Ontario Progressive Conservative leader Tim Hudak has vowed to kill the province’s feed-in-tariff program on the grounds that, in his view, it is leading to unacceptably high electricity costs for consumers. But when all is considered the problem, as he describes it, isn’t really with the FIT at all: it’s about FIT rates for solar PV. Take solar out of the equation and the FIT rates are quite reasonable, at least when compared to nuclear power, which is Hudak’s own half-baked solution to Ontario’s future electricity needs.

Beyond the propoganda of the nuclear industry, I haven’t seen a single credible study that calculates the cost of (new) nuclear to ratepayers below 13 cents per kilowatt-hour. Indeed, there are many reports that suggest nuke power is above 20 cents per kilowatt-hour, particularly when you choose to not hide the hidden costs and subsidies. This makes wind power, landfill gas systems, waterpower and even some large biogas systems competitive with nuclear on a kilowatt-hour basis. And, of course, under the FIT we’re not held hostage to delays or cost overruns like we have been in the past with nuclear. You pay for what you get under the FIT. No risk, no large single points of failure, no risk of meltdown, no worries about handling future radioactive waste, and very high price transparency.

Now, Hudak would have Ontario voters believe that the rate we pay today is what we should expect to pay for future generation. I don’t believe this is a naive belief on Hudak’s part; I believe it’s to intentionally mislead. Fact is, there isn’t a single form of clean (or dirty) generation that can be built new today that isn’t more expensive than the 6 or 7 cents per kilowatt-hour that Hudak (and most media, for that matter) recklessly bandies about. Now, could we get wind generation cheaper through a competitive process? Yeah, we could maybe carve a couple of cents off the FIT rate. But the FIT was intentionally designed to lower barriers to market access — to open up the market beyond the big, deep-pocketed corporate giants who can afford the upfront millions required to respond to a request for proposals (RFP) and, after participating in such a process, can afford to walk away empty handed. The province created the FIT to encourage community participation, and to stimulate the kind of growth that would attract manufacturing and jobs — and it has, despite a few spineless moments and missteps from the Liberal government.

 Now, on to solar. Hudak and his legion of backers, including National Post columnist Parker Gallant (who has somehow managed to turn his column into an official soap box for the Ontario PCs — hell, he even hands over fresh quotes for Hudak’s press releases now), always point to solar prices when talking about the FIT. After all, it’s easier to anger voters by saying generally that we’re paying 80.2 cents per kilowatt-hour under the FIT and that this is 10 times more than the wholesale market rate for electricity. Wow — 10 times more! Crazy. But the comparison shouldn’t be to the wholesale market rate, and the rate itself is far from representative of the FIT program pricing. That scary 80.2 cents, which will soon be lowered, is for less than 1 per cent of FIT contracts when measured on a megawatt-hour contribution basis. Also, that money doesn’t go to big corporate conglomerates intent on vacuuming money out of Ontario. It goes to farmers and homeowners who are taking risks to become participants in the electricity system. The thousands of people taking part are literally changing the energy landscape in Ontario and they’re creating local jobs. You can see it just driving around this province. Put into perspective, the premium being paid to them is more than worth what the province is getting back. Hudak, however, would prefer to demonize them to score votes.

Now, let’s talk about the elephant in the room — big solar. Big, multimegawatt solar projects are getting 44.3 cents per kilowatt-hour. But unlike the small solar rooftop systems, these larger systems will collectively have an impact on electricty rates over the coming years. At the same time, we have to acknowledge that it is because of these large systems that a lot of manufacturing has shifted to Ontario. Still, it’s a lot of solar and a lot to pay, and this is in my view the Achilles heal of Ontario’s FIT program. If there are going to be changes to the program, the most dramatic changes have to come here, but it has to be done in a way that balances the need to nurture an emerging industry and the interests of ratepayers. The answer, in my view, is to embrace a competitive bidding process for these large-scale projects and set caps (targets?) on the amount of big solar we want in Ontario by 2015, 2020 and 2025.

But Hudak isn’t thinking or talking that way. He wants to throw the baby out with the bath water, and in doing so kill investor confidence in the Ontario market, kill green jobs and build new nuclear plants that we’ll have to start paying for 10 years before the first kilowatt-hour is generated. His approach is reckless at a time when Ontario needs surgical, not blunt force, solutions. He’s being destructive at a time when Ontarians want our politicians to be constructive.

On a final note, let’s keep in mind that we don’t have to choose nuclear over renewables or vice versa. While building new nuclear plants may be an unwise decision economically, there is plenty of job creation to come from reburishing or extending the life of Ontario’s existing nuclear fleet — even if we retire a couple of plants, such as Pickering. Indeed, OPG and Bruce Power have expressed concerns about doing these refurbishments and building new because of the limited labour pool and the logistical nightmare of taking so much on in such a tight window. So, the message here is you can continue to aggressively build green energy and capture the associated jobs while keeping folks in our nuclear industry gainfully employed for the next 10 years, simply following through on an existing refurbishment schedule. Talk of building new nukes is a distraction — there will be opportunities in both sectors, and plenty of jobs to go around. We don’t have to choose one over the other.

