Wednesday 25 November 2015

Le Pari de Paris (Paris Gamble) and Liberal Green-Washing

The article Le Pari de Paris by François Cardinal in the November 15, 2015 edition of La Presse is at the very best misleading, based on half truths and wishful thinking, and exemplifies a weak understanding of environmental and related economic challenges.


Global Momentum: No Excuse for the Liberals not Having a Plan in their Platform and/or Post Election Ideas/Proposals for Discussion
To begin, there is an incredible momentum among Canada's competitors to the effect that they are light years ahead of Canada on the migration to a green economy.  Therefore there is no excuse for the Liberals not having an outline of proposals to achieve significant greenhouse gas targets by way of applying foreign models to Canadian contexts.

For the first time since the post World War II period, thanks to the climate policies of China, the world's largest energy consumer, Europe, the US and other countries, demand for fossil fuels is flattening, as the world moves away from a resource-based economy.   

Concurrently, nations around the globe are intensifying their actions on climate change and the costs of clean technologies are declining rapidly.

Together these trends are jeopardizing the prospects for increasing global oil supplies, particularly supplies derived from expensive to extract reserves, such as those of the tar sands.  This implies the demise of the business model of the oil industry that is based on 1) strong growth and 2) high oil prices to reflect favourable supply-demand economics.

In keeping with these trends,  China's emissions and coal consumption declined in 2014.  More specifically, these results pertain to China being the world's largest investor in clean technologies, having installed 34 gigawatts of new solar and wind capacity in 2014 and invested $89.5B in clean energy investments in that year.  In effect, China's new clean electrical generation capacity added in 2014 represents 70% of current total Hydro-Quebec electrical production capacity, but China installed this order of magnitude of clean energy new capacity in a single year!

And then there is the acceleration of the momentum towards zero and low emission vehicles.  The Government of China has a target of 30% of vehicle purchases to be electric beginning 2016 and the production of 2M eco-vehicles/per year by 2020. 

California's zero and low emission vehicles initiatives are equally aggressive. 

Recognizing the writing is on the wall, UBS, the world's largest private bank, and the Chief Economist of BP, Spencer Dale, have both concluded that the fossil fuel era is over, with UBS saying that the green economy will be the emerging new economic paradigm by 2020 and BP's chief economist concluding that the majority of world's oil reserves are unlikely to ever be exploited. 

The former Governor of the Bank of Canada, and now the Governor of the Bank of England, Mark Carney, has more or less said the same thing referring to the majority of oil reserves as unburnable assets -- more commonly known as "stranded assets."

The reality is that China, Europe and the US have already demonstrated that a migration for a green economy offers a better economic paradigm that contributes more to job creation and growth than the traditional resource-based economy.  Indeed the green sectors offer 6 to 8 times more jobs per government investment unit than the traditional resource-based economy.

And the job numbers are staggering making the green sectors the highest job creation and growth sectors of our times, and this will only increase as countries around the globe become more aggressive on climate change.  There are now 3.5M jobs in the green sectors in Europe and there are 1.6M people working in China's solar energy sector and another 356000 in China's windpower sector.  Have a look at the clean energy job figures on page 63 of the report of The Renewable Energy Policy Network for the 21st Century.


Trudeau and Global Green Economy Development
That Trudeau's model for economic stimulus is infrastructure funding is troubling, a post World War II economic development model entailing spending money on increasing dependencies on personal vehicles as well as public transit.

If Trudeau was in tune with the emerging new economy, the lion's share of stimulus spending would go towards tomorrow's jobs or green economics.



Trudeau and Improving Canada's Environmental Image to Export More Tar Sands Oil
As for Justin Trudeau's current mindset on climate, he met with Obama in Manila to instrumentialize a positive pitch on the environment to convince Obama to import Canada's energy, tar sands supplies in particular.  This green-washing is nothing new for Trudeau because he had criticized Harper for not boasting of Canada's environmental record to get the Obama administration on side for Keystone.  In this vein, Trudeau had also congratulated the former Premier of Alberta, Alison Redford, for promoting Canada's environmental record as a means to get Washington to support Keystone.

"Coincidentally," Peter Kent, the former Conservative Minister of the Environment also considered his main job to be that of enhancing Canada's environmental image in order to export more oil.

