be reporting further in a
future issue of Gallon Environment Letter.
Paid subscribers see link to
original documents and references
here.
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THEME: CLEAN
TECHNOLOGY: WHAT IS IT AND IS IT ENOUGH
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NOVA SCOTIA:
NEW CLEAN TECHNOLOGY FUND
In April, 2011, Nova Scotia Premier Darrell
Dexter announced a new fund of $24 million for clean technology. He described
clean technology as representing "a diverse range of products and services
intended to provide superior performance at lower costs, while minimizing
negative ecological impact and using natural resources responsibly." The Nova
Scotia fund will be administered by Innovacorp, the province's technology
commercialization agency, to achieve the goals of the jobsHere initiative.
Innovacorp has a trademarked program called High Performance Incubation (TM).
The clean technology fund, like others such as Cycle Carbon already managed by
Innovacorp, aims to attract other sources of private and public funding and help
early stage companies borrow money and gain expert advice and other
support.
Innovacorp's assistance to help early stage
knowledge-based companies is designed to help them become "fit for the fight
...to take on global markets" according to Nova Scotia Minister of Economic and
Rural Development and Tourism, Percy Paris, who wrote an introduction to the
crown agency's business plan for Budget 2011. In 2010, Innovacorp won the 2010
Incubator of the Year award at the US-based National Business Incubation
Association. Innovacorp's President and CEO Clifford M. Gross, appointed in
January 2011, wrote in the plan, "At Innovacorp, we want to help Nova Scotia’s
new companies maximize their potential through seeing the value they can create
by efficiently bringing their intellectual capital to the global marketplace."
The work in regard to the new clean technology venture capital fund for the next
year will include structuring and managing it for Nova Scotia. Gross was to
speak at the 2nd Annual Canadian Cleantech Summit which was scheduled to be held
in Ottawa at the end of April but indefinitely postponed due to the federal
election.
One of the companies said to benefit from the
fund is Carbon Sense Solutions which captures carbon dioxide emissions from
industry into production of cast concrete products.
Paid subscribers see link to
original documents and references
here.
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INTENSITY-BASED ECOEFFICIENCY MAY UNDERMEASURE THE
ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACTS
Using a case study of semiconductor
manufacturing published in the Journal of Industrial Ecology, Eric Williams of
the School of Sustainable Engineering and Built Environment at Arizona State
University and co-author Liqui Deng explore the idea of technological progress
and the interconnection with environmental challenges faced by society.
Technology solves some environmental problems and creates others. In many cases,
the measure used for indicating environmental improvements are based on the
functionality, environmental impact per unit of service e.g. gasoline used per
distance travelled in a vehicle. Functionality measures also include energy
efficiency of appliances, fuel efficiency of automobiles and energy intensities
of manufacturing and other industrial processes.
They propose another measure, "typical
product" which accounts also for changes in consumer demand as the product
changes, the environmental impact for the total service demanded for example, a
more fuel efficient car means people may buy a bigger car or drive more. Other
similar measures which include the growth of demand include IPAT (Environmental
Impacts = Population x Affluence x Technology) and rebound effect where, for
example, more energy efficient air-conditioning is offset by greater use of
air-conditioning. Such considerations are not common in assessing advances in
technology.
Products aren't static over time. As
technology changes the products, the design and use of the products changes the
environmental impacts in ways different than before. Three different effects
occur:
- Changes in functionality increases demand for
the product e.g. more people use computers and spend many more hours using
them than before.
- The products become embedded into other
societal/economic systems e.g. the car enabled more people to live in the
suburbs, leading to extensive sprawl and more use of automobiles.
- The technology changes has the potential to
increase the environmental impacts. For example, large screen televisions
consume more energy than smaller versions.
Their study investigated electricity use in
the manufacture of Intel desktop microprocessors MPUs from 1995 to
2006.
Among their observations were:
- Only the direct electricity for the
fabrication of the chip was calculated. The supply chain and indirect effects
on the environment are far-reaching.
- The proportion of fossil fuels and chemicals
for making a microchip is high. a 2 gram 32-megabyte MB dynamic random access
memory (DRAM) chip requires 1.2 kg. of fossil fuels and 72 grams of other
chemicals. to manufacture or 630 times its mass as inputs compared to 1 to 2
times for a refrigerator or automobile. Over time higher standards for purity
apply so inputs are increasing to keep impurities out e.g. maintaining "clean
rooms" and purifying water.
- The measure of functionality showed
electricity use per transistor made decreased dramatically (99%) over the 12
years.
- The measure of typical product showed that
more and more transistors were used to make more powerful chips. Over the 12
years, despite energy and other efficiencies, the average electricity use by a
typical MPU for that year showed no trend for either increase or decrease ie
net energy use per typical product is relatively constant. The changes in
design and use cancel out the energy efficiency per transistor.
