It was a trip to Iceland in June 2003, just months after the birth of my first daughter, that the immense need for and potential of clean energy first landed on my radar. The Toronto Star agreed to send me there so I could write about Iceland’s efforts to transition to a hydrogen economy. I toured several of the country’s geothermal and hydroelectric facilities. I rode on hydrogen fuel cell buses. I swam in the Blue Lagoon. I spoke with some of the leading academics and engineers in the world working on the hydrogen puzzle. I came back inspired, hungry to learn more — not just about fuel cells and hydrogen, but about this whole emerging area of clean technology, or “cleantech.” It helped that Canadian fuel cell pioneers Ballard Power and Hydrogenics had already captured my interest, but once I looked beyond the “hype about hydrogen” I saw a great diversity of clean technologies at various stages of development. Further boosting my enthusiasm was Nick Parker, founder of the Cleantech Group and the man who coined the term “cleantech.” It was about that time that I first met Nick at a venture capital conference in Toronto. I had covered the technology and telecom scene for five years and was getting bored. The market had tanked. No longer was it interesting to write about faster routers and fatter broadband services. I was more drawn to the optical engineers who left telecom behind and decided to use their skills to boost the potential of solar PV technology and LEDs. Nick and the handful of companies he brought to the venture capital conference only had a small piece of the floor, but they were the most fascinating to cover. I was hooked.

Within just a couple of months after my trip to Iceland, I decided to transition my weekly high-tech column at the Toronto Star into a clean technology column. It began as a bi-weekly effort, but by the following year my transition was complete — Clean Break was a weekly column devoted to cleantech, and a first of its kind in North American for a major daily newspaper. This blog soon followed, one of the first cleantech blogs to hit the blogosphere. Parker’s Cleantech Group recognized this in 2005 by selecting me for the Cleantech Pioneer award. What Nick liked about the Clean Break column is that it was in the business section of the newspaper, which conveyed the idea that most of the technologies I was writing about weren’t destined to be money-losing propositions but were either competitive today or had the potential to be competitive; that tackling climate and other environmental issues through efficiency and using carbon-free technologies was a way to boost productivity and global competitiveness. Readers also liked the emphasis on solutions, as opposed to dwelling on environmental problems. I didn’t see myself as an environmental reporter, at least not of the traditional sort — that is, only investigating and exposing bad apples, and only telling readers how much things sucked. That was just too depressing. I liked highlighting innovation that was going to help get us out of the environmental mess we had created, and even better, help boost revenues and lower costs for companies and governments. I wanted to put less emphasis on environmental compliance (a pure cost) and more emphasis on the embrace of “clean” technologies because it was simply good for business. I thank the Toronto Star for letting me go in this direction, or at least not preventing me from doing so.

Much has changed in the 10 years that have followed. That whole hydrogen thing didn’t turn out as planned. Plug-in vehicles, hardly talked about a decade ago, have taken over and remarkably all of the top auto manufacturers now have pure electric or hybrid-electric models on the market. Sales haven’t been a strong as predicted, but the fact there are tens of thousands of plug-in vehicles on the roads and thousands of high-speed charging stations installed is a dramatic accomplishment in my view. Same goes for solar and wind technologies. Less than 600 megawatts of solar capacity were installed in 2003. That figure has surpassed 30,000 megawatts, meaning the market has grown 50-fold over the past decade, and we’ll see another 10-fold expansion by 2020. Currently there are about 96,000 megawatts of total solar capacity installed worldwide, a figure that’s expected to reach 330,000 megawatts in seven years. In other words, since starting my Clean Break column solar has gone mainstream — a combination of plunging prices and progressive government policies. The wind industry, which had an installed capacity of about 39,000 megawatts in 2003, has grown to have a total capacity that now stands at 283,000 megawatts. These are huge numbers. Last year, an astonishing $269 billion was invested in clean energy infrastructure. In 2010, investments in renewable energy exceeded investments in fossil fuelled power plants for the first time, a major global milestone. Venture capital in cleantech, depending on how you define it, jumped from about $1 billion to over $8 billion from 2005 to 2011 (it’s now around $6 billion). The market for cleantech is, generally speaking, a trillion-dollar global opportunity.

