My story in today’s Toronto Star is about a new industrial efficiency program that will soon be unveiled by the Ontario Power Authority. Under the plan, the province will agree to pay up to 70 per cent of the cost of an industrial energy retrofit, making it possible for the industrial energy user to achieve up to 30 per cent energy savings and a one- to two-year payback on investment. The aim is to get 300 MW of savings initially. The province’s contribution to each project is capped at $10 million. While giving away millions to help industry use less energy would seem misguided, it’s in fact a very smart and effective strategy. The money being paid out will be much less than what it would cost to built a 300 megawatt power plant. Meanwhile, helping key industrial players become more efficient makes the Ontario economy more competitive and insulates these industrial operations — and the jobs they create — from economic downturns.

Roughly 50 to 60 big industrial players that connect directly to the province’s transmission system can participate in the program, which was spearheaded by international mining companies XStrata and Vale Inco, as well a steel giant ArcelorMittal Dofasco. The three companies, which formed a working committee that reported to the power authority, estimated that efficiency gains could “realistically” achieve 1,000 megawatts over five years.

Industrial efficiency might not be as sexy as solar and wind — actually, it’s definitely not as sexy — but the simple fact is that the greenest and cheapest megawatt is the one that isn’t used. This is a smart program. Oh yeah, and we shouldn’t forget the stimulus effect. These projects will create much-needed jobs over the next few years.

There’s much hype around the 60 Minutes segment Sunday night about Bloom Energy and its miraculous Bloom Box. I’m scratching my head wondering why this is such a big deal, so maybe someone can enlighten me. This to me seems like a fancy solid-oxide fuel cell system. It’s still super expensive, though Bloom claims that it can get the cost down to $3,000 (U.S.) for a residential unit. It still relies on fuel, such as natural gas, meaning it still produces CO2 emissions. Yes, far less emissions than burning that natural gas in a power plant and sending it via transmission lines to your home, but it’s not the emission-free miracle that 60 Minutes is touting. I didn’t hear much talk on the segment about whether the Bloom Box has a dual purpose: that is, electricity generation and heat production. And while it may replace the need for electricity lines coming into your home, you still need a natural gas line. In this sense, I can see tremendous interest from natural gas utilities looking to compete against electric utilities (a good parallel is how cable and phone companies over the years ended up offering the same services as technologies converged).

Perhaps there’s more to this story that wasn’t revealed by 60 Minutes, but there are many companies out there working on this kind of fuel cell so I don’t see what’s particularly special or unique about Bloom Energy. More details are expected to be released on Wednesday, however, so maybe then my questions will be answered.

In the meantime, would someone out there please enlighten me?

Car-share services across North America are proving they’re not a passing fad as a growing percentage of urban dwellers — facing high parking prices, a lack of spaces, urban congestion and urban smog, not to mention higher fuel prices — are choosing to not own vehicles. Research firm Frost & Sullivan predicts car-sharing membership will grow eightfold between now and 2016, when North American membership is expected to reach 4.4 million. This represents a car-share fleet of 70,000 vehicles. Since every car-share vehicle is estimated to replace 15 cars on the road, this works out to about a million fewer cars on the streets by 2016. It’s a trend that automakers can’t ignore, according to Frost, which predicts car sales will be affected over the long term.

I’ve got a weekend feature in the Toronto Star that takes a closer look at car-sharing in Toronto, where two services — Zipcar and AutoShare — currently compete. I’ve also got a short story on a new car-share service starting out in Baltimore called RelayRides, which pegs itself as the first peer-to-peer car-share service in North America. Instead of owning its own fleet, RelayRides enables anyone who owns a car to sign up and make their vehicles available for short-term rental by other members of the public. It’s an interesting model that, while full of risks and very tricky to implement, could work in certain markets.

The Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI), an Ottawa a Waterloo, Ontario-based think tank founded in 2002 by Research In Motion co-CEO Jim Balsillie, says we shouldn’t expect any major expansion of the nuclear market before 2030. After that, the future of the industry is no more certain.

