There have been a number of good stories and blog postings about the extent to which the credit crunch and its economic downside will hurt renewable energy projects and act as a drag on cleantech financing. Here’s my own take on how things are playing out in Ontario. (more…)

Happy Thanksgiving, Canada! The world can be a crazy place, but we do — in the big picture — have much to be thankful for. Enjoy the time with family and friends, and a week of turkey dinner leftovers.

Today I’ll just post a link to my Clean Break column, which argues that green-minded Canadians heading to the polls tomorrow would be best to vote for the federal Liberals if they hope to see any action on climate change and development of a cleaner, more energy-efficient economy. Now is the time to begin taxing pollution and using that money to tackle poverty, stimulate the economy, and ultimately help Canadian households and businesses operate more efficiently, while at the same time accelerating green innovation that could serve us at home and others abroad.

From the perspective of a green-technology advocate, one could just as easily support the Green Party and, to a lesser extent, NDP on this issue, but the Liberals are the most likely to defeat the federal Conservatives, which have proven in their two years of power that they don’t take green job creation or climate change seriously. This is an important federal election, coming at a time when even the U.S. is likely to vote in a new president — i.e. Obama — who has declared energy and green-economy building as his top priority.

Working in the business section of Canada’s largest daily newspaper, I have to say it’s been tough watching the markets. If you think the U.S. has been getting battered, Canada’s commodity-heavy exchanges are getting crushed. So on yet another day that oil sands and potash producers got their teeth knocked out, it was great to see Ballard Power standing out from the crowd with a 4 per cent gain yesterday. The Vancouver-based fuel cell developer, no stranger to tough times, announced it had landed a contract that will see 10,000 5-kilowatt fuel cell units sold to India’s ACME Group and IdaTech, which will form a joint venture aimed at deploying the fuel cells for back-up power in the telecom industry. (more…)

Lots of news to report from the Great White North, where we’ve got a great stable of cleantech companies — even if they are generally underappreciated and underfunded. Speaking of underfunded, I’d just like to highlight that Canadian cleantech companies raised just $49 million (U.S.) in the third quarter. For perspective, U.S. companies raised $1.75 billion. If we apply the standard 10x calculation to figure out where Canada should be, we would have raised $175 million. We’re not even close. That said, California took a lion’s share of U.S. funding — $1.1 billion. That means the rest of the U.S. raised $650 million, putting Canada’s share in the ballpark. Clearly, California is skewing the results and eating everyone else’s lunch. But I digress.

Here’s what’s going on in Canada: (more…)

My Clean Break column today talks about the idea of creating a green bond as a safe investment vehicle for Canadians that at the same time could raise money for large-scale renewable energy projects, enabling infrastructure and building-efficiency projects. The money would be distributed in the form of low-interest debt financing. Given the current credit crunch, now is perhaps the best time to launch a green bond as renewable energy developers face higher financing hurdles for their capital-intensive projects. At the same time, Canadians whose stock portfolios have been ravaged by the collapse of Wall Street — and the precipitous decline of the commodity-heavy Toronto Stock Exchange — could take advantage of green bonds as a safe haven with modest turns, at the same time knowing that their money is going toward building “green” infrastructure that both tackles climate change and creates jobs in a struggling economy. (more…)