Media coverage of the industry — new and traditional — has also changed. In 2005 my blog was among a handful of blogs consistently covering the cleantech space, and my column was unique in North American, at least for a mainstream daily newspaper. Now, as I wrote in my book Mad Like Tesla, “I am but one small voice in a sea of dedicated news sites, columns, blogs, Facebook pages, and Twitterers all covering different angles of this clean energy revolution and advocating for a faster transition away from fossil fuels. We may complain that the transition is going too slowly — it can never move fast enough — but looking back it’s amazing we have come this far so quickly.” As coverage of the sector increased, my own writings became increasingly regional and local. Most of my Clean Break columns for the past few years have focused on my home province of Ontario or home city of Toronto. I’ve most enjoyed writing about Canadian or Ontario-based clean technology startups or innovators trying to raise the bar on efficiency and lower environmental footprints. My columns have covered LEDs, solar power, wind power, demand-response, green chemistry, smart grid innovation, water technologies, geothermal, biofuels (with a big focus on algae), electric vehicles, carbon capture and storage, nuclear, wave and tidal power, biogas, waste reduction, energy storage, advanced materials… you name it. I have learned so much, met so many wonderful and smart people, made new friends and played my own little part in helping Canadian companies get attention locally and globally. It has been tremendously satisfying.

Why am I writing all of this now? Well, because this July would have been the 10-year anniversary for my Clean Break column in the Toronto Star. Also, just before I went to Costa Rica earlier this month for vacation, I got a call telling me that my column had been cancelled. I can’t say it was entirely unexpected. When I left my full-time staff writing gig at the Star in 2010 to write Mad Like Tesla, the paper’s business editor at the time agreed on a handshake to let me keep writing the column. Three editors have come and gone from the business section since then and during each transition the axe was expected to come. It didn’t, and frankly, I’m amazed I made it this far. It’s been a great run. The fact is, the newspaper industry is going through a painful transition and there’s no indication this is temporary. In fact, the pain indicates something that may be terminal. The Star recently announced it was outsourcing its pagination and copy editing functions to save costs and that 55 jobs would be cut. Sections across the paper have been asked to slash budgets, and the axe falls easily on freelance columns. This is an unfortunate sign of the times. That my column was discontinued is also a sign of the times. Clean energy may be the future and climate change is the biggest threat to our existence, but that didn’t stop the New York Times from recently dismantling its own environmental reporting team and cancelling its popular green blog. This is both the knee-jerk reaction of an industry that’s suffering, and the reason why this industry is suffering — in my humble opinion.

To be fair to the Star, it did recently hire a global environmental reporter and global science and technology reporter. This is great news. Change is good, and people will get fresh coverage and viewpoints. Let’s hope they stay committed to these beats and give the stories that come out of them the priority and placement they deserve. Me, I’m having a blast as editor of Corporate Knights magazine, where I have been for nearly two years, and I hope to spend the next few years building this publication. We’re doing great things and insightful research — not just in cleantech, but around a number of issues where business and sustainability intersect. I encourage all my readers to sign up for Corporate Knights’ digital subscription, which you can get through iTunes by downloading our app in the App Store (We’re also available on Kindle through Amazon.com, and soon coming to the Android marketplace). Besides, I needed a break from the column and had been considering new directions for it for some time. Its Canada/Ontario/Toronto focus was appropriate for a paper like the Toronto Star, but I want to broaden the message and the audience. Over the coming months I will be looking at a national or North American media platform through which to revive the column, in partnership likely with Corporate Knights. In the meantime, I’ll continue to use this blog to highlight new technologies, emerging issues, breaking news, and whatever else tickles my fancy. The Clean Break brand is here to stay.