Add to the cocktail that Justin Trudeau 1) has stated that opposition to Keystone and Energy East is not based on science and 2) told David Suzuki regarding David Suzuki's remarks that 80% of tar sand reserves must remain in the ground, that the Suzuki remarks in question are"sanctimonious crap."

All of the above comments concerning recent Trudeau's statements on instrumentalizing the environment to win the support of the Obama administration on pipelines are consistent with Dion's recent contributions to Liberal green-washing.  Stéphane Dion, as the new Minister of Foreign Affairs, and in reaction to Obama's rejection of Keystone, said we are going to need oil anyway.


The Liberal Failure Legacy on Climate Change: Due to a Lack of Commitment not an Absence of Ideas on How to Achieve Kyoto Protocol Objectives
Turning to your assumption to the effect that the Liberals can be excused for not knowing how to achieve significant reductions of greenhouse gases (GHG) when they were previously in power, it must be pointed out that the economic revolution towards the migration to a green economy began while the Liberals were in power.  This contrasts with the indications of your article of November 15, 2015 implying that the Liberal government can be excused for not knowing how to significantly achieve Kyoto GHG reduction targets.
   
By 2005, the EU had already achieved a 15% reduction in GHGs towards its 2020 target of the 20% reduction in GHG's by 2020.  Well on their way for achieving the 2020 EU GHG reduction targets, the European Wind Energy Association  predicts that 25 of the 28 member states would meet or exceed their 2020 targets of a 20% reduction of GHG be 2020. In other words, contrary to the Liberal nonsense, Canada was not suffering from a lack of good information on what needs to be done to achieve its Kyoto targets.

The European Union has since set a 2030 target of the 40% reduction in GHGs.

More important as a former Government of Canada employee 1) who's experience includes sustainable development policies, legislation, programs and projects and 2) having lived through several Liberal climate change action plans, I can attest that Stéphane Dion never had a serious strategy to achieve the Kyoto target. 

All of the former Liberal government's climate change action plans were pretty much the same, generous funding for clean tech innovation, but nothing else.  Eddy Goldenberg, Jean Chrétien's right hand manduring the previous Liberal reign, admitted much the same to the effect that the Liberals never had a plan to achieve Kyoto. 

Indeed, among the most amazing elements of the Dion plans for previous Liberal governments, was his attempt to convince the UN that, since trees absorb carbon, Canada should earn carbon credits toward Canada's Kyoto objectives for the existence of Canada's trees -- achieving the Kyoto target for doing nothing.  For this green-washing plan, Dion referred to Canada's trees as "carbon sinks." Fortunately, the UN rejected the Dion cheating plan.

As his last act before the previous Liberal government was defeated over the sponsorship scandal, Dion created a billion dollar Climate Fund to purchase emission reductions from the largest emitters.  This was designed as a pay the biggest polluters policy, rather than a polluter payer policy.

So it is no wonder that during the former Liberal reign emissions went up to 18.5% above 1990 levels by 2012. Indeed, Liberals were so lax that they allowed for a voluntary policy for vehicle manufacturers on automobile fuel consumption compliance.  This voluntary program allowed for the Canadian fuel consumption data, that were supplied by vehicle manufacturers without third party verification, to be way better than the fuel consumption for the same vehicles in the US.  This skewed the Canadian numbers on manufacturer-specific corporate average fuel consumption for vehicles sold in a given year.

The aforementioned lax approach on automobile fuel consumption was consistent with my Government of Canada employee experience associated with my sustainable development initiatives while the Liberals were in power, up until the arrival of the Harper administration. Put bluntly,  100% of the time, not 99%, when public interests and private interests were at odds, the Liberals always chose private interests.  Accordingly, it came as no surprise when it was revealed that Justin Trudeau co-campaign chair up until the last days of the election campaign, was Daniel Gagner, a TransCanada pipelines lobbyist.

Unfortunately, Louis-Gilles Francouer, formerly the environmental journalist of Le Devoir and now a member of BAPE,  was the only journalist during the era of the former Liberal government that wrote an article deflating the Stéphane Dion green balloon.  My own article on this and found above, pertaining to my perspective as a former Government of Canada employee during that era, goes into greater depth than the Francouer article.


Conclusions
Bringing us back to the present, our competitors are so much more advanced than Canada on the green economy that Canada, if it so chooses, can have the advantage of looking at global models to-date, for inspiration for a fast-forward plan to catch up. 