The authors conclude that the common practice
in industry of measuring, say energy use per physical output, and concluding
this is an environmental benefit may not be a good benchmark.
Deng, Liqui and Eric D. Williams.
Functionality Versus "Typical Product" Measures of Technological Progress: A
Case Study of Semiconductor Manufacturing. Journal of Industrial Ecology.
(Official Journal of the International Society for Industrial Ecology ISIE) Vol.
15. No. 1. February 2011.p108-121 [Subscription] Web site: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/10.1111/(ISSN)1530-9290
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SUNCOR:
TECHNOLOGY SOLUTION TO TAILINGS PONDS
At Suncor's annual general meeting held May 3,
2011, Steve Williams, Suncor's Chief Operation Officer summarized key milestones
for Suncor in improving environmental performance. In September 2010, Suncor
became the first company to complete surface reclamation of an oil sands
tailings pond, now called Wapisiw Lookout. The company committed to spending at
least $1 billion between 2010 and 2012 for new tailings and reclamation
technology called TRO (TM) in its oil sands operations. This is expected to
reduce the need from five to one new tailings ponds and speed reclamation time
by two-thirds.
Suncor also has a target of $750 million in
renewable energy including both wind and biofuels.
In closing President Rick George said that
Suncor embraces a vision of sustainable development: "triple bottom line that
says energy resources should be produced and used in a way that generates
economic growth, promotes social well being, and protects the environment....
Key to our journey will be harnessing technology."
Paid subscribers see link to
original documents and references
here.
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WWF-NETHERLANDS: CLEANTECH INDEX
At the Cleantech Forum Amsterdam,
WWF-Netherlands released a sequel to its 2009 Clean Economy, Living Planet
report. The new report updates information on whether countries have improved
their Cleantech rankings from 2008. Donald Pols, Head, Climate Program, sent
along the Index and some preliminary findings, writing that the full report
would be released by the end of May.
The reason for WWF's interest in cleantech is
to "reduce CO2 emissions and protect animal life." The analysis focuses on value
added Cleantech related to renewable energy and energy efficiency products. For
example, power generation such as wind and solar, power storage such as fuel
cells and flywheels, energy efficiency such as LED lighting, micro combined heat
power and insulation and e-mobility such as battery and electric power
train.
In absolute terms, China has become the leader
in energy Cleantech with a total value of EUR 45 billion.
In the work in progress, other observations
are:
- globally Cleantech has grown by 31% per year
but growth is expected to slow.
- the top 10 countries in rank order are China,
US, Germany, Japan, Brazil, Denmark, Spain, France, South Korea and India. All
except India which displaced the UK as 10 were in the top 10 in 2008. Canada
which was 27 in 2008 rose to 22 in 2010.
- the frontrunners in terms of high absolute
growth in value-added were China leading the pack, followed by the US,
Germany, and Japan.
- Denmark continues to have the highest value
added of Cleantech to GDP
Barriers to cleantech growth for The
Netherlands were identified resulting in a discussion of what contributes to
growth of the Cleantech sector which includes:
- A coherent and supportive industrial policy
for the Cleantech sector which provides a stable investment environment for
Cleantech companies.
- A large R&D budget with focus on the
nation's competitive strengths and demonstrations projects enables the local
industry to innovate.
- Economies of scale and consolidation. Larger
companies can take grow faster than the market and benefit from economies of
scale and develop better competencies.
- Government green stimulus packages and better
access to capital for Cleantech companies enable the sector to
grow.
WWF-Netherlands. Clean Economy, Living Planet
- Ready for growth. Report. Prepared by Roland Berger Strategy Consultants.
Amsterdam, The Netherlands: May 9, 2011. [email copy]
and the original report
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E. ANN CLARK:
THE FUTURE IS ORGANIC BUT ORGANIC IS NOT ENOUGH
E. Ann Clark, retired as of January 2011 as
professor at the University of Guelph. spoke at the Grey Bruce Farmers Week in
January on sustainable agriculture. It is a theme to which she has dedicated her
career and, it seems, the rest of her life as she has bought 100 acre-farm where
she hopes to demonstrate reduced use of energy through ecological and organic
practices.
Clark explained that organic is necessary for
sustainability because unlike the specialized, consolidated and globalized
industrial ag-businesses, organic ag internalizes external costs. If all ag
businesses had to pay all the external environmental, health and social costs,
everybody would be organic. For example, concentrated feed lots cause runoff of
growth hormones which aren't used in organic farming. "If every farmer had to
absorb the costs routinely externalized by farms today," she explained, "many
common practices would be prohibitively expensive."
