Blog Profile / Clean Break
| URL : | http://tyler.blogware.com/ | |
|---|---|---|
| Filed Under: | Utilities / Energy | |
| Posts on Regator: | 202 | |
| Posts / Week: | 1.8 | |
| Archived Since: | April 4, 2011 | |
Blog Post Archive
55 “clean energy” projects get $82 million in federal funding… Great news, despite the calculated timing
The money that was set aside for clean energy initiatives in the federal Conservative government’s 2011 budget is finally beginning to trickle out, and while it’s a welcome boost for 55 project proponents — including 15 pre-commercial demonstration projects — the timing of this $82-million announcement is suspect. After all, Canada has been criticized for [...]
New study establishes first “definitive” link to well water contamination from shale ‘fracking
David Biello over at Scientific American has a story that looks at new research establishing a link between methane contamination in well water and nearby hydraulic fracturing of shale rock. The research comes out of Duke University and was recently published online on May 9 in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The Duke [...]
Charge your wireless gadgets while roasting marshmallows over a camp fire?
Power Practical, a company that sprang out of research from the University of Utah, has developed a pot that can charge wireless devices through a USB connection while boiling water. They call their device, no surprise, the PowerPot — retailing for $149. So far they have built and shipped 1,000 units after raising $126,000 through [...]
Ocean thermal energy conversion gets one step closer to commercial reality
An interesting announcement from Lockheed Martin this morning. The military contractor says it has signed a “memorandum agreement” with real-estate developer Reignwood Group, founded and run by Thai-Chinese businessman Yan Bin, the second-richest man in Beijing. What have they agreed to do? Lockheed says it will design a 10-megawatt ocean thermal energy conversion (OTEC) plant, [...]
Regen Energy partners with Carrier on its swarm energy management technology
Good to see local T.O. company Regen Energy getting traction in the market for its energy management devices, which use “swarm logic” to coordinate when flexible building loads turn on and off. HVAC giant Carrier has agreed to offer Regen’s product through its global distribution network, giving the technology greater exposure to commercial and industrial [...]
Catalyst breakthrough could change economics of hydrogen energy storage
I was in New York City doing a photo shoot for Corporate Knights when news broke that a duo of University of Calgary researchers had come up with a new, very inexpensive catalyst — i.e. rust — for generating hydrogen gas from water. Can’t believe I missed it, actually, because it received wide coverage — [...]
Divestment fever spreads to Canada as students, doctors launch campaign against fossil-fuel holdings
Calls in the United States for universities to divest their fossil-fuel holdings are starting to spread into Canada, where students and doctors are beginning to speak out. Students from across the country are taking part Wednesday in what’s being called Fossil Fools Day, described as the first national day of action for the Fossil Free [...]
Clean Break column in Toronto Star ends a 10-year run…
It was a trip to Iceland in June 2003, just months after the birth of my first daughter, that the immense need for and potential of clean energy first landed on my radar. The Toronto Star agreed to send me there so I could write about Iceland’s efforts to transition to a hydrogen economy. I [...]
Offshore wind opportunity grows in the Great Lakes, but not in Ontario
Is the offshore wind opportunity in Ontario permanently dead in the water? It was in February 2011 – an election year—when the Liberal government abruptly killed the ambitions of any wind developer looking to place wind turbines in the Great Lakes. It booted offshore wind out of the feed-in tariff program and it suspended all [...]
Plans for green jet fuel plant in Ontario north flame out
Nearly two years ago, an LA-based company called Rentech Inc. announced plans to build a biofuels plant four hours north of Sault St. Marie, Ontario. It would use forest waste and “unmerchantable” tree species for making renewable jet fuel and naphtha, a chemical feedstock used to make all sorts of products. That plant was supposed [...]
Is guilt the path to serious climate action? New labelling campaign wants to test theory that guilt works
You drive up to the gas pump, grab the nozzle and start filling up your car or SUV. Captive for a good two minutes, you look down and see a label on the handle of the nozzle showing a little boy staring out a window, his sad face reflecting in the glass. “Use of this [...]
Enbridge makes another clean tech investment — this time in flywheel storage
Enbridge Inc. is emerging as major corporate venturing partners in the Canadian cleantech scene. It has already acquired more than $3 billion in renewable energy assets — a combination of solar, wind, geothermal and run-of-river hydro. It has invested in concentrated solar PV manufacturer Morgan Solar and hydrogen tech firm Hydrogenics. It has pursued innovative [...]
Big data is the key to unlocking big gains in energy productivity
U.S. President Barack Obama set a new goal for America during his State of the Union address this week. He challenged states and municipalities, homeowners and businesses, to do more with less when it comes to energy consumption. “Let’s cut in half the energy wasted by our homes and businesses over the next 20 years,” [...]
GDP doesn’t accurately reflect the true impact — positive and negative — that mining has on our collective wellbeing
These days, the “North” is talked about more as a bank account full of easy money than as a beautiful and biologically diverse part of Canadian geography that should be cherished and protected. The challenge is to make it both. No question, the riches are there. A recent report from the Conference Board of Canada [...]
Another chapter in a very long EEStory
An eye-glazing technical press release was put out this week by Texas-based EEStor, a company that has spent more than a decade trying to bring low-cost, high-capacity and super safe energy storage to market. The next morning, Toronto-based ZENN Motor – a minority strategic shareholder in EEStor—saw its stock price shoot up 150 per cent. [...]
Firefly belly inspires way to enhance LED brightness by 55 per cent
A fond memory of my family’s annual camping weekend at Sandbanks Provincial Park is the late-night walk to the comfort station just before hitting the tents. With the sound of crickets haunting the evening and smell of campfire smoke on their hoodies, my daughters carefully scan the darkness in search of fireflies, or in their [...]
Could “switchable salts” be a game-changer for desalination market?
Canada, the land of abundant fresh water, has little need for desalination technologies to quench the thirst of its citizens. This makes it all the more amazing that Canadians are behind some of the most innovative new approaches to taking salt out of seawater, the need for which is expected to rise substantially over [...]
Wind power isn’t perfect, but it’s a hell of a lot better than the alternatives
Sorry, posting this a bit late. Have been swamped lately with work…. An intriguing story emerged last week about an Apple patent that has absolutely nothing to do with wireless gadgets, digital music, touch screens or the Internet “cloud”. The title of the patent, filed in June 2011, is “On-demand Generation of Electricity from Stored [...]
From the horse’s mouth: the Ontario PC plan to abandon green and go nuclear
Not that this comes as a surprise, but in case you thought the PCs plan to be gentle on the green energy file if elected, think again. Below are comments made on Dec. 19 by Progressive Conservative MPP Monte McNaughton, representing Lambton-Kent-Middlesex. McNaughton was speaking at a municipal council meeting, during which he outlined how [...]
Enough is enough: Wind industry needs to go on offensive in 2013
When Health Canada announced in July that it would study the relationship between wind turbine noise and health effects, the government said it was responding to questions from residents who live near wind farms. “As always, our government is putting the health and safety of Canadians first,” read a Health Canada statement, which outlined the [...]