Thus it is pathetic that the Liberals went into the 2015 election indicating, and Christina McKenna subsequent to the election claimed, that the Liberals have no plan but would talk to the provinces and quickly come up with one by February 2016.

I say pathetic because acquiring inspiration from examples around the globe need not be daunting. On my own, I have produced a 45 page document on guidelines for a Canadian migration to a green economy that 1) constitutes a very comprehensive and synergistic action plan based on green economy models from around the globe which have been transformed into applications for a Canadian context, while incorporating analyses on how best to learn from the strengths and weaknesses of foreign models; and 2) integrates my Government of Canada experience, up until my retirement in June 2012, a) regarding sustainable development policies, legislation, programs, projects and other related initiatives and b) pertaining to the workings of the federal government and federal-provincial relations; what has been tried; what works; what doesn't; what needs to be changed to achieve effectiveness; and what gaps need to be filled.

To wrap up, comparisons of the Liberals' past record and current/recent statements indicate a continuation of green-washing rather than structured effective strategies.  As such, the Liberal lack of substance on climate policies is not, as you suggested in your article, comforting. 

That Trudeau's new improved theme to the effect that a better environmental record will make it easier to market tar sands exports is not comforting. 

That the Trudeau government is not up to speed that global demand for oil is flattening because of the successful advances of global green economy strategies among our competitors is not comforting

That Trudeau infrastructure/economic stimulus offers little to prepare Canada for the new economy, green economics, is not comforting.

Accordingly the jovial Emmanuelle Latraverse report on the Téléjournal of November 23, 2015 on the federal-provincial meeting to the effect that a better Canadian environmental record will help Canada in marketing its oil, represents just one more journalist falling into the trap of Liberal green-washing and Trudeaumania.

Indeed, there isn't any good excuse for promising to develop a climate plan in crisis mode based on fast-forward consultations with the provinces, a non-leadership plan that appears to be more like a continuation of the Liberal green-washing legacy.

Consequently your insinuation that the Liberals will pull an amazing rabbit out-of-a-hat for February 2016 is in itself amazing and primarily based on packaging/appearances rather than on content.  The Liberals are deficient on tackling climate change.

Monday 5 October 2015

IN DEPTH: Cleaning up Canada’s dirtiest province, Recharge News, By Karl-Erik Stromsta in Calgary Updated: Monday, October 05 2015