However, organic farming by itself isn't
enough because while the ag system uses 19% of the national energy only 7% is
used on-farm. The other 12% is post-farmgate e.g. in processing, packaging,
transport, refrigeration and meal preparation. Organic farming by itself doesn't
address all those issues and also relies on cheap energy. Jon Radojkovic writing
about the January session wrote, "Up to 85% of organic food is imported into
Canada and organic farmers use mechanized systems, the same as conventional
farmers. She challenged organic farmers to think of what the post-oil world
would look like and to start thinking in those ways."
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IPCC: SPECIAL
REPORT ON RENEWABLE ENERGY AND CLIMATE MITIGATION
Economic development has, in the past, been
linked to more energy use which in turn has contributed to increased greenhouse
gas emissions leading to climate change. CO2 emissions, mostly from the
consumption of fossil fuels, accounts for the majority of human-caused GHGs.
Renewable energy RE is often seen as helping to decouple the correlation between
economic growth and climate change.
About 80% of world energy demand could be met
by renewables by 2050 if public policies are well-directed, according to a
summary report to policy makers issued by a working group for the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. GHG emission reductions from the use
of renewable energy could lead to greenhouse gas savings of 220 to 560
gigatonnes of CO2 equivalent between 2010 and 2050. If the GHG savings are at
the upper end, this could be a cut from the business as usual scenario of one
third of emissions and this could keeping global concentrations of greenhouse
gases to 450 parts per million. This would meet the goal of keeping the global
temperature rise to below 2 degrees, as agreed at the Cancun and Copenhagen
international climate meetings.
John Nyboer from Canada is one of the lead
authors. He is a University Research Associate and Adjunct Professor at Simon
Fraser University’s School of Resource and Environmental Management. In this
capacity, he acts as the executive director of the Energy and Materials Research
Group (EMRG) and the Canadian Industrial Energy End-use Data and Analysis Centre
(CIEEDAC).
The full Special Report on Renewable Energy
Sources and Climate Change Mitigation (SRREN). will be released at the end of
May.
Some key points are:
- Renewable energy is one of the options to
lowering GHG emissions: other options are energy conservation and efficiency,
fossil fuel switch (e.g. from high carbon fuel oil to natural gas), nuclear
and carbon capture and storage. RE can provide broad benefits with proper
implementation contributing to social and economic development, energy access,
secure energy supply and reduce negative health and environment impacts.
Providing modern energy services with RE could help to achieve the goals of
the Millennium Development Goals aimed at reducing world poverty.
- the scenarios project that renewables will
contribute more to a low carbon energy supply by 2050 than nuclear power or
fossil fuels using carbon capture and storage.
- The technical potential of renewable energy
technologies exceeds the current global energy demand by considerable amounts
both globally and in most regions.
- Less than 2.5% of the globally available
renewable technologies have been realized; 97% is untapped. Sources of
renewable energy are not the limiting factors.
- Public policy makers have a key role to play
in enabling policies. Although RE technologies have increased over a number of
years, policies are required in most parts of the world to increase the share
of RE and to increase investment in both technologies and infrastructure.
Monetizing the external cost of energy would help to improve the
competitiveness of RE. Increased prices for fossil fuels could also level the
playing field. Most RE is more expensive than conventional but in some markets
RE is already competitive.
- Climate change will impact RE sources e.g.
changes in biomass production due to changes in soil, precipitation, and crop
productivity. Even if the global temperature change is below 2 deg C, the
regional temperatures range could be larger. Cloud cover may change affecting
solar and regionally, winds patterns may change.
- Multiple factors affect the competitiveness
of a specific energy supply e.g. contribution to meeting peak electricity
demand or costs for integrating into existing power and fuel systems: "The
costs associated with RE integration, whether for electricity, heating,
cooling, gaseous or liquid fuels, are contextual, site-specific and generally
difficult to determine. They may include additional costs for network
infrastructure investment, system operation and losses, and other adjustments
to the existing energy supply systems as needed. The available literature on
integration costs is sparse and estimates are often lacking or vary
widely."
- Integrating wind, solar photovoltaic PV
energy and concentrating solar power CSP without storage is more difficult
than renewable sources such as dispatchable hydropower, bioenergy, CSP with
storage and geothermal. As more variable RE sources increase, maintaining
system reliability may be more challenging and costly. A portfolio of RE
technologies can help to provide consistency of supply.
- Lifecycle assessments LCA for electricity
generation indicate that RE technologies have lower GHG emissions with median
values for all RE from 4 to 46 g CO2 eq/kWh compared a range for fossil fuels
of 489 to 1001 g CO2 eq/kWh. This does not account for land use changes. Most
biofuels also have GHG emission reductions. although the GHG balance may be
affected more by land use changes.
