Natural gas is inexpensive, seemingly plentiful and much cleaner-burning when used as an alternative to diesel fuel in transportation fleets, so it makes sense that Waste Management is converting its entire North American fleet to run on compressed natural gas. The company announced this week it has added 25 new CNG waste collection trucks to its fleet in Ottawa. About 80 per cent of all new trucks purchased by the company now run on compressed natural gas. To accommodate this fleet conversion, Waste Management has been increasing the number of fuelling stations it has to support the fleet. Currently it operates 17 of these stations across North America, but that number is expected to expand to 50 by the end of this year. Overall, the company has more than 1,400 CNG trucks in its fleet, including 100 added to its fleet in Vancouver last year. While this represents only 3.5 per cent of the entire fleet, conversion is happening at a healthy clip. It should be noted that Waste Management is also using route optimization software to reduce driving time and all trucks are programmed to turn off automatically after five minutes of idling. These are all solid initiatives that will help reduce emissions, but also reduce company costs.

From a greenhouse-gas perspective, the emission reductions aren’t massive — up to 25 per cent reduction — but the real gains here are in the reduction of smog-causing pollutants. Nitrogen oxides and diesel particulate matter are reduced by 90 per cent. Over time, it leaves open the possibility of using renewable natural gas, sourced from landfill gas and municipal wastewater biogas, to displace its fossil fuel cousin. The city of Surrey, B.C., is already heading in this direction. It now requires that natural gas-powered trucks be used for its municipal waste collection, a service being performed by BFI Canada, which has purchased 75 trucks that run on CNG. At the same time, it is launching an organics collection program for Surrey’s 470,000 residents and businesses that will see the household waste converted into biogas that will be cleaned, conditioned and used in BFI trucks. Surrey hopes the new biogas facility will begin operation in 2014.

Toronto was supposed to head in this direction as well, but from what I understand the plan has unraveled under the administration of Mayor Rob Ford.

Here’s my take on the EU aviation carbon tax that is causing a stink with major world airline carriers:

————————————————

Tyler Hamilton

My family flew to North Carolina during the holiday to visit relatives and, being aware of new baggage fees, we made every effort to pack lightly.

Of two adults and two children we had only one item to check in. Not bad. But it still meant paying $25 to get the bag to Charlotte and another $25 to get it back home. Had we each checked just one bag for our one-week trip, it would have cost the family $200.

I point this out because I’m perplexed by Air Canada’s strong opposition to the European Union’s new aviation carbon tax, which went into effect Jan. 1.

The airline — as well as other members of the National Airlines Council of Canada — has no problem arbitrarily adding $50 to the price of a 2,500-kilometre round trip to the United States.

But it won’t tolerate the European Union slapping on a carbon tax that would only add $1.45 to a $500 round-trip ticket between Toronto and Frankfurt, Germany, a journey that covers five times the distance.

How did I come to $1.45? Anyone can calculate the impact on any trip to Europe. Just go to the website of the International Civil Aviation Organization at and click on the carbon calculator link at the bottom-left of the screen. Or click here.

A round trip between Toronto and Frankfurt generates 922 kilograms of carbon emissions per person. Per tonne, the price of carbon emissions on the European market is about $10.50, so the price for 922 kilograms would be $9.68.

But that’s not what airlines would initially have to pay per passenger. Under the new European aviation tax scheme, airlines still get a free pass for 85 per cent of their emissions. With the tax only applying to the remaining 15 per cent, that works out to $1.45 that will surely be passed along to consumers.

As industry observer Bill Hemmings said, “Commercially it’s a non-event.” Airlines arbitrarily change online flight prices on a minute-by-minute basis by much larger amounts.

Yet Air Canada and its fellow airlines in Canada, the United States, China, India, Russia and Japan insist on demonizing the fee and amplifying talk of trade wars and unproven claims of job destruction. It doesn’t matter that the European Union Court of Justice ruled recently that the new tax does not contravene international law.

“This ruling by no means settles this matter,” George Petsikas, president of Canada’s airline council, said defiantly after the European court ruling.

Those opposed to the EU’s actions argue that the matter of emissions reductions in the global aviation industry is best addressed through a “coherent, multilateral framework” via the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO).

The solution, they feel, is to create yet another international initiative that likely will lead to more delay and inaction on pressing climate matters.