Fort McMurray, in the heart of Alberta's tar sands country

Fort McMurray, in the heart of Alberta's tar sands country





Here, after all, is a province with enormous wind and solar resources, cheap land, an enterprising spirit, growing demand for power courtesy of Alberta’s controversial tar sands, and a large and clever energy industry keen to invest in renewables (while also greening its image).
Yet in reality Alberta’s renewables market is in pitiful shape. The 300MW Blackspring Ridge is something of an anomaly, a result of now-defunct support mechanisms. Just a handful of mostly small wind farms are being built in the province and the queue of development-stage projects awaiting interconnection is dwindling as frustrated developers walk away. And with just 5MW of PV capacity, Alberta’s solar market never got started in the first place.
Thankfully, a possible saviour has appeared in the form of newly elected premier Rachel Notley, whose left-leaning New Democratic Party (NDP) won a shock victory in this spring’s provincial election on a pledge to clean up and diversify Alberta’s hydrocarbon-dependent economy. Notley’s win ended 44 consecutive years of provincial rule by the centre-right, oil-mad Conservatives, the party of Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper.
Although the NDP ran on unambiguous pledges to phase out coal while encouraging renewables, Notley has been short on specifics since taking office. Her government is readying a series of major climate and energy announcements set to coincide with the high-stakes UN climate talks this year in Paris.
Predictably, Notley has been met with a wail of warnings about undermining Alberta’s oil sector, the province’s long-time paymaster.
No-one knows exactly how the chips will fall. But it’s clear that big changes are afoot in Alberta, politically and perhaps culturally too, and in almost any scenario renewable energy stands to be a beneficiary.
There are many reasons why Alberta is a hostile place for renewables developers today, starting with the province’s deregulated power market — which is unique in Canada.
Unlike the other large provinces, whose power markets all have state-run procurement bodies at their centre, Alberta runs a purely competitive wholesale electricity market. It has no feed-in tariff, no renewable portfolio standard (RPS), and a carbon price that is laughably low.
It is difficult for renewables developers to secure off-take agreements in Alberta, which in turn makes it difficult to finance projects, industry sources say. Unsurprisingly, then, coal and natural gas supply about 90% of Alberta’s electricity.
Enbridge, the Calgary-based pipeline giant, owns Blackspring Ridge with EDF EN Canada, and would like to build more renewables in Alberta. But it doesn’t make sense to do so in the current market, says Lino Luison, vice-president for green power, transmission and emerging technology.
“Texas is a deregulated market, too, but there are plenty of off-takers there who will sign long-term contracts for renewable projects,” Luison tells Recharge. “That’s what’s missing here in Alberta.”
Alberta has a respectable 1.5GW of wind in place today, the third-highest among Canada’s provinces, and more than neighbouring British Columbia, which has a larger and more green-minded population.
Yet nearly all of Alberta’s wind was built on the back of support mechanisms that no longer exist — including a lapsed federal wind incentive — and, as in the cases of Blackspring Ridge and the 150MW Halkirk, Alberta’s two largest wind farms, the ability to generate renewable-energy credits and sell them in California.
Compounding the challenges of Alberta’s spot market is the fact that most of the province’s 950 or so wind turbines were built across the same windy region in the south. That means they come on line and generate power simultaneously — flooding the wholesale market and further depressing prices.
rachel_notley.jpgUntil the election, Alberta’s government was largely indifferent to the plight of renewables. The Conservatives paid lip service to the sector, but much of their plan to “green the grid” centred on fantasies of carbon capture and storage (CCS).
“It’s fair to say that you couldn’t have done less for renewables than what was done in the past by the provincial government,” says Grant Arnold, chief executive of Calgary-based developer BluEarth Renewables.
A new threat has emerged recently in the form of depressed oil prices, which have hit Alberta’s economy hard and clouded the picture for future power demand.
Taken together, such factors paint a bleak picture for renewables in Canada’s “energy province”.
There used to be more than 5GW of development-stage wind waiting for a grid connection in Alberta, says Robert Hornung, chief executive of the Canadian Wind Energy Association. Today the figure is down to about 1.5GW.
The shrinking pipeline is “a reflection of investors either feeling like they have better opportunities elsewhere or just lacking confidence that they’ll be able to find a way to finance and build projects in Alberta”, he says.
“As a destination for wind investment, Alberta has become less attractive over time.”
Turning things around will not be easy, but many of the necessary pieces seem to be falling into place.
To spark a vibrant large-scale renewables market, developers need some way to secure bankable power-purchase agreements. Many in the industry believe an RPS would be the simplest way of making that happen; others talk of a stiff carbon tax.
In normal times, one would laugh at such suggestions, but these are not normal times in Alberta.
The provincial election has been described as one of the worst electoral defeats in Canadian history. After more than four decades in charge, the Conservatives’ share of seats in the legislature fell from 70% to 10%. The NDP held four seats in the provincial legislature beforehand; now they hold 54 seats — or 62% of the total.