Required:
Sustainability Assessment Tools for renewable energy
The report also discusses the need for
designing sustainability frameworks to ensure that RE project maximize benefits
in the social, economic and environmental area. Monitoring, proper design and
implementation are needed to ensure that RE is sustainable. Examples
include:
- Hydropower has site specific ecological and
social effects.
- Public resistance to landscape impacts of
such projects as wind.
- The choice of RE may depend on local water
supply. Climate change may cause water scarcity in some areas where
water-cooled thermal power plants may be inappropriate. Hydropower and
biofuels require more water as well and may cause water-energy
conflicts.
- Biodiversity can be both negatively and
positively affected by RE technologies.
- Because RE technologies are often
decentralized, they have lower risk of fatalities although the risk of
accidents is not negligible. Dams for hydropower can present specific risks on
some sites.
Paid subscribers see link to
original documents and references
here.
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ONTARIO
CENTRES OF EXCELLENCE - DISCOVERY 2011 MAY 18-19, 2011.
METRO TORONTO
CONVENTION CENTRE
This showcase will include exhibits from
sectors identified in Ontario’s Innovation Agenda such as Cleantech, Advanced
Health, Digital Media and Information Communications and Advanced Materials and
Manufacturing. New this year will be a zone devoted to the water sector.
Discovery 2011 will also welcome the delegates of Ontario’s Global Water
Leadership Summit www.ontario.ca/watersummit at Discovery’s opening luncheon on
May 18th. This event also serves as the closing luncheon for the Summit and OCE
anticipates delegates in attendance from around the world. Premier Dalton
McGuinty along with a number of key stakeholders important to the water sector
will be joining OCE for the luncheon and Discovery. The Discovery show-floor
will open following the luncheon and delegates including Ontario Global Water
Leadership Summit participants will then have the opportunity to tour the
Discovery show-floor starting with the Water Technologies Zone.
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SDTC:
CLEANTECH REPORT 2010
A report released March 2010 by the
arm's-length federal agency Sustainable Development Technology Canada provides
background on clean technology in Canada. About 400 companies in Canada are said
to be part of a cleantech industry involved in commercialization of both
services and products. Of these 300 already have commercialized products and
services. Companies are on average 15 years old and even many of
the younger ones are more than 10 years old.
The report includes company profiles of 135
Canadian clean technology companies, case studies of five companies with high
growth and an analysis of the factors contributing to industry growth and global
competition.
While Canadian companies tend to be good at
research and development in creating technically successful projects, they are
less successful in commercializing the technology.
The goal of SDTC is 20 Canadian clean
technology companies with $100 million revenue by 2020. The focus is
commercialization in the global markets. Examples of emerging companies with
global investment are Day4 Energy (power generation), Westport Innovation
(compressed natural gas engine manufacturer) and CO2 Solutions (carbon capture
and sequestration).
Some of the observations of the report
are:
- Even during the recession from 2007 to 2009,
the 400 companies studied in t he report grew with Compound Average Revenue
Growth of 47 percent. Projections are for growth of 117% CAGR between 2010 to
2012. In addition to the high growth sectors such as Energy Efficiency, Energy
Infrastructure and Transportation, traditional sectors such as Remediation and
Water & Wastewater also grew at 42 and 36 percent during 2008 to 2009.
Eight out of the nine sectors in the sector grew during the recession.
- This export-focussed, innovation industry has
a high knowledge base providing an opportunity for "capital efficient economic
development." Ninety-six per cent of the companies have capital requirements
of from $1 to $30 million.
The report rates the cleantech industry in
various areas. Examples are:
- critical mass of high growth companies to
become dominant global players (C+)
- mid-sized companies able to provide
specialist technology (C+)
- ambitious entrepreneurs in startup companies
with intent to become competitive (B+),
- incentives and a business culture for early
adoption of productivity enhancing technology in the domestic market
(D)
- capital and incentives to reduce the risk of
investment in Technology Development and Demonstration companies before
technology proven to scale (A-).
Overall,
the industry gets a B - due to certain strengths but also there is a need of
improvement in the business environment for investment, management of individual
companies and government policies.
One of the barriers identified in the surveys
and interviews is "Simply put, Canadians are averse to buying from Canada....
Canadian procurers do not readily buy from small, globally competitive Canadian
clean technology companies; this despite the fact that global producers readily
do." One of the recommendations is that government and the private sector should
buy directly from the technology companies rather than from system integrators.
This may take new capability development by purchasers.
Another barrier is undercapitalization of the
clean technology industry in Canada. Even with revised tax policies, new forms
of financing should be developed. For example, provincial and federal government
as well as pension funds could increase their investments in venture capital.
