William Roach, until recently the chief executive of Calgary-based oil sands investor UTS Energy, has joined Khosla-funded cleantech hopeful Calera, which has developed a way to turn CO2 and other industrial emissions into cement and other building products. Specifically, it takes CO2 and seawater and turns it into calcium carbonate, or limestone, which is used as a feedstock for cement. Calera claims its process is carbon negative, because it not only uses CO2 as a cement-making feedstock, it also offsets the CO2 that would otherwise be used during conventional cement-making.

It’s an interesting move for Roach, who led UTS until its major oil-sands asset — its 20-per-cent stake in the Fort Hills oil-sands mining project in northern Alberta — was sold to France’s Total SA for $1.5 billion.

GM’s Rob Peterson told MarketWatch that getting the Volt launched by 2010 is still a “top-priority program” for General Motors, which is staring bankruptcy in the face and is pleading — along with Ford and Chrysler — for a multibillion-dollar bailout from Washington. This is reassuring, and of course it makes loads of sense. If GM has any chance of getting more bailout money it has to convince U.S. Congress that it’s serious about changing its ways by producing vehicles that are more efficient and will help wean the United States from foreign oil. To cut back on the Volt wouldn’t send the right message to Washington, so the Volt in many ways is the only thing that GM has going for it. There’s also the fact that most of GM’s main competitors also have plans for plug-in hybrids and electric vehicles by 2010 or shortly after, so to stay competitive it really has no choice. (more…)

I was fortunate enough Tuesday evening to attend a small private dinner with GM vice-chairman Bob Lutz, who flew into Toronto following the launch of the Volt in Detroit earlier in the day. The 76-year-old auto executive was quite entertaining for his straight-shooting talk and occasional joke. (more…)