Finally, if you were a regular reader of my Clean Break column in the Star, thank you very much for tuning in. Many hundreds, possibly thousands, have reached out to me over the years to convey their appreciation or dislike of the column — fortunately it’s been more of the former. Sometimes people just wanted to exchange ideas. I can’t tell you how heart-warming it is to get an e-mail from a teacher who’s using my column as material for the classroom, or a call from a student who wants to interview me for a class project, or getting Tim Horton’s gift certificates in the mail from an anonymous person thanking me for doing what I’m doing, or getting a call from the founder of a startup who got venture capital funding because of an article I wrote, or having a politician tell me that my coverage of an issue had an impact on policy or legislation. Without readers — even the ones who call you an idiot, and there have been many — there’s no point in writing.

Unfortunately, the Toronto Star would not allow me to do a final farewell column to notify my readers that this is the end of the line, for now. Some of you might have noticed it was no longer being published. But most won’t notice, and I expect this will hold true for many of my colleagues still word-tapping at the Star. Columns come and go, and mine is no different. It would have been nice, however, to thank my Star readers more directly, rather than through the more limited audience that this blog attracts.

There is plenty of good news happening around community bonds in my home province. SolarShare, for example, announced on Dec. 6 that it had been approved by the Financial Services Commission of Ontario to sell bonds (which offer a 5 per cent annual return) beyond a cap of $1,000. It is now selling up to $25,000, and can go even higher if requests are approved on an individual basis by their board of directors. This has opened up the possibility off pursuing projects more aggressively. The co-op is now going through a process to make its bonds RRSP-eligible. “Once an independent evaluation of SolarShare mortgages that secure your bonds is complete and we have received a legal opinion based on that evaluation, a self-directed RRSP account can be opened through Concentra Credit Union via the Canadian Workers Co-op Federation (CWCF),” the co-op reported in a recent newsletter. “You are also welcome to take that legal opinion to your own wealth management representative and request an account through other channels” –  i.e. you can take it to your own bank and make a case for carrying the bonds in your existing self-directed RRSP.

These bonds are a safe investment, so if you’re tired of getting pummeled by the market and want a safe 5 per cent return, you might want to learn more at www.solarbonds.ca

SolarShare also announced this week that it has partnered with green energy retailer Bullfrog Power, which is helping to finance future co-op solar projects. As an investor, Bullfrog will also market SolarShare’s “solar bonds” to its existing network of green-minded electricity customers. It’s a great partnership.

Meanwhile, ZooShare Biogas Co-operative — of which I am on the board of directors — is making some solid progress with its plans to take animal poo from the Toronto Zoo and turn it into biogas that will be used  for electricity generation. Ontario’s feed-in-tariff (FIT) program finally opened up again just today for small FIT projects, meaning projects like the one ZooShare is pursuing can now apply for a 20-year power purchase agreement with the province. ZooShare has plenty of members now, including the  required number of Toronto property owners, so now we just apply to the FIT program and sit tight for a contract offer. As soon as that comes, it’s full steam ahead…

I’m really hyped about the ZooShare project. If we can show how it’s done, we can replicate the approach in zoos across North America. The pootential is huge, if you’ll excuse the pun. Like SolarShare, community bonds will also be offered for this project, promising a generous 7 per cent annual return based on current calculations. The fact that SolarShare has blazed the trail to get approval from the Financial Services Commission bodes well as we prepare to file our bond offer prospectus. That precedent, as well as the precedent being set for RRSP-eligibility, will also prove beneficial.

For past articles explaining the concept of community bonds and describing the  above projects, click here and here.

My Clean Break column this week highlights a commissioned study by Navigant Consulting, which looked at the impact that sub-metering has on electricity consumption in apartment units and condos versus those units on a bulk metering/billing system. The reductions appear to be quite large, as you’ll read, but there’s one caveat before you read on: lower electricity use doesn’t necessarily translate into lower bills. Given the additional fees charged by sub-metering service providers, the financial benefits of sub-metering are more murky. At the same time, while it might not lead to dollar savings today, it can certainly empower residents to shield themselves from dollar increases tomorrow. Another caveat: the research, while conducted by Navigant, was commissioned by EnerCare, a sub-metering provider in Ontario.