The current venture capital system leads to so much of the share of the income
paid out to investors that entrepreneurs choose to develop their companies more
slowly which in some cases leads to the sale of the company often preventing its
continued growth. Alternative financing vehicles such as flow through shares and
debt products for technology companies could help match the demand of growth
capital with supply.
Paid subscribers see link to
original documents and references
here.
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BATTERIES FOR
ELECTRIC VEHICLES: AN EXAMPLE OF ANALYSIS OF THE ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACTS OF
CLEANTECH
Designing and investing in cleantech requires
analysis of the dimensions on which the technology is actually clean (green) and
where harm may arise. Whether it is cloth or greener disposable diapers, nuclear
energy, renewable energy sources such as biofuels and wind power, controversy
swirls about whether the green claims adequately balance the actual or potential
negative effects. For example, LEED-certified buildings, if not properly
operated and maintained, may be susceptible to mould and some critics say the
certification focuses too much on resource conservation rather than other
aspects such as indoor air quality.
Batteries for
the Future
The choice of batteries for plug-in or hybrid
electric vehicles may be key to the extent by which these vehicles reduce
environmental impact, according to researchers at the Norwegian University of
Science and Technology
According to a Powerpoint presentation by the
authors, Norway was a first adopter of Electric Vehicles for reasons which
include:
- high fuel cost
- carbon tax on new vehicles
- willingness by society to pay for greenhouse
gas reductions
- high percentage of electricity provided by
hydropower
- dense urban areas
- policies to develop high value-added
industries
- well educated and technically informed
workforce.
Batteries are only one aspect of the Life
Cycle Assessment of a vehicle. All vehicles need wheels & tires and a basic
frame. EVs unlike hybrids don't need an internal combustion engine or a fuel
tank and delivery system, For this article, the LCA reviews raw material
extraction and manufacturing which leads to the vehicle component production and
final assembly. Other parts of the LCA include the fuel/electricity supply
chains as well as additional or avoided infrastructure e.g. EVs need additional
generation and transmission capacity. The use phase includes driving and
charging patterns as well as maintenance and part replacement. At the
end-of-life of the vehicle, the LCA considers disassembly/treatment, waste
disposal, and material recovery/reuse.
Three types of batteries used for plug-in
hybrids and full battery electric vehicles EVs were analyzed: nickel metal
hydride (NiMH), nickel cobalt manganese lithium-ion (NCM), and iron phosphate
lithium-ion (LFP) batteries.
The NiMH batteries had the highest
environmental impact, with NCM and then LFP lower.
Some of the reasons for differing
environmental impacts were:
- energy storage capability. Each kilogram of
Li-ion battery can store 2 to 3 times as much energy over its lifetime
compared to NiMH.
- use of raw materials. The NiMH contains more
nickel and rare earth metals which lead to higher environmental impacts for
raw materials.
- life expectancy. LCM has environmental
benefits over NCM because it has a longer life (and less environmentally
intensive materials.)
- assumption for functional unit. This study
used the functional unit of 50 MJ accumulated by the battery and then
delivered to the powertrain.
- manufacturing. The production phase a is a
large contributor to the ghg emissions from batteries. The electrode paste
manufacture is also a contributor to ozone depletion as well as GHG
emissions.
- battery efficiency is key to lifetime impacts
due to waste of electricity.
- different electricity sources change the
environmental impacts e.g. manufacture in China compared to in Europe
increased the GHG and the air pollutants such as particulates by more than 10%
each.
In turn, the batteries affected the
environmental impacts of the vehicles. Some of the conclusions
were:
- in the use phase, fuel and electricity use
and electricity source are most significant for environmental impacts
- All EV options using average European
electricity had lower GHG emissions than even good gasoline efficiency 4L/100
km or 60 mpg.
- diesel internal combustion engine vehicles
under high diesel efficiency had somewhat lower GHG emissions than EVs with
Li-FEPO4 and NiMH batteries and about the same as Li-NCM batteries.
- even under less than ideal situations, 1
MJ/km, EVs emitted lower GHG than base case for gasoline internal combustion
engines and about the same as base diesel.
- Electricity sources such as lignite, hard
coal or oil increased the GHG emissions EVs to near the base case for internal
combustion engine vehicles. Even if the EVs were powered by electricity from
oil, they still has lower GHG emissions than the base case for diesel internal
combustion engines.
GL always used to wonder at the terminology
ZEVs Zero Emission Vehicles, a term used especially in California where
regulators were promoting ZEVs to deal with urban air pollution. Of course, the
pollution was never zero as this article indicates: just because the vehicle
itself doesn't emit pollutants directly from the tailpipe, there are emissions
elsewhere e.g. during mining, manufacture, recycling, waste disposal and so
on.
