My Clean Break column this week offers an update on Ottawa-based Magenn Power, which is trying to create a new category for wind-power generation. The company’s Magenn Air Rotor System, or MARS, is basically a blimp tethered to the ground that spins on a horizontal axis as the wind blows. Because it can be deployed anywhere and the fact it can tap higher altitude winds that are stronger and more consistent makes it ideal for a number of applications where conventional turbines might not make sense. That’s assuming, of course, that it works. And that’s where the story continues. Magenn hoped to test out the system in an Ontario provincial park, and when that idea didn’t fly, it turned its attention to a fish hatchery near Thunder Bay. But it couldn’t get funding to go ahead. At the same time, the company is trying to securing a second round of financing that could bring it closer to commercialization. It would be a shame if Magenn couldn’t at least demonstrate the technology so we could see if the system can live up to its potential.

FYI: See last year’s article on Magenn that appeared in Greentech Media.

Joe Romm’s Climate Progress has a lengthy post on the benefits of creating a public green bank that could work with the private sector to ease the transition toward a clean energy economy. The post is actually reproduced from the Center for American Progress, which praises proposed amendments to the U.S. Waxman-Markey bill that would create a clean energy bank within the Department of Energy. According to the amendments, the Clean Energy Deployment Administration, or CEDA, would direct loans, letters of credit, loan guarantees, insurance products and other financing options to support clean energy production, transmission, storage and other projects that could reduce greenhouse gas emissions or save energy. The administration would take a “portfolio investment approach” and “ensure no particular technology receives more than 30 per cent of the total funding available.” And all of this would be on top of existing loan guarantees and incentives offered by the feds.

Sounds like something Ontario could use, because even though our new Green Energy and Green Economy Act is an ambitious and progressive piece of legislation, and even though a newly proposed feed-in tariff program offers a huge incentive for developers, I’m still not convinced there won’t be a capital constraint that will ultimately slow down development. This is particularly true if, as the Ontario government has said, it wants to encourage community co-op and First Nations projects. I would even argue the federal government should consider creating such an institution, but that is not likely to happen under our current Conservative government, so no point in asking. (more…)

Perhaps Ontario doesn’t have to worry as much because it sits along Lake Ontario and Lake Erie, but I’m surprised that in other jurisdictions there hasn’t been more discussion related to the water requirements of thermoelectric power plants.

Water scarcity, after all, is considered one of the biggest negative outcomes of climate change, but not many people realize just how much water is required for a nuclear or coal (fossil fuel) power plant. The World Resources Institute estimates that nearly two out of every three gallons of fresh water drawn from the U.S. Southeast Southwest is used to cool power plants. One can draw similar conclusions for other regions. Nuclear plants, of course, are the biggest water hogs. You’ll recall that during the heat waves in Europe a few years back France had to ratched down nuclear output because it didn’t have enough water for cooling. It makes one wonder whether it makes sense to build hundreds of new nuclear plants, each with a life of more than 50 years, if a couple of decades down the road we find them crippled by water shortages.

Think about it: If a massive coal plant or nuclear plant had to pay for the amount of water it consumes, the same way individual homeowners must pay, the power would be prohibitively expense. So emissions aren’t the only thing not currently priced into power generation. Water use is a huge externality, and it’s just one more reason to favour renewables and distributed generation, particularly as part of any climate-change adaptation strategy.

Food for thought.