I had the opportunity Friday to interview Tulsi Tanti, chairman and founder of Suzlon Energy — Asia’s largest wind-turbine manufacturer and the fifth-largest manufacturer in the world. The story I wrote for the Toronto Star focuses largely on Suzlon’s interest in Ontario as a potential market for setting up manufacturing. But there was more to the interview that I’d like to share below in a Q&A format. (more…)

Another reminder that this Friday marks the start of the three-day Green Living Show in Toronto. Friday morning begins with some opening comments from Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty and Toronto mayor David Miller. I’ll then be moderating a panel that will kick off at around 10 a.m. and will explore what businesses can do to benefit from cleantech and green energy. About 30 or so CEOs from Canada’s cleantech sector will be in the audience as well.

Panelists will include:

1) Nick Parker, co-founder and executive chairman and overall excellent guy of the Cleantech Group.

2) Dr. Hermann Scheer, author, German legislator and president of EUROSOLAR.

3) David O’Brien, president and CEO of Toronto Hydro Corp.

4) Lana Paton from PriceWaterhouseCoopers will also be on the panel to talk about the tax benefits/implications for businesses that purchase/deploy green technologies.

Ontario Energy and Infrastructure Minister George Smitherman has also recently been added, as has Mike Pedersen, group head of corporate operations at TD Bank Financial Group, and Pat Horgan, vice-president of manufacturing, development and operations at IBM Canada.

The morning session will be followed by a keynote speech from Joel Makower, executive editor of GreenBiz.com, co-founder of Clean Edge Inc., author of blog Two Steps Forward, and author of the new business book Strategies for the Green Economy.

The decision today by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to call CO2 and several other greenhouse gases a “threat to public health and welfare” sets the stage for more aggressive climate-change regulations to come out of the United States. Based on the EPA position, it’s now legally recognized that the CO2 that comes out of your car’s tailpipe, out of the oil sands, out of power plants, etc… is a contributor to global warming and bad for humanity.

How quickly things change under a new U.S. Administration. Cap-and-trade, renewable portfolio standards, national low-carbon standards — they’re all on their way. Something worth celebrating as Earth Day approaches…

Axion Power International is an advanced lead-acid battery company that started in Toronto but found it too expensive. As a result, it high-tailed it to Pennsylvania where the incentives were better and the cost of operation cheap. (More on that later)

These days, Axion is doing just fine. The company announced today that it has signed a memorandum of understanding with Georgia-based Exide Technologies, which will become Axion’s principle OEM customer as part of a multi-year global partnership. Exide is a major battery manufacturer and recycler, and Axion has done a great job evolving the performance of lead-acid batteries. In fact, what it has done is hybridized lead-acid chemistry — the negative electrodes normally found in lead-acid batteries have been replaced with nanoporous carbon electrodes found in many advanced supercapacitors.

With this enhancement, Axion claims its battery system can survive at least three times longer than conventional lead-acid batteries designed for deep discharge cycling. It also claims higher power delivery, faster recharge time, less weight and lower maintenance. (more…)

It’s called the PUMA, and it’s expected in 2012 as part of a partnership between GM and Segway. Now, I’m sure every blog and newspaper on the planet has written about this, but I just wanted an excuse to post the picture — this thing is cool. It will have a range of up to 60 kilometres and a speed of between 50 and 60 kilometres an hour, so it’s basically a hybrid between an electric scooter, a Segway Human Transporter, and a low-speed vehicle like the kind ZENN offers. Low-speed vehicles have been a niche market, but GM and Segway could bring brand power at a time when municipalities and their citizens are looking for ways to ease congestion and urban pollution. This is ideal for the household that’s looking to ditch the second gas guzzler in exchange for a fuel-efficient urban two-seater.

Hopefully by 2012 Ontario will finally agree to let LSVs on city streets. The PUMA, it should be pointed out, doesn’t appear designed to tolerate Canadian winters. Perhaps an enclosed version is in the works.