While the clunky, bureaucratic Mexican showdown that is Copenhagen unfolds on the other side of the planet many here are wondering why Alberta Premier Ed Stelmach stayed home? Alberta has been THE major emitter in Canada for many years now, and some have pointed out that if not for the oil rich province (whose tar barons hold the country hostage)we would’ve been able to meet our Kyoto targets in the first place. Of course, if not for that oil rich province our National and regional economies would also be in a far less competitive position. Which is yet another good reason for Stelmach to go. Environmentalism is slowly becoming about economics, and one of the driving forces of economics is technology. Regardless of whether or not we use oil and gas to fuel our vehicles Alberta will remain in a strong position because nearly everything else that we use in our daily lives comes from oil too. And while those plastics and materials slowly off-gas while we enjoy them they don’t carry the sheer volume of emissions that vehicles do, and don’t get me started on the effects off the tar sand operations on the water and biogeography of Alberta.

But many believe the Province is in a good position to become a greentech and cleantech leader. “Cleantech is the new gold rush for business,” says John Goetz, a Calgary lawyer who leads the climate-change and emissions-trading group at Fraser Milner Casgrain. This according to an interview in the Vancouver Sun, where Goetz cites the economic spin-off effects of cleantech activities. Several other services are supported by cleantech activities including legal and other services. And investment in greentech-cleantech has been growing, to the point where some were shocked into calling bubble alert.

There’s demand for these clean technologies. There are jobs to be created, messes to clean up, and international friends and allies who we shouldn’t let down. It’s time people started realizing that the environment and the economy are not on opposite ends of the spectrum, they are intimately entwined. Where they converge most noticeably is in the green industries that are offering solutions to the problems that politicians bicker about endlessly in talks. If we continue to invest in dirty technologies we’re investing in the past and present. By investing in cleantech we invest in the present and future- and it’s profitable. Venture capitalists figured that one out, let’s hope the Canadian government and Albertans can too.

Right now there’s a technology and design competition going on in Washington D.C.’s National Mall (which is ironically the crappiest mall for shopping in the whole country). The contest, called the Solar Decathlon is pitting 20 teams formed of universities, colleges and design schools from around the world against eachother and aims at pushing the boundaries of self sufficient and energy efficient home design. Vancouver is represented by some talented SFU students whose Team Ontario/BC  or Team North as they prefer to be called (also comprised of Ryerson and Waterloo students) is within striking distance of the podium; currently in 6th place with 6 more days to go. The team scored the highest out of the 20 entries in the Comfort category – ironic considering most new homes in Vancouver are 500 square feet. Tell me…what am I going to do with 40 sq feet of “flex space”? More like a 40 square foot junk drawer. Anyhow…

This contest has laudable aims, but if I may be critical for a moment, we’ve had much of this technology and many of the concepts for a much longer time than many people think. The Earthship design concept has been in use since the 1970s and despite being in every state and, dozens of countries and having a major planned community in Taos New Mexico it is still largely a novelty housing design. Two of the fundamental ideas underpinning the Earthship philosophy is that we have enough post-consumer material to construct buildings with-we don’t need to cut down forests or mine new areas, and that we have enough energy to power a home coming directly from the sun, wind, or from geothermal sources. It’s a psychological barrier more than a technological or material one that we need to pass. In mainstream media these houses are said to be “made of garbage” when in fact much of what we use today is made of garbage. Green public building projects have adopted the Earthship philosophy into their concepts and many new roads, parking lots, and other projects are now made from post consumer products. At a civic level the impetus for it is frugality and utility, the barrier at the personal level is access and ego. We want new things, shiny things, but these materials themselves are not useful only in one specific format. And they become a technology when their use is altered. It is this notion that technology has to be new rather than useful, and its journey to our hands is through a top down distribution, that forms this barrier in my opinion. An old tire isn’t building technology- it’s just garbage. Rainwater isn’t drinking water, and electricity is something made by big companies, not something that can be harnessed by individuals. By and large these are in fact truisms, anchored in cultural static, but by no stretch are they absolute and unchangeable. Earthships defy this notion of technology by incorporating things like tires and cans to hold infill or insulation in foundations and walls. Old materials, new process, new technology. Is it accessible to the average man on the street? Economies of scale hasn’t entered the business plan lexicon of the Earthship community by my esitmation. Nevertheless, they remain pioneers and I believe they’ve helped to pave the way for events like the Solar Decathlon.  