Climate and energy may not have been Notley’s top priorities during the election, but the NDP did not hide its feelings on the matters. Among its explicit campaign promises were reducing Alberta’s greenhouse gas emissions, reviewing the amount of tax paid by oil companies, accelerating the phase-out of coal, and boosting renewables. They also promised to stop spending public money on lobbying for controversial pipeline projects such as Keystone XL and Northern Gateway, and to end the Conservatives’ “costly and ineffective CCS experiment” — diverting the money instead towards public transport.
Almost immediately after taking power, the NDP announced that Alberta’s carbon price will double by 2017, a symbolically important gesture even if the price will still be too low to result in meaningful emissions reductions.
Most importantly, Notley convened a panel of stakeholders and experts to undertake a wholesale rethink of Alberta’s carbon strategy. The results will be revealed in time for the UN climate talks in Paris in December, with new policies likely to be in place by early 2016. Canada’s wind and solar sectors are working furiously behind the scenes to press their case for a central role in Alberta’s energy future.
Vestas, the dominant supplier of wind turbines in Alberta, has had recent meetings in the province, says David Hardy, the company’s senior vice-president for sales, based in Portland, Oregon. “There’s a lot of optimism,” he says.
For all the excitement over Alberta’s new leadership, it’s important to keep realistic expectations. Notley is not going to disembowel the oil sands: the economic opportunity they represent is simply too large, and issues she cares deeply about, such as healthcare and childcare, benefit from a thriving oil sector.
Even accounting for recent low oil prices, market researcher IHS predicts production from the oil sands will rise 30% by 2020, reaching 2.9 million barrels per day — nearly twice as much as Norway produces today.
Yet bringing major changes to Alberta’s energy sector may not be as difficult as it would first appear.
For starters, low oil prices actually give the NDP some political cover. Albertans are tired of their boom-and-bust oil economy, and crave economic diversification. The 20 permanent jobs created by the Blackspring Ridge wind farm may not sound like much, but they count for enough in nearby Carmangay (population 367) that a turbine blade sits in the middle of the village like a war-hero statue.
Albertans are also sick of being cast as climate villains. The province’s climate infamy is not undeserved: its per-capita emissions are five times higher than Ontario’s, and by 2020 its emissions may equal those from Ontario, Quebec and British Columbia combined.
Alberta has two options for making a meaningful dent in its emissions in the medium term, says Ben Thibault, programme director for electricity at the Pembina Institute, a Calgary-based clean-energy think-tank. It can scrap its money-spinning oil sands, or it can clean up its own electricity mix.
Put like that, replacing Alberta’s coal-fired plants with renewables seems an obvious choice. “Even the previous government may have been starting to recognise that, but they just took forever to do anything about it,” Thibault says.
In pivoting towards renewables, Notley will not face the kind of uniform corporate opposition that might be expected in Alberta. One distinctive feature of Canada’s renewables industry is that many of its largest players are also major fossil-fuel companies — including TransCanada, Suncor, TransAlta and Enbridge.
Companies that own large coal plants in Alberta — such as TransAlta and Capital Power — may not be happy to see the province quit coal, even if they’re investing heavily in renewables elsewhere in Canada. But other large Alberta-based energy companies, including those knee-deep in the oil sands, may quietly welcome the change.
In addition to seeing an opportunity for new investment, such companies may have an ulterior motive: Some energy experts believe that a greening of Alberta’s grid could help the province open up export markets for its fossil fuels.
With the NDP in power, “no-one will accuse Alberta of having a tight partnership between government and industry”, Bob Page, former vice-president for sustainability at TransAlta, told the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. “I think that will help speed regulatory approvals for projects like [TransCanada’s] East Energy pipeline.”
Even Notley, speaking on election night, said her aim was not to dismantle Alberta’s energy sector but to re-angle it so “we build bridges and we open markets, instead of having a black eye”.
With the right policy signals finally in place, Alberta’s renewables market — both wind and solar — could take off quickly.
“There’s a lot of megawatts out there that are partially developed, if you will,” says Arnold. “The cost of wind power is competitive with virtually any newbuild in the market. And solar has moved radically in price. We think it will be competitive in Alberta in the near term.”
John Gorman, chief executive of the Canadian Solar Industries Association, says that Alberta is “without doubt the next big solar market in Canada”.
Oil prices will rebound at some point, and with them Alberta’s growing demand for power. The oil sands — the world’s third-largest proven reserve of crude — are “very much a tailwind” for renewables, says Luison.
Many of the problems plaguing Alberta’s wind sector will soften over time. The challenge of geographic concentration, for example, is waning as specialist low-wind turbines come to market, allowing developers to conquer new regions.
Even Alberta’s spot market may eventually be a boon for renewables, allowing developers to build projects whenever they’re deemed competitive, without having to wait for bid-in rounds like those now favoured by Ontario.
Meanwhile, the uncertainty hanging over other Canadian provincial wind markets will steer developers towards Alberta, says Hornung. “If Alberta emerges as a market with a well-defined opportunity, people will gravitate towards that.”
For now, all eyes are on Notley and Alberta’s upcoming climate strategy. “We’re hopeful,” says Arnold, a born and bred Albertan who once worked for Suncor.
“There’s tremendous opportunity in Alberta,” he says. “We’ll be here when the market’s ready.”