Paid subscribers see link to
original documents and references
here.
****************************************************
BOOK REVIEW:
HOW BAD ARE BANANAS?
THE CARBON
FOOTPRINT OF EVERYTHING
This is a fairly short book - 195 pages but
few words on a page - that is intended as a kind of primer to the carbon
footprints of many common products and services. The objective is great but the
execution is somewhat unsatisfying, partly because so much of the measurement of
carbon footprint is specific to the producing location and production system and
partly because carbon footprint is much more complex than this book suggests. On
the positive side, the book does explain that carbon footprint is specific to
the producing location and production system and is quite complicated. However,
Gallon Letter worries that this book runs the risk of leaving the everyday
consumer even more confused about carbon footprints than they were before they
read it.
To illustrate with examples, suppose you are
trying to decide whether bread or potatoes are a more climate-friendly choice as
an accompaniment to your meal This book tells you that a kilogram of potatoes
can have a carbon footprint ranging from 620 grams CO2e to 1170 grams CO2e
(carbon dioxide equivalent is the generally recognized measure of greenhouse gas
emissions), depending on whether you cook the potatoes gently with the lid on or
vigorously with the lid off. There is no variation given for alternate growing
locations or production systems, e.g potatoes grown locally with more manual
labour and little use of fossil-based chemicals. Then we turn to the bread
section where we are told that an 800g loaf has a carbon footprint of 1000g
CO2e. So an 800g loaf of bread is somewhere between the best and the worst of a
kilogram of potatoes. The book tells us nothing about the range of possibilities
for a loaf of bread e.g. whether the economies of scale of big bakeries offset
the carbon emissions of commerical packaging, transport, and sales compared to
that bread machine baking one bread at a time at home. How Bad Are Bananas?
gives you quite a lot of information but unfortunately does not help you make
quick decisions on lowering your carbon footprint by choosing more climate
friendly products. It may be fun but life often ends up rather
complicated.
Some of the data is so poor that it is hardly
worth printing. For example, the book claims that an apple picked from the
garden has zero carbon footprint but 'average' apples are 550g CO2e per kilo; A
banana grown in your own garden has zero CO2e but bananas from the other side of
the world are 480 g CO2e per kilo, and an orange grown in your own garden has
zero CO2e but oranges shipped 2000 miles by boat and 500 miles by truck (yes,
this book mixes imperial and metric units in exactly the same way as Canadian
supermarkets) have a carbon footprint of 500 g CO2e per kilo. So which should
you prefer if you are an ardent climate environmentalist? The answer is as
elusive as your home grown bananas and oranges in any Canadian
garden!
As the above example from the book may have
suggested, this is a British book that appears to have been adapted for the
North American market. The adaptation, however, sometimes leaves quite a bit to
be desired. For example, a heart bypass operation is said to have a carbon
footprint of 1.1 tons CO2e because it costs the UK National Health Service
£6,324 (about $10,000 CDN). First, using medical fees as an indicator of carbon
footprint suggests that the UK National Health Service somehow sets its fees in
a way that recognizes carbon footprint, an absurd scenario, and second it does
nothing to help us understand the carbon footprint of a coronary artery bypass
in Ontario where the cost is likely over $20,000 CDN.
Despite our concern that carbon footprinting
and making better purchase decisions is not nearly as quick and easy as the
title or approach of this book suggests, we do believe that this book could be
quite helpful to those who wish to gain some general knowledge of how carbon
footprints are measured and how imprecise they can be when you try to apply them
generically rather than specifically. For example, one section looks at a trip
for one person from New York City to Niagara Falls and back. The book claims
that a seat on a bus would be 66kg CO2e, train would be 120kg, a small car would
be 330 kg, a plane would be 500kg, and a large car would be 1100kg. The author
claims that as soon as there are more people on the trip the car becomes much
more carbon efficient on a per person basis. However, he fails to point out that
this argument does not work if the train, bus or even the plane is running
anyway with empty seats!
****************************************************
TIME TO EAT
THE DOG: THE REAL GUIDE TO SUSTAINABLE LIVING:
While the title of a 2009 book Time to Eat the
Dog? may be catchy, the contents are rather dense with lots of number charts and
references. The reader also has to make some adjustments in thinking because the
authors often use data from Australia/New Zealand which may not be as applicable
in other countries. It is not the type of book most people would read from cover
to cover but by its use of a type of lifecycle description of daily activities
converting energy use to an area of land to measure a footprint, the authors
provide insight into the environmental impacts of consumption. One of the
quibbles GL has with many recent green consumer books is that there is an
inherent promotion of buying products, granted products with green features but
still purchasing products is the focus. It is nice to read a book which asks the
reader to consider avoiding products in the first place and explaining why in
some detail. Behaviour is seen as important or in some cases even more important
than the choice of products.
