Ontario is making solid progress with its plan to convert some of its coal-fired power plants to biomass. And not just co-firing, like what many U.S. jurisdictions are considering, but full out 100 per cent biomass burn. It will prove a key part of Ontario’s greenhouse-gas reduction strategy. A new University of Toronto study has concluded that converting coal-fired units at the Nanticoke and Atikokan plants to burning wood pellets would reduce GHGs by roughly 92 per cent, and this is based on a full lifecycle analysis. On top of that, it would create a local biomass supply chain — for harvesting, pelletization, transportation, etc. — and local jobs that simply don’t exist under a coal-only regime. OPG also plans to operate the plants as peakers, meaning they could be used to help manage renewables (i.e. there would be less natural gas required to perform this balancing act).

I have an update on Ontario Power Generation’s biomass strategy in today’s Clean Break column. OPG will likely convert Atikokan to 100 per cent biomass by 2012, with some units at Nanticoke likely to follow a year later. Lambton and Thunder Bay plants are also being considered. The OPG executive heading up the transition, Chris Young, says the company is seriously investigating a fuel pellet mixture with both wood and agricultural residues (or dedicated crops, like switchgrass). OPG figures that coal plants converted to burning biomass will likely operate for another 10 years before decommissioning, at which point the pellet supply chain will be firmly established and the move to build a distributed fleet of newer biomass-burning plants can begin.

And what is U of T’s estimated cost of supplying electricity from an existing coal plant converted to burning 100 per cent biomass? Roughly 12 cents per kilowatt-hour, which excludes the impact of carbon prices. Given that natural gas won’t stay low forever and will eventually be subject to carbon pricing, this makes the biomass option competitive (also with wind and nuclear) and at the same time is a winner when it comes to local green-collar job creation.

If OPG can pull this off, it would be another Ontario first — and something other jurisdictions can learn from.

There was a big stink this week when a published study, led by University of Virginia civil engineering professor Andres Clarens, concluded that producing biofuels from algae isn’t as climate-friendly as many people believe, at least when compared to getting biofuels from switchgrass, canola, and – Huh? — even corn. The results, according to an abstract of the study, “indicate that these conventional crops have a lower environmental impact than algae in energy use, greenhouse gas emissions, and water regardless of cultivation location.” Why? Because of the need to supply more nutrients — i.e. fertilizer — to algae to stimulate growth, and fertilizer is energy-intensive to produce.

The problem with this conclusion? Clarens based the life-cycle analysis on data that was mostly 10 years old. For example, some current algae cultivation practices, particularly those based on wastewater or sea water, tackle the fertilizer issue head on. So the age of the data is an important bit of information that should have been made very clear in the study — even the abstract. Ten years in the world of technology, particular cleantech, is a long time. I mean, the big R&D push around algae-based fuels only began three or four years ago, and 10 years ago the “cleantech” sector didn’t exist in name. Ten years ago the world was still wrapping its head around Y2K, George W. Bush was just getting into office, Google was still a start-up years from going public, and the TV show CSI (the original one) had its world premiere. In other words, you can expect data about algae cultivation to be, well, rather useless as a reflection of current practices.

This isn’t to blame Clarens. As he told the New York Times’ Green Inc., the most current data out there is simply unavailable to academia. It’s proprietary. (more…)

Corporate Knights, Canada’s sustainable business magazine, crunched some recent numbers from Environment Canada and found that the country’s Top 10 industrial CO2 emitters reduced their greenhouse gas emissions by 9 per cent in 2008 compared to 2007. At the same time, the Canadian economy grew by 0.5 per cent. Given that the impacts of the economic downturn were felt mostly in 2009, an even greater drop is expected this year. Canada’s Top 350 emitters reduced greenhouse gas emissions by nearly 6 per cent during the same period. Toby Heaps, the magazine’s editor, said it’s proof that Canadian industry can meet carbon-reduction obligations while maintaining economic growth. “While our government says that reducing emissions by 20 per cent over 15 years is a heavy lift, our companies are showing the art of the possible: how almost half of that target can be pulled off in just one year,” said Heaps in a statement issued out of Copenhagen, where he attended the recent international climate talks. Corporate Knights is expected to have a more thorough analysis of the numbers in its January issue.