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Tyler Hamilton

There are nearly 410,000 apartment and condominium units in Ontario that could be—but aren’t—individually monitored for their electricity consumption.

Instead, the buildings in which they’re located engage in “bulk” billing, meaning a single bill is issued for an entire building. The amount on that bill is equally divided by the number of individual residential units in that building.

It’s a simple formula, sure, but it’s one that encourages waste. It means residents who make an effort to conserve and use relatively less electricity end up subsidizing those who always keep the lights on and load their homes with energy-hogging devices and appliances. There’s no incentive for them to conserve.

But what if 410,000 residential units in Ontario currently on bulk metering were suddenly put on individual sub-meters – i.e. smart meters for building units? What would be the impact on electricity conservation?

The short answer, according to a study this week from research firm Navigant Consulting, is that the average reduction in electricity use would be “significant.”

Navigant found that in buildings heated by electricity average consumption would fall by 27 per cent, or 106 kilowatt-hours a month, while those building units that don’t use electricity for heating would see average power use reduced by 34 per cent, or 112 kilowatt-hours a month.

“If sub-metering were deployed in all currently bulk-metered, multi-residential buildings the annual potential electricity savings following complete deployment over five years could be 3.3 terawatt-hours annually – more than all of the electricity produced from Ontario’s wind power facilities in 2010,” according to the study.

During peak times, it would equate to eliminating the need for 383 megawatts of generating capacity, equivalent taking a medium-sized gas-fired power plant out of the province’s fleet of generators.

It should be noted that Navigant didn’t do this study out of the kindness of heart. It was hired by EnerCare Connections (formerly Stratacon), one of the largest suppliers of sub-metering devices in Ontario. EnerCare’s interests are obvious. At the same time, Navigant is a respected international research and consulting firm not known to customize conclusions to satisfy its clients.

As for how Navigant came to such conclusions, it relied on data from Natural Resources Canada, Statistics Canada’s 2007 Census data, and hundreds of samples of monthly electricity consumption data from customers of EnerCare that had already switched from bulk billing to sub-metered billing.

So if the conservation benefits are so obvious, why isn’t there a mass rush to embrace sub-metering?

Sub-metering in buildings is for some a hot-button issue. Clearly, individuals in buildings who use relatively more electricity than their neighbours are going to end up paying a higher monthly bill. It’s hard to sympathize – either they should pay for what they use or use less.

It’s a bit trickier with renters. Switching to more efficient light bulbs can only go so far. Apartment tenants are often stuck using old and inefficient appliances that gobble electricity. They can reduce use of these appliances, but they’re still at the mercy of landlords not keen on upgrading to more efficient models.

Chris Jaglowitz, a “condo” lawyer at Gardiner Miller Arnold LLP and publisher of the Ontario Condo Law Blog, says a big sticking point with all building residents relates to the extra charges they must pay to get their bills separately.

“That’s what gets people’s ires up,” says Jaglowitz. “Even people using very little electricity are getting dinged with fairly significant charges. Anecdotally, I’m hearing people are paying more.”

Then again, they’re paying more because electricity prices have been going up – and will continue to go up. With sub-metering, at least condo owners and tenants can take some actions to shield themselves from the impacts of rising electricity rates.

“That’s the argument everybody forgets,” says Jaglowitz.

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

I’ve been reading through the recently released report from Commission on the Reform of Ontario’s Public Services, also called the “Drummond Report” after commission chair Don Drummond, former chief economist of TD Bank. Drummond was always a big fan of putting a price on carbon, so I was curious to see if he raised carbon pricing in his report.

He didn’t.

He did, however, make several commonsense suggestions and raise some interesting points in the areas of electricity infrastructure, transportation, green energy and the environment. I highlight some of them below:

First, I was pleased to see that Drummond took issue with the unfair distribution of federal support for (green) energy projects across the country. He made his opinion of the federal government’s approach clear on p. 469 of his report, pointing out the disproportionate flow of federal dollars to two unnamed provinces — read: Alberta and Saskatchewan — and the oil and gas sectors, which continue to rake in billions in direct and indirect subsidies.