Ontario Progressive Conservative leader Tim Hudak has been great so far at telling Ontarians what he won’t do, or what he plans to kill. As far as what he will do, he’s pretty much a blank slate aimed at fueling taxpayer anger with misleading commentary. Sound familiar?

His latest press release makes clear that he plans to kill Ontario’s feed-in-tariff program and, associated with that, the Ontario government’s deal with Samsung to bring green jobs and green manufacturing to the province. “An Ontario PC government will integrate renewable energy into Ontario’s energy supply mix by ensuring the process is competitive and transparent and, above all, affordable to Ontario families,” Hudak says.

For one, Hudak is delusional if he thinks he can “bring relief” to hydro bills and at the same time assure a “competitive” and “transparent” market, as well as a reliable electricity system.  Bringing relief entails hidden subsidies that keep Ontarians believing they can continue to get cheap electricity while overhauling and cleaning up an electricity system that has suffered years of neglect during the 1980s and 1990s. Such subsidies will come from the tax base, so he’s going to steal from Paul to pay Peter. Great strategy.

Meanwhile, is he going to stop upgrading the power and transmission system and let it deteriorate? He once talked about aggressively building nuclear plants, at least until the disaster at Fukushima. Suddenly, Hudak doesn’t talk about nuclear as much, let alone the cost of building it (which according to a California Energy Commission report (see page 20, Table 5) is much  more expensive than relying on wind and other renewables). And even with an all-out nuclear strategy, that just won’t cut it. Deciding tomorow to build new nuclear plants means we still wouldn’t see that power until 2020. What do we do until then? Burn more coal? Burn more natural gas? Well, Hudak has also criticized the current buildout of natural gas plants, so I guess Hudak’s only answer is to kill the coal phaseout strategy and spend billions of dollars cleaning up half-century-old plants that, even with upgrades, will continue to spew CO2 (since scrubbers don’t capture CO2 and carbon capture and sequestration isn’t an option in Ontario).

The fact is Hudak doesn’t have a plan, has no concern for climate issues, and has abandoned many of the principles of the PC party to fuel anger and score votes. The little snippets he’s released indicate that his “alternative” approach will also come with a heavy pricetag and may be impossible, given the timelines he is constrainted by.

What Hudak talks about is likely to cost more, not less. He wants to scrap a smart meter program that’s already paid for. He wants to subject the government to potentially billions of dollars worth of lawsuits by breaking FIT contracts, at the same time making Ontario an even less attractive jurisdiction in which to do business, as investor confidence would be all but destroyed. He wants to take away green jobs and green manufacturing that is just beginning to gain momentum in the province. He wants to continue to use tax money to subsidize electricity rates. He wants to aggressively build nuclear, despite the risks, long-term buildout and rising costs.

Now, what would be a reasonable approach that still accommodates voter concerns? Continue nuclear refurbishment projects, which would keep the nuclear industry busy and folks working, but scrap plans for any new builds. Keep but rework the FIT program by limiting the size of projects, adjusting FIT rates lower (as originally envisioned under the program) and requiring that big projects (say, 10 megawatts or higher for wind, 1 megawatt or higher for solar) bid under a competitive process. Also, we should provide guidance to the market by setting a target for how much large wind, solar and other renewables we want on the system by a given date. Beef up the commitment to electricity conservation. And finally, follow through on programs that provide assistance to folks on low or fixed incomes, so they can better cope with what is a global transition to higher energy prices. The Liberals have failed miserably on this front and they’re suffering for it as a result.

Hudak is doing nobody any favours by misleading voters. Sure, some of his criticisms of the existing Liberal plan are fair and changes are necessary. But from what I’ve heard, Hudak’s alternative approach is no better from a cost perspective and certainly much dirtier.

It’s getting crowded on this rock.

The United Nations, which tracks world population growth, has upped its estimates. We know that we’ll pass the seven billion mark sometime this October, but the U.N. is now saying we could hit 10 billion within the century – nearly a billion more than expected. Actually, by 2050 we will likely hit 9.3 billion. For some perspective, the planet held five billion people back when Johnny Depp was just starting his career on the TV show 21 Jump Street (Yes, I admit, I was a huge fan of that show). That was the mid-1980s – not so long ago, is it?

