U.S. Congress has approved a one-year extension of a 30 per cent solar tax credit that has been spurring the development of U.S. solar projects. It’s hoped that a multi-year extension will follow. This is good news for Canadian companies selling into hot U.S. solar markets such as California.

This Associated Press story takes a closer look at consumers that purchase carbon offsets to minimize their eco-footprint on the planet. In principle, this is a great idea, though one can immediately see an industry emerging based on the exploitation of guilt. The problem with many of these programs is that you pay into them and haven’t a clue whether the money is going into legitimate offset projects. They also don’t discourage wasteful behaviour — they merely allow people to continue about their daily lives feeling less guilty about how and what they consume. In this sense, these should be called guilt-offset credits.

As far as I can see it, the only way you can build trust into these programs is to have them administered by government or by a handful of government-approved, regulated and routinely audited companies. But this has its own problems.

I’m curious to know all of your thoughts about it. The David Suzuki Foundation, for example, is a big supporter of offset programs. Like I said, it’s an idea that’s easy to like. The problem is establishing it in practice in a way where consumers aren’t feeling or being ripped off.

This Associated Press story takes a closer look at consumers that purchase carbon offsets to minimize their eco-footprint on the planet. In principle, this is a great idea, though one can immediately see an industry emerging based on the exploitation of guilt. The problem with many of these programs is that you pay into them and haven’t a clue whether the money is going into legitimate offset projects. They also don’t discourage wasteful behaviour — they merely allow people to continue about their daily lives feeling less guilty about how and what they consume. In this sense, these should be called guilt-offset credits.

As far as I can see it, the only way you can build trust into these programs is to have them administered by government or by a handful of government-approved, regulated and routinely audited companies. But this has its own problems.

I’m curious to know all of your thoughts about it. The David Suzuki Foundation, for example, is a big supporter of offset programs. Like I said, it’s an idea that’s easy to like. The problem is establishing it in practice in a way where consumers aren’t feeling or being ripped off.

Some business leaders in Vancouver have proposed that the city council there adopt a carbon-neutral taxi program, beginning with a pilot project that would see 10 per cent of Vancouver’s taxi fleet, or about 50 vehicles, switched to hybrids. They argue that the added cost of the hybrids would be more than offset through fuel savings and potentially revenue from wrap advertising on the cars.

I’m not so fond of the wrap advertising suggestion, but clearly there’s no reason why major cities like Vancouver, Montreal and Toronto can’t push for a greater percentage of hybrids in the mix, and I’m surprised cab companies/drivers themselves haven’t recognized the opportunities.

Toronto Mayor David Miller, in his inaugural address after being re-elected as mayor earlier this month, announced that he plans to develop a climate change plan for Toronto in an environment where our national government has failed to lead. Tackling the city’s taxi fleet would be a good place to start.

A few other suggestions for Miller:

1) Free downtown parking on metered city streets for anyone who owns a hybrid or high fuel-efficient vehicle (i.e. Smart Car). The citizen would have to apply for this privilege and get a special pass.

2) Price street parking permits based on the carbon profile of a vehicle.

3) Begin converting the city’s car fleets to plug-in hybrid vehicles. (I understand a pilot project for this is underway — more on that later).

4) Work with the Ontario Ministry of Transportation to allow low-speed electric vehicles (such as Feel Good Car’s ZENN vehicle) on city roads under 60 km/h, but only during off-peak times (i.e. not during rush hour).

Momentum continues to gather for all-electric and partially electric vehicles. Nissan, following similar commitments from General Motors and Toyota, said today it plans to accelerate development of plug-in hybrid technology and launch an all-electric vehicle “early in the next decade.” To support such developments, Nissan is creating a company that will “develop, produce and market advanced lithium-ion batteries, a key technological component for all electric powertrains.”

As part of its goal to reduce the CO2 emissions of its vehicles, the company also said it will expand the availability of flex-fuel models over the next three years and, within the same timeframe, come out with a gas-fuelled car that can run 100 kilometres on three litres of fuel. Not bad.

“The Nissan Green Program 2010 is specifically focused on reducing CO2 emissions both from our products as well as from day-to-day corporate activities,” the company said in a statement, sounding very similar to Ford’s announcement earlier this year. “In order to make reducing CO2 part of the major decision making processes of the company, CO2 has been added to internal management performance indicators.”

The company points out that previously, the main indicators were quality, cost and time.

BTW: The U.S. Department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory has come out with a report concluding that off-peak electricity production in the United States could power 84 per cent of U.S. cars if they were plug-in hybrids. Hat tip to The Energy Blog for pointing this out.