I’ve always said that if we are to pursue a biofuels strategy, it should first and foremost focus on developing renewable fuels for airplanes. Using batteries or fuel cells to power a large passenger jet is a non-starter, given the added weight to the aircraft. We can electrify most ground transportation, but we can’t electrify airplanes, so biofuels is what we’re left with if we want to reduce the carbon footprint of the airline industry.

There’s no question that biofuels are controversial, particularly when we talk of growing corn and other food crops as a feedstock for producing ethanol and other green fuels. There’s much potential in second- and third-generation biofuels, using wood, agricultural, and municipal wastes and algae, but there’s considerable doubt that even these non-food feedstocks could allow us to make a meaningful dent in our fossil-fuel consumption. This is why targeting the airline industry makes sense. It only represents about 12 per cent of global petroleum consumption, so maybe we can serve this market with the non-food feedstocks we have.

Momentum in this area continues. Last week British Airways announced a partnership with U.S.-based Solena Group, which plans to build the first commercial plant in Europe dedicated to producing jet fuel from municipal solid waste — everything from food waste to grass cuttings. The waste will be turned into syngas using a plasma-arc process, and that gas will form the basic chemical building blocks for the green jet fuel.

Joshua Kagan over at Greentech Media has a good update on this trend.

My Clean Break column today is a shot back at those skeptics in the media who are hopping on the kill-the-IPCC bandwagon. I’ve pasted below the fuller version of the column, which was cut to get into the paper:

Spin is in, but climate change still there
Hardcore climate skeptics smell blood and so do some in the mainstream media, adding momentum to a boisterous campaign to discredit and confuse

Tyler Hamilton
Energy Reporter

The following e-mail arrived last week from an instructor at Seneca College. He was gleeful, commenting on all the negative publicity recently directed at the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

“How will the Star explain to her devoted believer’s (sic) why Al Gore and David Suzuki are being led away in handcuffs?” he wrote. “ClimateGate, ThermometerGate, GlacierGate, AmazonGate… Button up Mr. Clean – it’s real (sic) cold out there this winter.”

These taunting, often hateful e-mails arrive all the time from folks who don’t believe climate change (human caused or otherwise) is happening, and who believe their case is strengthened every time some libertarian pundit adds to their arsenal of doubt.

They mock the green economy and green energy. On climate action, they worship the status quo. Lately, they smell blood. And like underfed sharks at an annual seal gathering, they’re whipping themselves into a frenzy in hopes of turning a scratch into a fatal gorging.

Sarah Palin is now writing off all climate science as “a bunch of snake oil.” Fox News host Glenn Beck said last week that IPCC scientists have so dishonoured themselves they should perform hara-kiri – that is, commit mass suicide by plunging a sword into their bellies.

Here in Canada, the Financial Post’s resident libertarian Terence Corcoran wrote a column in late January with a headline that shouted “Climate agency going up in flames,” while the Globe and Mail’s Margaret Wente wrote early in February that “the science scandals just keep on coming” and that the entire climate-change movement has been discredited. Columnist Rex Murphy, who has fittingly moved on to the National Post is pretty much saying the same thing, only with bigger words.

Wishful thinking doesn’t make it so.

Interestingly, both Corcoran and Wente supported their arguments by mentioning how climate scientist Andrew Weaver from the University of Victoria is, in the words of Wente, among the many climate scientists who “sense a sinking ship” and are “bailing out.” Corcoran wrote that Weaver is “heading for the exits” and this is “firm evidence that the IPCC is in trouble.”

Here’s what Weaver had to say last Wednesday when asked by the Star about the recent coverage. “It would be nice if they actually called me,” he said, referring to Wente, Corcoran and some journalists in England. (more…)

Mississauga-based Electrovaya Inc., maker of lithium-ion Superpolymer batteries, is supplying batteries for a utility-scale energy storage project being spearheaded by CEATI International Inc. of Montreal, an advanced technology centre for utilities. The $7.5 million project will be a large-scale initiative involving multiple utilities and sites. The batteries will be tested as storage for renewable energy generation and as a way to ease distribution and transmission bottlenecks in high-density urban areas. CEATI will also investigate the repurposing of electric-vehicle batteries for smart-grid applications, given that a battery that outlives its usefulness in a vehicle can still be used for many years as general energy storage for the grid.