Been there, done that. What’s admirable about the EU approach is that it’s about more action and less talk. Understandably, it’s tired of waiting for the rest of the world to get its act together.

The aviation sector accounts for 3 per cent of global emissions, but both its share of global emissions and its absolute contribution are expected to grow under a do-nothing scenario that isn’t sustainable.

To be fair, the industry hasn’t been idle. Fuel efficiency has improved by 16 per cent between 2001 and 2008, according to the International Air Transport Association. Since 1990, major Canadian airlines have improved fuel efficiency by 31 per cent.

But it’s not enough, and there’s a whole lot more that can be done. A sector-specific carbon tax that grows gradually and includes more countries over time will accelerate innovation and give the most fuel-efficient airlines an edge over competitors.

As airline fleets are renewed there will be greater incentive to embrace more efficient engine technology and light-weight materials, such as carbon fibre, in the design of new aircraft.

The air transport association estimates the industry will spend $1.5 trillion on new aircraft by 2020, resulting in more than a quarter of the global fleet being replaced. It’s important to make sure new aircraft are built and purchased with fuel-efficiency top of mind.

Airlines will also be more motivated to use renewable jet fuel products in old and new aircraft to offset their carbon footprints. There’s tremendous promise with respect to carbon-neutral jet fuels derived from algae, wood waste, inedible plants such as camelina, and even industrial waste gases.

One advantage is that aviation is a relatively easy market to target. There are fewer than 2,000 airports around the world that serve as major fuelling hubs for airplanes, so the required infrastructure changes to accommodate renewable jet fuel are quite manageable. Contrast this with the hundreds of thousands of fuelling stations that service cars worldwide.

Jet fuel also represents less than 8 per cent of global demand for oil products, so it’s not as daunting as tackling the market for consumer vehicles, which consume more than 40 per cent of oil supply.

The industry says it is already going down this innovation path. That only makes the EU carbon tax even more benign. The EU, meanwhile, has said that any airline headquartered in a country with similar emission-reduction policies would be exempt from the EU tax.

So what, exactly, is the fuss all about? It’s about the rest of the world not liking Europe taking the lead and telling it what to do, and even though it’s clear that we need to do it.

It certainly isn’t about the financial interests of travellers, who have been and will continue to be penalized much more by arbitrary fees designed to pad the bottom line.

Tyler Hamilton, author of Mad Like Tesla, writes weekly about green energy and clean technologies. tyler@cleanbreak.ca

My Clean Break column this past week looks at the missed opportunity of growing crops for biofuel production when making green chemicals is a higher value proposition, both economically and environmentally.

———————————————————-

By Tyler Hamilton

About seven million tonnes of grain corn was grown in Ontario in 2011, and by year’s end roughly 30 per cent of that is expected to go toward ethanol fuel production.

Let’s ignore for the moment the whole food-versus-fuel debate, and assume that devoting nearly a third of Ontario corn production to making renewable fuel doesn’t help drive up global food prices, or for that matter, reduce our capacity to feed the world.

Let’s focus instead on the use of corn as part of a greenhouse-gas reduction strategy that returns more economic value per harvested bushel. Through this lens, is biofuel production the best use of a renewable but also land-limited resource?

Corn, after all, doesn’t have to be made into ethanol and burned in the gas tanks of our cars to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels. It can also be used to make a variety of “green” chemicals that form the basis of a wide variety of products currently made from petroleum-based chemicals.

Let’s take, for example, Burlington, Ont.-based EcoSynthetix, which takes starch from corn to make certain biopolymers. These biodegradable biopolymers can displace petroleum-based ingredients used to make coatings for packaging and cardboard, adhesives, carpet backing, building materials and a wide range of other products.

John van Leeuwen, chairman and chief executive of EcoSynthetix, which had a successful initial public offering on the Toronto Stock Exchange in August, says he can make $35 worth of biolatex for every bushel of corn the company consumes in its process.

Ethanol, by comparison, fetches about $10 for every bushel of corn, he says. Indeed, the amount of corn that’s consumed annually by 10 large ethanol production plants – out of about 200 in North America—could probably supply enough starch for the entire emulsion polymer market worldwide if it were to switch to 100 per cent biopolymers.