Despite the fact that sustainable housing is in fact an older and more established idea than the Decathlon might let on, I am very excited about the event because it does put focus on making these concepts and designs more market-ready. Earthships (perhaps because of their outrageously hokey name) are still considered a fringe design- but these houses on the National Mall of the United States, the most powerful economic force on the planet, are bringing these concepts to the forefront. They incorporate modern design and convenience with the spirit of technological innovation. I hope they’ll be the rule and not the exception one day soon. That’s just the way things go though. It takes a while for new technology or approaches to bubble to the surface sometimes, and after that it takes even more time for the public to accept them as normal. The microwave became popular in the 80s- it was invented just after WW2. Don’t even get me started on the secret space program. I think we’re full on Star Trek next gen at this point. But that’s for another post. In THE FUTURE….(insert whoosh sound)

Good luck Team North!

In an earlier post I lauded Angela Merkel for seeing greentech (or cleantech) as a means to propel Germany and the EU out of the recent recession and not just a bone to throw out to voters, like some Canadian politicians seem to view it. Turns out that Greentech allround has truly come into itself as a strong investment engine once again, not only in Europe but here in North America and perhaps most of all in China. It’s only taken 30 years- including Tesla’s inventions about 100 years I suppose- but I’m feeling pretty positive about the recent news that Cleantech has become the largest U.S. venture capital sector and that China’s cleantech market was now potentially valued at one trillion annually. But really, we have few other options considering the finite and externality plagued industrial sectors of old are running out of gas- literally. So is it Obama’s generous opening of future American’s wallets that has caused this impressive growth? Some believe it is. I’ve been critical of Obama not putting enough funding into specific large scale greentech projects in the past- but maybe he and his super genius advisors knew that the scent of government funding to VC is like the scent of blood to sharks. In any event the funding for greentech still remains lower than it was in 2008 according to Daily Finance but the news is positive.

Instead of a frenzy of survival investments, the “IPO market has clearly reopened” as  Parker Weil, co-director of the Merrill Lynch and Bank of America’s North America Energy and Power Group stated at a recent conference in San Francisco. Basing this belief on a number of things but perhaps most notably on the explosive success of A123 Systems’ IPO on the market late last month.  As the A123 System website shows, they were recipients of a US Department of Energy Grant to build better batteries. That grant money came out of the Obama stimulus bill. So maybe my past criticisms can be abayed for now.

So what’s going on in Canada and in British Columbia?

Well, in Alberta the new Carbon Technology Fund has been growing thanks to the abundance of greenhouse gas emitters in that province. Now with $120 million to burn, Greentech is the buzzword in Edmonton.

In March Ontario announced a $250 million Greentech fund while shortly after that the Canadian Federal Government launched a $850-million clean energy fund, about $650-million of which goes more or less directly to Alberta in the form of carbon capture and storage initiatives. Something I believe the oil companies should be using their insane profits for instead of receiving tax dollars.

In Vancouver, Premier Campbell and Minister Stockwell Day celebrated the arrival of a hydrogen fuel cell powered bus.  The bus is the first of what will eventually be the world’s largest fleet of fuel cell busses at 20 strong. The 2008 BC energy plan makes lots of noise about new emissions standards and in the process through the ICE (Innovative Clean Energy Fund) has “approved investments of over $47 million in 34 projects” throughout communities in the province (even though the fund is only $25-million) helping to develop clean and renewable energy; the exact details of which I would love to know. The Provincial Liberals seem committed to hydrogen, even though it has proved to be less viable than other forms of energy. Could it be that when they started thinking clean was cool, Ballard’s stock was roaring, and they haven’t really put much thought into it since? In any event, the fact that a new coal mine in the province is being seriously proposed, discredits any green credentials the current BC government is trying to build in my opion.  And the mine has nothing to do with our energy needs either- 40% owned by Japanese and South Korean interests it will be for coking, in the manufacturing of steel products made in those countries. Much like Norwegian Salmon Farming corporations who own 90% of industrially farmed salmon operations in BC, keeping the profits but leaving the province with 100% of the pollution and problems, the BC government is keen to open the door to our environment to foreign interests once again. If the BC liberals really want to get greentech cred they’d embrace closed containment technology for salmon farms, like China has for trout, and put a stop to the Raven Site mine proposal.  Both activities will otherwise take their environmental tolls in the same area of our Province, the Georgia Strait. And to the overall health of our environment globally.

So to sum it up, BC is being outdone by both China and Alberta when it comes to investing in clean, green technologies. How does that make you feel? You Alberta and China slagging, granola chewing, MacBook using, lululemon wearing, mountain biking, grouse grinding British Columbian?

$25 million to greentech in our province? And 100 million to a new coal mine? When Alberta is dwarfing BC in funding for cleantech, and China is embracing the clean technologies produced and rejected here, you have to shake your head and wonder how hypocritical it makes us look? Or rather how hypocritical the current provincial government make us look? Maybe, if and when, Gregor Robertson is Premier, he’ll take the same kind of leadership he’s shown in Vancouver with the Vancouver Greenest City initiative and we can really have something to show for in the province. Until then, we’re chasing the cleantech train instead of riding it.