THIS WEEK

Why Ontario's electricity grid is on a polluting path, Canada's biggest pension plan makes a big investment, and the 'carbon bombs' that could push us over the limit

EV POLLING

Ontarians unhappy about EV adoption

Clean Energy Canada and Abacus Data polled Ontarians on climate action and EVs in the lead up to the provincial election, finding that 55% think climate change is a serious problem and more action needs to be taken to fight it, with only 13% saying we should do less. Only 25%, however, think Premier Doug Ford would agree with that assessment.

The majority (63%) of Ontarians also believe (correctly) that, when you look at the lifetime costs of a car (including maintenance, repairs, insurance and energy to power it), electric vehicles are cheaper than gas vehicles. But when informed that EV sales in Ontario lag the pace seen in other parts of the country, a majority are unhappy and would either like to see Ontario keep pace (28%) or lead (28%).

As Clean Energy Canada’s transport lead Joanna Kyriazis put it, “A lack of provincial EV policies has meant that the majority of new EVs made for the Canadian market are sent to Quebec and B.C., making it even harder for Ontarians to get behind the wheel. And with gas prices soaring, the longer the wait, the more wallets will be squeezed at the gas pump. EVs offer a popular and effective solution to both climate change and rising living costs. It’s time for the provincial government to do more to help Ontarians make the switch.”

Gridlock

Over the next 20 years, Ontario’s electricity emissions are set to rise 400% as the province (which has prevented the expansion of renewable energy projects) plans to burn natural gas to compensate for the planned closure of the Pickering nuclear plant. Canada presently has a relatively clean electricity grid at 83% non-emitting; increasing fossil fuel use for electricity would be akin to fumbling the ball in a game you were winning. As Clean Energy Canada’s Mark Zacharias told the Toronto Star, a low-emissions grid is a huge competitive advantage—one that will only grow as more industries electrify their operations. “Some of our steel is already among the cleanest in the world right now. (We) need to keep it that way to maintain our export competitiveness.” This came in the same week as news that Ontario lost out on a new battery plant because of a lack of transmission capacity, showing the real world consequences of poor electricity planning.


Shattering even more records

Ontario’s polluting power projection is not shared by the rest of the world. In fact, the International Energy Agency anticipates that 2022 will be (another) record-breaking year from renewable capacity, with a huge 320 gigawatts expected to be added. The prediction comes as solar and wind exceed expectations around the world. As this Bloomberg story points out, “Spain and other Mediterranean countries generated record amounts of power from wind and solar farms last month, underscoring the potential for renewables to replace expensive fossil fuels.”


Power in the oil patch

Renewables are on the rise in the Prairies too. Construction is slated to begin later this year on a 38-turbine, 192-megawatt wind power plant in Medicine Hat, Alberta. Meanwhile, Alberta energy storage company Enfinite is tripling the size of its investments in lithium-ion batteries “to allow more renewable power generation onto the province’s power grid.”


A pension with a plan

Investors are also eyeing the size of the prize. The Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan, one of Canada’s biggest pension funds, is investing “up to $1-billion” in a new offshore wind business launched by Australian finance giant the Macquarie Group. With many countries accelerating away from volatile and often foreign-controlled fossil fuels, the CEO of Macquarie’s new offshore development company believes wind power is “at the start of an exponential growth curve.”


Clean construction

In case you missed our webinar last week on “Buy Clean” policy (where governments prioritize lower carbon construction materials in infrastructure projects), you can watch it again here. As we discuss on the webinar , Buy Clean is having a moment right now, in large part because it helps grow demand for cleaner construction products that, in turn, support domestic manufacturers. And with Stockholm-based clean steel producer H2 Green Steel pre-selling ​​more than half the planned capacity from its forthcoming steel plant, it’s clear that buyers are already lining up to purchase low-carbon materials—even at a premium.


A fuss about buses

Residents of Toronto, Ottawa, Regina and Saint John will soon be hopping aboard more electric buses as the cities have “advanced” their respective e-bus plans, according to this Electric Autonomy summary. Meanwhile, Montreal transit operator Exo is also realizing big electric bus ambitions, after funding from the provincial government advanced its plan to “acquire more than 135 electric buses within 20 years.”


‘Carbon bombs’

The Guardian has published exclusive data showing that a number of the world’s biggest fossil fuel companies are planning “carbon bomb” oil and gas projects (several in Canada) that would push the world past 1.5C—the warming limit required to avoid the worst effects of climate change. As the story puts it, “these firms are in effect placing multibillion-dollar bets against humanity halting global heating.”


Attribution required

Last week brought yet more concern about the impacts of climate-induced extreme weather events, in this case droughts, on the global population. With such events intensifying, the World Weather Attribution initiative has produced a useful guide for journalists to help them accurately represent the links between extreme weather and climate change. The guide (translated into eight languages) details a number of attribution studies and offers advice on how to discuss the impacts of climate change when there is no specific attribution study.


Hydrogen goes huge

Mining giant Anglo American has unveiled the world’s biggest green-hydrogen-powered truck at a mine in northeast South Africa. The company plans to replace its fleet of 40 diesel-powered trucks, each of which uses about one million litres of fuel annually. The new trucks will be powered by green hydrogen made using electricity from a solar plant.

The Clean Energy Review is co-authored by Trevor Melanson and Keri McNamara
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Clean Energy Review is a weekly digest of climate and clean energy news and insight from across Canada and around the world.

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