More than that, EcoSynthetix’s biopolymer can compete head on with petroleum-based polymers that currently dominate the marketplace, unlike the heavily-subsidized ethanol industry. “We don’t need subsidies. We can actually go into a deal and offer a discount against petroleum-based products to win business,” says van Leeuwen.

Asked about the growing volume of corn consumed by the ethanol industry, van Leeuwen, without pointing fingers, responds sensibly. “We really need to be thoughtful as an industry to make sure what we make derives maximum value from our agricultural feedstocks.”

Such wise advice could be directed to Canada’s bioproducts sector as a whole, which as I wrote in August has been shrinking when it should be flourishing. That was the conclusion of a report by the Richard Ivey School of Business, which called Canada’s performance on the global stage “disappointing.”

In that report, ethanol represented more than two-thirds of Canada’s bio-products market, while higher-value polymers accounted for just 2 per cent and organic chemicals 12 per cent. In the area of green chemicals, Canada’s landscape was described as “stagnant.”

This isn’t just about corn; it’s also about how we choose to use agricultural residues, municipal organic waste, wood waste, algae biomass, and non-food crops.

Does it make sense to just burn this material for energy, or convert it into fuel so it can be burned? Or, should we be doing a better job of targeting niche markets with high-value “green” products that are just as effective at reducing our dependence on fossil fuels?

“There is an overemphasis on biomaterials as a source for energy,” says Dr. Rui Resendes, executive director of Kingston-based GreenCentre Canada, which helps commercialize green chemistry innovations coming out of Canadian universities.

And that energy isn’t as green as often claimed. After all, Resendes points out, the fertilizers used to grow crops are petroleum-based, as are many other products consumed along the supply chain.

“Just because you pluck it out of farmer’s field doesn’t mean it’s sustainable,” he says, adding that the entire value chain has to be considered. This is where green chemistry and the products it supports play a crucial role. “I’m a firm believer in technologies that are addressing niche markets where volumes are much smaller and margins are much higher.”

Green chemicals may be a broad category, but it’s one that serves highly targeted markets where petroleum-based products currently dominate, including the manufacture of fertilizers, polymers, and lubricants, to name a few.

And, as EcoSynthetix is demonstrating, you can be competitive and aim for profitability without relying on subsidies.

This isn’t to suggest we abandon biofuels. Renewable jet fuel, for instance, is emerging as an attractive subcategory of green fuels and fulfills a role that electricity, while an alternative source of energy for consumer vehicles, simply can’t based on current-day technology.

But certainly Canada can have a much more balanced portfolio, and that means doing a better job of nurturing our green chemistry sector, and – in the particular case of corn – getting more pop per kernel.

Tyler Hamilton, author of Mad Like Tesla, writes weekly about green energy and clean technologies.

FYI: This is a presentation and panel that I participated in in late September at the Evergreen Brick Works Forum on Leadership, Innovation and Sustainability. We were confined to a PechaKucha presentation format, meaning you have to go through 20 slides and spend no more than 20 seconds on each one — i.e. total presentation of just six minutes and 40 seconds. Needless to say, we all felt rushed, but it allowed more time for discussion. You can find the other panels here, as well as video of the keynote presentation from Jeremy Rifkin.

It’s shameless self promotion, I know, but this is how you create awareness of books, and the point of writing Mad Like Tesla was to create awareness of the innovation going on around clean energy and the immense barriers inventors and entrepreneurs face. I also wanted to celebrate those much-needed risk takers in society, without whom we will never have the kind of breakthroughs necessary to tackle our energy demons. It’s part of the reason I write and have maintained this Clean Break blog for the past six years, without financial gain. It’s a labour of love, as time consuming as it often can be.

Mad Like Tesla: Underdog Inventors and Their Relentless Pursuit of Clean Energy was launched this month and has been well-received. The reviews so far have been positive, and awareness of the book is slowly building. But not fast enough. I want to take this moment to ask my readers, many of whom have already purchased the book (thank you!), to help spread the word. Share this link or the Mad Like Tesla website (www.madliketesla.com) on social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter. Refer to it when commenting on the various blogs you might follow. And for my media friends out there — whether in the mainstream press or the blogosphere — please consider a review, or alternatively, I’m happy to chat about the many odd and inspiring stories in this book. Please see press release here.

Thank you all for your ongoing interest and support. BTW: Many have asked, so I’m happy to report that the e-book version of Mad Like Tesla is now available at Amazon.com.