Ontario is pulling its weight, largely as a result of its coal-phaseout strategy, renewable energy deployment and conservation initiatives. As of the end of October 2009, greenhouse-gas emissions from fossil-fuel (coal and natural gas) power generation is down 40 per cent compared to same 10-month period the previous year, according to Ontario’s Independent Electricity System Operator. What can we expect with the introduction of carbon prices and a cap-and-trade system?

A recent research brief of New Energy Finance looks to Europe for answers. It found that five years after the introduction of a greenhouse gas emissions-trading system the European power sector is factoring carbon prices into future investment decisions. It also found that carbon prices are pushing the sector toward lower-carbon sources of electricity and accelerating the closure of the oldest and dirtiest fossil-fuel plants. “The answer is clearly that European power generators see that the EU ETS is here to stay and that it is starting to affect how they make multi-billion euro investments in new generation capacity,” said Guy Turner, the research firm’s director of carbon market research. ”By 2020 the European generating fleet will be materially cleaner than it is today.”

Something to hope for? Let’s hope so. I’m more a fan of carbon taxes than cap-and-trade, but if the latter is designed correctly, and if we can learn off some of the early mistakes made by the Europeans, clearly it will drive emissions down. The question, then, will be how much it will drive them down, and whether it will be fast enough. That will ultimately depend on the price of carbon, and how many freebie carbon allowances are handed out to industry.

Apparently the short list of clean energy technologies being considered for the climate development mechanism excludes carbon capture and sequestration, aka “clean coal” projects. The clean development mechanism, under the Kyoto Protocol, allows developed countries to invest in certain emission-reduction projects in developing countries to offset their own emissions. Since these projects generally cost less to deploy in the developing world it is considered a cheaper avenue for rich countries to meet their obligation. That was the same thinking around CCS and clean coal, but Brazil has roadblocked the technology for fear that its inclusion in the list would suck financial resources away from other options, such as forest preservation. There have also been concerns expressed about CCS liability issues and guarantees around the permanence of long-term storage.

Obviously, this isn’t great news for the coal industry. What’s that expression — cry me a river? It doesn’t mean CCS can’t be put to good use in rich countries, but obviously that will come at higher cost. Will anyone want to pay developed-world prices to get the needed 100 or so clean coal and carbon sequestration projects working? Tough to say, but I doubt it. Developing-world projects were considered a way to get some volume deployment, and without that, it doesn’t look good for coal. But given what’s on the line for Canada, Australia, the U.S. and others, leaving out CCS doesn’t look good for Copenhagen either, so someone’s going to have to give.

Isn’t international politics fun?

WWF-International released a study today ranking the cleantech market activities of countries around the world. The report predicts that by 2020 the cleantech industry will be worth $2.45 trillion, ranking as the third-largest global industry behind automobiles and electronics.

According to the 44-country ranking, measured by cleantech sales as a percentage of GDP, the Top 3 countries are Denmark, Brazil and Germany. China ranked sixth. The U.S. ranked 19th, just one position behind the United Kingdom. On the bottom half of the list are Australia, ranked 28th, and Canada, ranked 31st. Keith Stewart at WWF said the results come as a warning to Canada. “This report shows that Canada is far behind countries like the U.S. and China in investing in green technologies, in real and relative terms,” he said. “You can be sure the Chinese economy will not sit still while we sit on our hands.”

Stewart said it doesn’t help that come the end of January 2010 a Canadian federal incentive program designed to promote renewable energy development will run out of budgeted funds. While there is talk of re-charging the fund next year there is still likely to be a major funding gap, creating the kind of bust-boom cycle that once held back the U.S. wind and solar markets. Have we not learned from past mistakes?