Ten billion people are a lot of mouths to feed, bodies to hydrate and families to shelter. It translates into more vehicles on roads, more gigawatts of electricity demand, and more land needed for growing crops. And dramatically more garbage and pollution. It will become much more difficult for supply to meet this demand. Commodity prices will continue to rise, as they have been. Fresh water resources will become more scarce. Regional conflicts will grow. Greenhouse gas emissions will rise. This isn’t scaremongering, this is reality. Even climate skeptics must appreciate that the current path is unsustainable. Global warming isn’t the only reason to be concerned.

Now, reducing waste, eliminating inefficiency and doing things in a more intelligence way will help, but ultimately dealing with the planet’s population explosion will also require a complete rethinking of where we get energy and how we use it. We can’t simply “shoe-horn” renewables into an existing fossil-fuel infrastructure, at least not in the long term. We need to imagine an infrastructure that puts renewables and low-emission energy sources first, and then begin the difficult task of making the transition. Many barriers (entrenched interests, risk aversion, lack of political leadership and citizen buy-in) will need to be overcome, but what’s the alternative?

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released a short preview of an upcoming report today that asserts we can make the transition. It concludes that nearly 80 per cent of the world’s energy supply could by 2050 be met through deployment of renewable energy technologies — particularly those that capture solar energy. Now, it’s a highly optimistic scenario, but it’s what we need to help keep GHG emissions below 450 parts per million and keep the global temperature from rising beyond 2 degrees C.

Are we too intimidated by the daunting task ahead? Perhaps that’s part of the problem. The IPCC spends many years putting together a massive and comprehensive report on the climate and then plunks it down for all the world to see. It’s information overload — simply too much to digest in one sitting — and it gives the impression that we have a problem that’s too big to tackle. The IPCC’s Fourth Assessment was roughly 3,000 pages! The Fifth Assessment, currently in the works, will be an equally large tome filled with depressing conclusions and broad calls for action that no countries appear ready to embrace.

I agree with folks like Andrew Weaver from the University of Victoria, who is perhaps Canada’s top climate scientist. He says we need to start targeting the science and dividing the problem into smaller, more manageable chunks. ”The science behind the problem is so utterly solid is that what we need to do is start carving pieces off and dealing with those,” Weaver recently told me. (more…)

Green Party leader Elizabeth May got a chance recently to interview former prime minister Brian Mulroney about what it took to deal with the acid rain problem, and why we can’t seem to get the same kind of action today in Canada on the climate file.  The exclusive audio interview can be found on the Web site of Corporate Knights magazine. Mulroney wouldn’t directly comment on PM Harper, but he did indirectly suggest that Harper – through his obvious lack of leadership and action – has no regard for climate issues and has no intention of taking it on in any serious way.

Says Mulroney about the need to take leadership: “It has to be a top priority with the prime minister himself, and that’s important… He has to believe in it, obviously, and that’s the manner in which you galvanize the system.”

Harper’s actions make this clear: he doesn’t believe in it.

Mulroney said the cabinet, assistant deputy ministers, directors, senior advisors all walk to the drumbeat of the PMO. For them, he says, “We better be on our game 100 per cent because the boss is going to be here and he’s going to want to know what the hell is going on… That is the importance of the whole question of leadership.”

Added Mulroney later in the interview, “If one is confronted with a major challenge that has both domestic implications, combined with sophisticated and nuanced international problems that require a unique degree of cooperation to ensure that Canada is both a player and viewed as a constructive player internationally… it’s absolutely vital for the prime minister to drive the file… if the prime minister isn’t driving the file then nothing is going to happen… If he is, then it’s possible that big things will happen.”

Nothing, of course, is happening.

Mulroney was careful not to talk directly to the climate issue or Harper’s performance on that file, but it doesn’t take much to read between the lines.

Those of you who frequent this blog know that I mention Sustainable Development Technology Canada quite regularly (picture to the left is of SDTC chief Vicky Sharpe). That’s because the federal agency, which was created nine years ago, has introduced me over the years to so many interesting, innovative and ambitious clean technology companies. SDTC does the screening. It carries out the due diligence. It offers funding for demonstration projects. It forces the hand of private investors that might not otherwise open their doors or pockets. It offers guidance. Introduces partners and customers. Need I say more? This agency has given dozens of promising green technologies and the companies behind them a solid chance of success. For every dollar of public money it has invested, it has tapped into twice as much (actually more) from the private sector. Over the past few years, that has translated into $515 million in public funding being leveraged to attract about $1.2 billion in mostly private funds.

That’s why in my Clean Break column this week I argue clean technology, and specifically the efforts of SDTC, need to be part of the country’s election dialogue. We need to build on the progress SDTC has achieved to date, not abandon the momentum at a time when major world economies — Germany, China, India, Brazil, the United States – are racing to establish a dominant position in the emerging global green economy.

The leaders of the political parties looking to run the next government need to be asked: How are they prepared to support clean technology innovation and green economic development in Canada?