Monday 24 August 2015

New Vehicles Legislation on Fuel Consumption: The Case for a Made In Canada Approach

The Canadian Tradition of Emulating the US Approach
For the last several decades, the fuel consumption requirements imposed on the vehicle manufacturers in Canada were the same as those applied in the US.  The premise of the Conservatives and Liberals alike, has always been that Canada has no choice but to emulate the US, because Canada is part of an integrated North American market. 

That line of thinking is half right.  Canada is part of an integrated North American market but 1) to-date the vehicle manufacturers have gotten off easier in Canada than in the US and 2) Canada does have option of more stringent stipulations within the North American framework.

What is a Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE)
To put the above considerations in context, thus far what has been the same in Canada as in the US, are the obligations that each vehicle manufacturer must comply with corporate average fuel economy (CAFE) standards, standards which each year incrementally decrease the required average fuel consumption of vehicles sold.

These CAFE standards are sales-weighted, which is to say, that a CAFE year-specific goal represents the mandatory minimum average fuel consumption for all vehicles sold by a given manufacturer, in a given country, in a given year.  Thus, the greater the proportion of sales associated with the high energy consuming models, the worse will be a manufacturer's CAFE and the more difficult it would be for the manufacturer in question to comply with the CAFE standard for the year concerned.

At least, this is the way things stand prior to 2016.

The new US Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) legislation which comes into effect for the 2016 to 2025 period is written in a way that allows a corporate compliance target to be moving target.  That is, should the manufacturer sell a "higher than expected" number of larger (higher fuel consumption) vehicles, that manufacturer would be have the "privilege" of having a higher than desired average fuel consumption compliance target.

Unfortunately, Canada has adopted the above-described new US CAFE formula while continuing to leave more wiggle room for manufacturers under the Canadian CAFE than under it's US counterpart.  As a result, the Canadian approach risks encouraging the dumping/marketing of the larger vehicles on the Canadian market.

By contrast, as outlined in the Made in Canada section of the article, there are options for Canada to have more stringent requirements than the US, without any of the constraints associated with the integrated North American market, and consistent with the actions of 8 US states.


Canadian Fuel Consumption Numbers Not the Same as the US for the Same Models:
Implications for CAFE Compliance and Information Provided to Consumers
The following are the reasons behind the Canadian CAFE more lenient than that of the US CAFE.

To begin, the fuel consumption figures used to determine a manufacturer's compliance or non-compliance with CAFE targets are not the same in the US and Canada.  The Canadian numbers highly exaggerate what one can expect on the road, while the US numbers are not far off from what the consumer can expect under SUMMER driving conditions.

In the US, the formula for churning out the numbers is based on a combination of test results that are subject to mathematical calibrations to reflect the on the road experiences of consumers.

Furthermore, in the US, though the manufacturers are responsible for doing the testing, to keep them honest, the US Environmental Protection Agency randomly tests about 15% of the models.  This aspect of the US system seems to work quite well.

However, in Canada the manufacturers do their own testing and their data is not verified by the Government of Canada.  This is how we end up with vehicles rated as having exceptionally better fuel economy in Canada than the very same models in the US.

The implications are that 1) the calculation of a manufacturer's year-specific Canadian CAFE is not reliable 2) it is easier for a manufacturer to comply with a Canadian CAFE target for a the year in question than it is to comply with the identical US CAFE target for the same year and 3) Canadian consumers are mislead as to the fuel consumption to be expected for the models on our market.

With regard to the latter point, knowing that the fuel consumption ratings claimed by the manufacturers via their advertising are not credible, that is, exaggerated, Canadian consumers are discouraged from taking into account fuel consumption ratings when making a selection for a vehicle.

The New US CAFE Rules for 2016 to 2025 are Too Complex and Too Lenient
The US CAFE stipulations that apply to the 2016 to 2025 period, as negotiated by the Obama administration with the automakers in 2010, are represented by a 1500 page government-auto manufacturers agreement and new legislation that is 300 pages long.

As indicated earlier, Canada has followed down the same path as the US.  This is a pity because the US path for 2016 to 2025 is a departure from the greenhouse gas reduction principles of previous CAFE legislative models, leaving the automakers with more flexibility than ever before, flexibility that undermines the spirit behind the GHG reduction goals.

It has been surmised that the reason why President Obama was so accommodating to the industry was because the circumstances in 2010 were such that the US-based vehicle manufacturers had just come out of a near death experience and consequently they needed breathing room for their respective recoveries.

In theory, nevertheless, the US had adopted laudable targets, with the 2016 CAFEs set at 6.2 litres/100km for cars, and 8,2 litres/100km for trucks, and the 2025 CAFE target for cars at 4.3 litres/100km.  Pretty impressive, one might say.  But the devil is in the details of the 1500 page agreement and 300 page legislation.