When considering products, readers are
encouraged to think about key aspects of the product:
- smaller amounts of space e.g. smaller houses
need less furniture and less heat/cooling for the same house design
- longevity e.g. clothes have become expendable
commodities - better would be to not worry about the type of fibre but to buy
quality so garments have a long and useful lives.
- taking account of impacts beyond the single
product. The authors explore a case of turning down the heat in a school in
Whistler, BC which has an Ice Age Day in which the heating is turned down by 3
deg and the 25 children attending are supposed to wear an extra sweater and a
hat. The authors conclude that if each child has to get a new sweater for that
day it would be better to turn up the heat. But if the Ice Age were to
continue for the whole winter season and each child wears the same sweater for
four years, there is an advantage. The occupancy of the room affects the
potential benefit as the children provide body heat. If the sweaters are made
from recycled fleece, emissions would be lower.
The authors try to extend the household's use
to the broader implications including industry and municipal operations. One
example on food waste disposal follows. Greener buildings reduce operating
energy but new buildings contain high embedded energy if the building materials
are newly made. Refurbishing older homes, with insulation for example, may only
reduce the operating energy by 50% but saves emissions due to reuse of the old
materials. If new homes begin to have zero operating energy or even to generate
energy, there may come a time when demolishing existing homes may be better. A
"green" house which requires regular maintenance in the form of painting and
replacing internal finishes may over 50 years lose some of its
environmental shine when compared to a regular home
requiring little or no such maintenance over five decades.
Food Waste
Disposal
Meat and other animal-byproducts can smell and
attract animals such as rats. Putting all food waste into a home compost bin
isn't recommended for that reason but a worm bin for composting can deal with
meat, fish and dairy food waste as long as the waste is well-covered. Yard waste
is best dealt with in normal aerobic compost bins. The authors say that the best
option is recycling the waste as close to the source as possible to avoid
contamination. For households not able to compost at home, three other options
are:
- disposal to landfill
- special collection for composting
centrally
- disposal through an in-sink waste disposal
unit.
A UK study shows landfilling food waste is 743
kg CO2 equivalent/tonne while special collection for composting is -14 kg CO2
eq/tonne. A study funded by manufacturers of in-sink waste disposal where the
sewage plant makes biogas and uses sludge for fertilizer indicated a -168 kg CO2
eq/tonne implying that garburators are good for organic waste disposal, However,
few sewage plants make biogas and use sludge for fertilizer.
Other impacts of waste collection and disposal
to the landfill include activities such as extraction and material to make the
landfill site and access to it like a road to the landfill site, manufacturing
replacement rubber tires for the hauling trucks, emission by the trucks, and the
methane emissions from the landfill. Similar discussion for the other two
methods result in figures for embodied energy (e.g. energy used to make
materials, equipment and infrastructure) as well as operational energy. Energy
needs of various methods for disposing of food waste over 10 years
are:
- waste to landfill with anaerobic
decomposition: 60,307 MJ (megajoules)
- centralized collection for composting: 18,046
MJ
- in-sink waste unit, total system: 50,719
MJ
- plastic compost bin and plastic worm farm:
689 MJ
- wooden compost bin and plywood worm farm 532
MJ (this would be near zero if all the wood were recycled wood)
The conclusion is that whether the
landfill/composting facilities/trucks are greener may be less important than the
need to "reduce our reliance on large infrastructure and highly centralized
systems...Where things can be done at home, they probably should
be."
Footprint of
Sustainable Living
The authors provide thought-provoking comments
and conclude that only some of the choices relate to the product/technology
itself. Greener products and technologies can help, but most important is
reducing levels of consumption. The book claims that the ecological footprint of
sustainable living is:
Individually
- eat organic food and eliminate food and drink
waste
- save energy at home and turn down heat
- travel less and walk, cycle, use public
transit
- buy less stuff, buy second-hand and make
things last
- build smaller houses, share more housing,
renovate less
- take more holidays at home
Collectively
- infrastructure: make it last longer, build
less
- government: manage with less
- services: make do with fewer
GL suspects that if you can read this book all
the way through, you already know a lot about ecological footprinting and
lifecycle analysis. While research-level lifecycle analysis requires more care
about setting boundaries and ensuring a consistent measuring of key
environmental impacts, this guide is closer to back-of-the-envelope estimate but
provides the data for the great job the authors do of challenging common
perceptions.. We think this book is a treasured find to which we will be
returning to read parts again for some years. The authors have done a good job
in their goal '"to tease out what it means, in terms of sustainability to do the
everyday things that we all do: living in a home, preparing meals, buying food
and clothing, commuting to work, taking part in sports, and so on. It then
presents a range of alternatives and relative impacts so that we can see if
there are any easy answers in terms of the choices we might make, or only
difficult one. Only with some knowledge is it possible to start assembling a
picture of what a future sustainable world might be like for each country and
for each different part of the world." We'll leave you to read the book to find
out the answer to the question held in the title.
