Now, this bodes well for air quality in Ontario, but keeping in mind that on average 55 per cent of air pollution comes into southern Ontario from the United States, we heard more good news earlier this month when the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency finalized its Cross-State Air Pollution Rule, which goes into effect in 2014. That, in combination with other EPA initiatives, is expected to reduce sulphur dioxide emissions by 73 per cent and nitrogen oxide emissions by 54 per cent compared to 2005 levels. The rule, according to the EPA, “requires 27 states to significantly improve air quality by reducing power plant emissions that cross state lines and contribute to ozone and fine particle pollution in other states.” As EPA administrator Lisa Jackson said, “No community should have to bear the burden of another community’s polluters, or be powerless to prevent air pollution that leads to asthma, heart attacks and other harmful illnesses.”

Now, this wasn’t designed to protect Canadian provinces from smog-causing pollutants — it is meant to protect high-polluting states from less-polluting states — but the fact that Ontario is surrounded on its southern border by some of America’s biggest coal-using power plants, we can expect to benefit tremendously from this rule — assuming it doesn’t get derailed by legal challenges and continuing GOP insanity. I’m surprised, in fact, this didn’t get more coverage by mainstream Canadian media.

Does this amount to a moratorium on dirty coal? It seems like it does, but the targets are pretty soft and you can bet this government will be so flexible with industry — particularly in Alberta and Saskatchewan — that the effect of this moratorium won’t be felt for a least two decades. And that, unfortunately, is too late to matter. Just how the feds will define “end of useful life” or “refurbishment” can have a dramatic effect on the outcome. Coal plants don’t need major refurbishments. Like refineries, they are in constant repair and maintenance mode. Like an old car, as long as you keep repairing stuff when it breaks it can run forever, really. So you can expect existing coal plant owners, such as TransAlta, to drag this out for a long time. Even worse, TransAlta — the country’s worst polluter – is still building new coal plants, hoping to slide them in under the bell. This includes two projects totalling 500 megawatts that will be in service next year. Those plants could run for 40 or 50 years!

What we need is a meaningful price on carbon, and a hard moratorium that requires carbon capture retrofits by a certain date or a conversion of paid-for coal plants so that they can burn natural gas or biomass. Ontario has committed to phasing out coal power or converting to biomass/natural gas by 2014, but Alberta and Saskatchewan are heading in the opposite direction. If Ottawa truly wants to achieve its original goal of Canada having 90 per cent emission-free power by 2020 it’s going to have to stop handling its western provinces with kids’ gloves. But really, it’s the Alberta and Saskatchewan governments that should be making these hard decisions, since the feds have no jurisdiction on provincial energy policy.

I have only one thing to say (shout) to the Alberta government: Geothermal Power! Geothermal Power!

As for Ontario, I think the province needs to do a better job of promoting the low-emission nature of its electricity system. I mean, what’s better — a car manufactured in a province where 80 per cent or more of its power is emission-free, or a car manufactured in a state (like Michigan) where 80 per cent or more of power is based on coal? From a lifecycle perspective, Ontario has the edge and should be pointing that out to future electric car makers, wind turbine manufacturers and solar panel makers that truly want their products to be green in both operation and construction.

I wrote about the government’s coal-to-biomass power generation strategy last fall and it appears to be gaining some momentum. It’s an ambitious project. Not just from a technical perspective, in terms of the actual plant conversion, but perhaps even more so from a logistical perspective. We’re talking huge volumes of biomass — whether in the form of wood or switchgrass or some other pelletized biosolid. It requires development of a reliable supply chain. If it can be done, the reduction in air pollution and CO2 emissions is just one benefit. Displacing imported coal with local biomass would give birth to an industry, local jobs, and leverage existing generation and transmission assets in the province. “The tricky part is ensuring that the fuel is produced sustainably,” says Keith Stewart of WWF-Canada, who supports the idea of turning several units at the Nanticoke generating station into biomass burners. “If we produce 2.5 to 3 terawatt-hours of electricity from biomass at Nanticoke it would allow Nanticoke to play the stabilizing role for the grid it does now while creating an infrastructure for a biomass sector.” Local greenhouse operations in the area, by leveraging that infrastructure, would also have a steady supply of biomass that could replace the burning of bunker oil or natural gas.

For perspective, 2.5 terawatt-hours is about 10 per cent of the electricity that was generated last year in Ontario by OPG’s four existing coal plants — enough to supply 200,000 homes with electricity for a year. Generating this much electricity with biomass is an immensely ambitious effort, but if OPG can pull it off, it would set a fine example for other jurisdictions looking to reduce their dependence on coal power as talk of cap-and-trade heats up under an Obama administration.