The federal government has provided little support for Ontario’s move towards green energy. Yet it provides direct and indirect subsidies to Canada’s oil and gas sectors worth $1.4 billion annually, in addition to $2.0 billion in total spending for carbon capture and storage, the Clean Energy Fund and the ecoEnergy Technology program — all of which are primarily spent in two provinces. Even where the federal government has promised support for clean energy, most has been directed to fossil fuels and projects that do not build on Ontario’s strengths. Ontario needs fair and equitable support for its clean energy initiatives.

He makes the following recommendation to the Ontario government: “Advocate for federal greenhouse gas mitigation programs to provide fair and equitable support for Ontario’s clean energy initiatives.”

I’ll second that.

On renewal of infrastructure, with specific mention of water infrastructure (p. 45):

More should be done to keep infrastructure in good condition. The equivalent of about half of the $72 billion of municipally owned water and wastewater infrastructure needs renewal. Full-cost pricing would encourage both stable investment — which is more efficient and fairer on an intergenerational basis — and conservation.

On funding public transit and encouraging its use (p. 46):

The province should pursue a national transit strategy with the federal government, other provinces and municipalities. General tax revenues will surely be part of any revenue solution — whether federal or provincial — but there are alternatives such as congestion charges, comprehensive road tolls, high-occupancy/toll (HOT) lanes, regional gas taxes and parking surcharges.

On the Ontario Clean Energy Benefit, which gives people a 10 per cent rebate on their electricity bills (p. 47):

This program distorts the true cost of electricity and discourages conservation… because the Commission strongly believes the OCEB’s $1.1 billion could be used more effectively, the OCEB should be eliminated as quickly as possible.

On better managing the impact of rising electricity prices (p. 47):

The government should produce a detailed, 20-year blueprint for the energy sector. It should also consolidate Ontario’s 80 Local Distribution Companies (LDCs) along regional lines to create economies of scale; this would result in direct savings on the delivery portion of the electricity bill. Further, the government should mitigate the impact of the FIT program on electricity prices, first by reducing the initial prices offered in FIT contracts and reducing the tariff over time, and second by making better use of “off-ramps” built into existing contracts. Among other measures, the government should seek administrative efficiencies in various electricity sector agencies and restructure the wholesale electricity market so consumers located closer to generation stations can benefit from lower electricity prices.

On moving to full-cost recovery for environmental programs (p. 48):

Full cost recovery is not in effect for all of the government’s environmental programs, and existing fees do not keep pace with the rising costs of program delivery; where possible, the costs of those services should be shifted to the beneficiary. The Water Charges initiative should be expanded beyond high users to medium- and low-consumption industries and put on a full user-pay basis. The Renewable Energy Approval, which consolidates the range of approvals needed for renewable energy projects while recovering about 90 per cent of its direct operating costs, is a good example of a modern approval. The Drive Clean program fully recovers its costs.

On province-funded university campus expansion (p. 256):

Any campus expansions funded by the province should be viewed through a return-on investment lens. Factors such as the increase in productivity for the institution through a better learning experience for students, energy cost reductions through the use of renewable energy sources and energy-efficient building design should be considered. Currently, the principal driver for expansion may be increases in enrolment, and while energy conservation aspects may be part of the building design, they are not integral to the productivity outcomes expected from the expansion.

On new approaches to business support programs (p. 310):

A refocused mandate for business support programs would shift from an emphasis on job creation towards encouraging firms to enhance productivity through innovation; technology adoption and training; improved business practices; and energy conservation and efficiency.

On time-of-use pricing (p. 332):

Make regulated prices more reflective of wholesale prices by increasing the on-peak to off-peak price ratio of time-of-use pricing and by making critical peak pricing available on an opt-in basis.

These are all the nuggets I found interesting in the Drummond Report. There may be more, but the ones I’ve pasted above are commonsense and certainly worthy of serious discussion. Will be interesting to see which ones the province acts on…

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.