On the acquisition front, two more promising Ontario cleantech ventures have been plucked up by U.S. firms. On Tuesday Toronto-based biogas maker Stormfisher Biogas announced it had been acquired by Virginia-based Greenhouse Gas Services. Despite having one of the most boring and uninspiring names, Greenhouse Gas Services is a venture of GE Energy Financial Services and AES Corp., so it has some serious backing. The company invests in and develops projects that reduce greenhouse-gas emissions, and it then sells the carbon credits. So here’s my question: If some of the biggest Stormfisher projects are expected to be in Ontario, and since the Ontario Power Authority doesn’t appear to be letting biogas projects keep carbon credits, then what’s in it for Greenhouse Gas Services? I can only speculate that the power authority has quietly decided to let developers keep credits from methane destruction. Something I’ll have to follow up on.

And just today, Sunnyvale, Calif.-based Calisolar announced it had acquired Vaughan, Ontario-based 6N Silicon, a maker of solar-grade silicon that will operate as a wholly owned subsidiary. “In addition, $22.5 million in funding was raised from existing Calisolar and 6N investors,” the companies said in a statement. “The new funds will be used to increase capacity at the Sunnyvale, California cell manufacturing facility and expand silicon purification operations in Vaughan, Ontario.” It’s sad to see 6N fall under foreign ownership so early in its life, but the good news is that Calisolar is likely to set up some module assembly in Ontario to take advantage of the feed-in-tariff program here. Given that its solar cells will contain 6N’s silicon, the company will be well positioned to meet Ontario’s local content requirements and even supply other cell/module makers.

Finally, I have a follow to my story about Vestas and the possibility it will lay roots in Ontario. I spoke Wednesday to the company’s head of global offshore markets, who spoke highly of the Trillium projects and called the opportunity to develop offshore wind in the Great Lakes “fantastic.” He wouldn’t say if Vestas plans to establish manufacturing in Ontario — which isn’t surprising — but given the potential in the Great Lakes, the liklihood of Trillium’s projects moving forward first, and the positive policy and regulatory environment in Ontario (including the feed-in-tariff program, which offers 19 cents per kilowatt-hour for offshore wind power), all the stars are aligned and it’s only a matter of time before Vestas makes its move.

I got a chance last week to drive a Tesla Roadster around for the day. A wonderful experience, to say the least. It also gave me some perspective that you might only get while zipping around in an all-electric car. As my Clean Break column this week explains, I got a bit smug — started to judge other cars and look at them as part of a collective of individual polluters — smokers, you might say. Sure, some people drive less or drive hybrids or drive super efficient little cars, but they’re still smokers. Smoking light cigarettes or just half a pack a day instead of a pack doesn’t make you a non-smoker. But electric car owners — they’re non-smokers in a room from of a smokers, and I gotta tell you, it’s quite disgusting being in that room.

Read column here.

I have a story in today’s Toronto Star about Vestas and why the world’s largest maker of wind turbines is seriously looking at setting up shop in Ontario. Vestas already has a large manufacturing footprint in Colorado, but its interest in southern Ontario has more to do with the potential North American market for offshore wind. So why Ontario? Because offshore wind in the Great Lakes provides a huge opportunity, and Ontario happens to have the most freshwater offshore real estate, as well as a developer, Trillium Power, that is well ahead of the pack with respect to project development. Also, Ontario is the only jurisdiction in North America to have a feed-in-tariff for offshore wind — the province offers 19 cents per kilowatt-hour of offshore wind power. This makes it easier for Trillium, which has four projects totalling 3,700 megawatts in the pipeline, to pioneer offshore development in the Great Lakes.

Some signs that Vestas wants to come to Ontario? Last fall Vestas Offshore opened an office in Toronto that is serving as its North American headquarters for offshore wind sales. Last week company officials flew in to tour a number of potential sites in Hamilton, Niagara, Kingston and Belleville, among others, as possible sites for manufacturing facilities. The officials, according to sources, were also here to size up the local supply chain and supporting infrastructure. And this morning, Trillium announced that it has chosen Vestas as supplier of up to 740 offshore wind turbines for its four projects.

Laying roots in southern Ontario makes sense for Vestas, which is looking at long term growth. The feed-in-tariff program in Ontario provides certainty that demand will be there for both onshore and offshore projects, plus Ontario can serve as a great launchpad into the U.S. market, where states such as New York, Ohio, Michigan and Wisconsin also plan to develop in the Great Lakes. Of course, this is potential business on top of planned offshore projects on the east coast. Ontario simply makes more sense as a location for serving those markets.

If Vestas did commit to Ontario, it would be another major win for the province, which last month confirmed a $7 billion deal with a Korean consortium, led by Samsung, which plans to manufacture and develop 2,500 megawatts worth of wind and solar projects in the province.