Under the new 2016 to 2025 US CAFE formula, distinct fuel economy targets are established for each category of vehicles.  These categories are defined in terms of a footprints, as measured by multiplying the distance between the front and real wheels (the wheelbase) by the distance between the right and left wheels (the track).

Where the new (2016-2025) US CAFE rules depart from the spirit of the original CAFE goals relates the fact that the mandatory CAFE for a given manufacturer becomes more lenient should a manufacturer sell a greater proportion of vehicles in the larger footprint, or the high energy consumption footprint categories.

Put another way, the US government "..will establish a distinct target for every automaker that is based on its footprint categories and sales."

This means that the aforementioned laudable US fuel consumption targets are not hard defined targets at all, but rather "... are projections because, unlike today, when every manufacturer's car and truck fleet must meet the same mandated corporate-wide sales-weighted fuel consumption average, the future requirements will be instead based on the size of each vehicle in a manufacturer’s fleet." ".. calculated by averaging the footprint-based CAFE targets of each and every vehicle it sells in a given model year," and adjusting  "the miles-per-gallon targets to match the industry's real-world production tallies and market conditions at the end of the year."

The result is that the CAFE goal becomes a moving target to suit the whims of auto manufacturers.

It has been said that footprint targets will be regularly adjusted to be consistent with the overall corporate fleet average targets mentioned above.  But the complexity of the 300 page legislation and 1500 page agreement with the automakers seems to suggest the automakers and their respective corporate lawyers could have "fun" with this.  For legislation to be effective, it must be clear, minimize the caveats and be reasonably succinct.

As if all these "willful loopholes" are not enough to be dismayed with Obama agreement with the automakers, even the US "virtual manufacturer-wide CAFE targets" are not that ambitious when compared with those of the European Union.  In the EU, the average emissions/vehicle is set at 95 grams for 2020 while the US target for 2025 works out to be 93 grams.

Canadian Wiggle Room for More Stringent CAFE Targets and
More Ambitious Goals on Low and Zero Emission Vehicles
In rethinking the Canadian CAFE -- not only with regard to the aforementioned greater leniency of the Canadian CAFE compared with the US CAFE  -- there also exists an option for Canada to adopt more stringent CAFE targets than those of the US.  The implications for the manufacturers would simply take the form of having to adjust the distribution of models made available on the Canadian market, to be different than what is placed on the market in the US.

Since manufacturers have always had differences between the selection of models offered on the US and Canadian markets, a more stringent Canadian CAFE would just accentuate the differences, but without imposing any technological constraints on the auto industry.  As such, a more demanding Canadian CAFE would not create any undue challenges pertaining to the North American integrated market.

As well, Canada could join California and 7 other US states in requiring that a certain percentage of sales be zero emission vehicles and low carbon (hybrid) models, beginning in 2018.  The required percentage would incrementally rise through to 2025.

The seven other states are Connecticut, Maryland, Massachusetts, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, and Vermont.

The Content and the Merits of a "Made in Canada" CAFE Model
Taken together the above information suggests it is time for a Made in Canada solution.  Such a Made in Canada solution could have components along the following lines.

Back to Simpler CAFE, One Without Loopholes
First, and perhaps most important, a Made in Canada solution need not be as complicated as the US departure from the original company-wide CAFE concept -- a departure which allows the auto industry to stray from overall manufacturer-wide CAFE targets whereby the targets are adjusted to fit with vehicles sales, rather than the other way around.  This allowance for a higher aggregate fuel consumption is in reality a license for the manufacturers to promote the higher profit models with the help of advertising images of SUVs climbing over rocks and speeding along narrow winding roads at the edge of cliffs.

A far superior model would be that of straightforward Canadian CAFE targets pertaining to the average fuel consumption for all vehicles sold by each manufacturer, for each year -- without there being any footprint categories.

By taking this path, the Government of Canada would have the necessary assurance that its goals would be met.

Eliminating the Built-in Leniency of the Current Canadian CAFE and Providing Reliable Information to Consumers
Second, to address the current built-in leniency of the current CAFE approach, new fuel economy testing methods and calculations could be introduced to be similar to, but not the same as, the US Environmental Protection Agency methodology, with a number of significant differences.  To this effect, it would make sense that a Canadian testing procedure include WINTER DRIVING conditions with snow tires on and that the test results would be properly calibrated to reflect on the road experiences.