Robert and Brenda Vale are research fellows at
the School of Architecture at Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand.
They are the authors of The Autonomous House, Green Architecture and The New
Autonomous House, also published by Thames & Hudson. In 1994 they won the
United Nations Global 500 Award for Environmental Achievement.
****************************************************
IDB: ANNUAL
MEETING IN CALGARY
Canada hosted the annual meeting of the
Inter-American Development Bank in Calgary in March 2011. The IDB says of its
role "We support efforts by Latin America and Caribbean countries to reduce
poverty and inequality. We aim to bring about development in a sustainable
climate-friendly way."
The bank provides loans as well as grants,
technical assistance and research. Canada has been one of the 22 non-borrowing
member countries of the IDB since 1972, providing 4% of its ordinary capital as
well as making temporary and extraordinary contributions such as during the
recession and the Haiti crisis. Canada also contribute to the IDB's Multilateral
Investment Fund which promotes microfinancing in Latin America and the
Caribbean. Twenty-six of the 48 member countries are borrowing members with a
majority ownership of the IDB.
The private sector was involved in the
meeting. Prior to the IDB meeting, there was a private sector event organized by
various partners including The Canadian Department of Foreign Affairs and
International Trade and the Export Development Canada. As well as a seminar on
how to do business with the Bank, individual matchmaking sessions with potential
business partners and procuring officers were arranged. One of the attendees,
Jim Ireland from Regina, commented that it was great to have such an important
meeting "held in our backyard" (if a distance of nearly 800 km can be considered
close-by). The Bank also held a number of seminars while the Annual Meeting
itself is open by invitation only.
SUSTAINABLE
EMERGING CITIES
IDB President Luis Alberto Moreno announced a
plan to partner with intermediate cities in Latin America and the Caribbean
wishing to develop sustainably. Support is offered to mid-sized fast-growing
cities with a population of 100,000 to two million people seeking sustainable
solutions in areas including transport, energy, waste, climate change and fiscal
management. About 140 cities in Latin America and the Caribbean are growing at
two to three times faster than the megacities in the region, a rate of growth
which means they will double in population in 20 years. More than three
quarters of people in this region live in cities. “We all know what happened in
Latin America when we combined rapid growth with poor planning, lack of
financing for infrastructure, and little regard for environmental and climate
issues,” Moreno said. “No one wants today’s emerging cities to become tomorrow’s
crowded and unhealthy megacities . . . Making smarter use of local resources can
help us tackle global problems like climate change, providing lessons that can
be applied in emerging cities in other parts of the world.” Initially the IDB
will partner with a small number of emerging cities to test instruments and
tools before expanding the program. Consulting services and technical support
will also be offered for analysis, problem solving, priority setting and design
of projects. The Bank has already spent billions in city-related projects such
as Bus Rapid Transit, energy efficiency, water supply, poor neighbourhood
restoration, and climate change adaptation.
GL notes that our parent company was involved
with Industry Canada's Sustainable Cities Initiative which set similar goals but
which came to an end without renewal in 2006.
Paid subscribers see link to
original documents and references
here.
***************************************************
WOULDN'T YOU
KNOW IT!
Bill HB2328 in the Legislature of the State of
Oregon will, if passed, requires owners of electric cars and plug-in hybrids to
pay a "road usage charge" of 0.85 cents per mile effective July 1, 2015 and 1.56
cents per mile effective July 1, 2018. Plug-in hybrids would get a rebate of
state taxes paid on the gasoline they use.
According to a blogger who seems to have done
his homework, this tax rate is equivalent to that which a big gas guzzling car
pays to the State of Oregon through gasoline taxes. The blogger's analysis finds
that the tax rate is equivalent to a vehicle which gets 21 miles per gallon
(roughly 11 litres per 100km - approximately the highway mileage of a GMC Yukon
with a 5.3 litre 8 cylinder motor).
Gallon Letter wonders how long before Canadian
governments decide to impose a "road usage charge" for electric and plug-in
hybrid vehicles that do not pay gas taxes because they don't use gasoline (or
use less gasoline in the case of plug-in hybrids). We hope this article has not
given them any ideas!
Paid subscribers see link to original documents and
references here.
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