After three and a half years of extensive study, which included exhaustive consultation with industry experts and review of peer-reviewed literature, the policy think tank released a report yesterday that says the nuclear industry will have a hard enough time just replacing older reactors in the existing global fleet. Fact is, nuclear’s contribution to the global power mix since 2000 has fallen, as has the number of reactors in the fleet. Meanwhile, 2008 was the first year since the mid-1950s that no new nuclear reactor was connected to the grid. There have been refurbishments and life extensions, and there has been a lot of talk about building new reactors, but so far the massive, fast-paced expansion the industry has touted simply isn’t materializing. There will be some modest growth, but CIGI doesn’t expect nuclear will play a major role in combatting climate change before 2030. Between now and then, it also says alternatives — solar, wind, energy efficiency, conservation, smart grid technologies — will gain momentum and may ultimately prevent nuclear projects from getting a foothold. “Research and development is proceeding at such a pace for most of these alternatives that improvements in performance and cost will likely arrive faster than for nuclear technology,” the study concluded.

Think about it: by 2030 it’s quite possible we’ll have energy storage breakthroughs that give intermittant renewables baseload characteristics, but instead of deploying them in massive multibillion-dollar chunks, they could be part of a distributed energy system that locates power closer to consumers, and deploys it quickly and when needed.

CIGI lists a number of issues that have held back expansion of the nuclear power market:

• High upfront cost — reactors that can cost up to $10 billion a piece.
• Labour shortages resulting from boomer retirements and lack of investment in training and education.
• Long construction lead time.
• High risk of cost overruns and delay.
• High reliance on government subsidies and public backstopping.
• Ongoing concerns with waste management.
• Alternatives becoming increasingly more competitive.

Now, the nuclear industry isn’t oblivious to these issues, and indeed, there is a move underway to build smaller reactors that can be built more quickly, on time, and at a more manageable cost and pace. Also, these mini reactors would fit better into a distributed generation model, and attempts at developing small thorium-fuelled reactors would address waste management and nuclear proliferation concerns. CIGI acknowledged these developments, but said we’re not likely to see thorium reactors or mini-reactors being adopted in any significant way before 2030 — again, too late to be relied on for climate-change mitigation.

All this said, there will be growth — in China, in India, and a handful of other countries — and there will be refurbishments. This should keep the industry busy for the next couple of decades. No jobs are likely at risk here. Over the long term, however, the future of the nuclear industry would appear more uncertain.

Reports surfaced last week that we’re running out of Web addresses. The Number Resource Organization, which is in charge of allocating Web addresses based on the IPv4 standard, warned that there is less than 10 per cent of these addresses left and that a severe shortage — and “grave consequences” – will be upon us if we don’t migrate quickly to the new IPv6 standard, which offers a virtually unlimited number of addresses.  “The limited IPv4 addresses will not allow us enough resources to achieve the ambitions we all hold for global Internet access,” said NRO chairman Axel Pawlik. “The deployment of IPv6 is a key infrastructure development that will enable the network to support the billions of people and devices that will connect in the coming years.”

Most media coverage has highlighted the growth in laptops, mobile devices, servers and routers, but more eye-opening is the coming wave of “smart” grid devices that will need to have their own IP addresses. Thermostats, smart meters, dish washers, laundry machines/dryers, intelligent lighting (in homes and buildings), electric cars — really any appliances or devices or machine that will be controlled remotely through the Internet. Here’s a question I honestly have no answer to: Are energy management and smart grid/appliance companies — General Electric, for example — aware of this coming shortage of IP addresses, and have they taken the necessary measures to avoid the crisis?

Network World had an informative article on this issue in October.

Apparently it’s not difficult to migrate from IPv4 to IPv6, but it does require a lot of investment in software and hardware upgrades. Will the energy sector be caught off guard by this? I’d love to open this up for discussion from some more knowledgeable people… please enlighten us.