Also borrowing a page from the US, the Government of Canada would be wise to randomly test around 15% of the models put on the Canadian market.  In addition, the selection of vehicles for government testing could include models for which there have been a significant numbers of complaints and/or have been identified as problematic for other reasons.

By taking this approach, 1) the Government of Canada would have reliable data for calculating the CAFE of each manufacturer and 2) consumers would have reliable information for comparing vehicles on the market, thus encouraging them to take fuel consumption ratings more seriously than at present when purchasing a vehicle.

Joining California and 7 Other US States on Targets for Zero and Low Emission Vehicles
Third, as alluded to above, the Made in Canada solution could surpass the US federal government approach without hitting any landmines associated with the integrated North American market, by adopting legislation similar to that of California and 7 other states regarding the percentages of sales that must be zero emission vehicles and low carbon vehicles beginning in 2018,  with the mandatory percentage incrementally increasing through to 2025.

For those who might suggest that Canada cannot do this because it is part of an integrated North American market, one might want to remind them that California has roughly the same population as that of Canada and all 8 US states taking part in "enhanced low/zero emissions targets" are part of the North American market.  Indeed, should Canada participate in the "enhanced approach," it would be helping the automakers improve their economies of scale for meeting the requirements of the jurisdictions in question.

Scope for More Stringent Legislation than that of the US Federal Government
To sum up, Canada not only has considerable scope for having more stringent vehicle fuel consumption legislation and targets than that of the US, it can pursue such a strategy without creating havoc to the integrated North American market.

Tuesday 21 July 2015

German offshore surges to 2.78GW as industry seeks reassurance, By Bernd Radowitz Recharge News in Berlin July 20 2015

Installation underway at Dan Tysk

The DanTysk project in the German North Sea was one of the projects to swell the country's capacity




A combined 1.77GW of capacity was grid-connected from January to June, pushing Germany's accumulated online offshore capacity to 2.78GW, able to supply roughly three million German households with electricity, Deutsche WindGuard said.
The research company calculated the figures on behalf of national wind federation BWE, VDMA Power Systems, the energy arm of German engineering federation VDMA, and three offshore wind groups.
Another 90 turbines, or 380.7MW of capacity, are fully in place and waiting for a grid-connection, while foundations for a further 84 turbines have been installed.
The industry expects a total of around 2.25GW to be feeding into the grid for the first time this year off Germany's North and Baltic Sea coasts, likely bringing the total grid-connected capacity to 3.3GW by year-end.
That would already be half of Germany's 6.5GW offshore wind target for 2020.
"The expansion continues with additional projects: nine projects comprising turbines with a total capacity of 704.4MW are under construction. The final investment decisions are on the table for five more projects with 1,482.8MW," said Jörg Buddenberg, chair of the working group for Offshore Wind Energy AGOW.
Adding wind parks already in construction and those with a final investment decision to the already-installed capacity, the industry reaches 82% of the government's 6.5GW target.
With 2.48GW, most of the grid-connected capacity is in the North Sea, while 310MW is in the Baltic Sea, where German coastal waters are much more limited.
Jörg Kuhbier, chairman of the Offshore Wind Energy Foundation, cautioned that a continuous grid growth is needed for the future expansion of offshore generation, saying that the latest draft of Germany's Offshore Grid Development Plan (O-NEP) doesn't foresee sufficient new grid capacity.
"The smaller the number of grid connection systems with available capacity, the more limited is the competition between the projects within the scope of future calls for tender," Kuhbier said.
"The reduction of electricity generation costs that is meant to be achieved through competition would be made unnecessarily difficult if the grid ends up as a bottleneck again."
The industry also wants the government in Berlin to announce the rules for future offshore wind tenders soon to be able to plan accordingly. As Recharge first reported earlier this year, Germany plans offshore wind tenders to start as soon as late next year.
"The offshore wind industry will already need clarification of the tendering design in 2016 so that expansion can be continually moved forward," says Norbert Giese, chair of the VDMA steering committee for the offshore wind industry and chair of wind energy agency WAB. Giese is also vice president for offshore at Germany-based turbine manufacturer Senvion.
"To avoid a stop-and-go situation in the market, it is also imperative to create clear rules for the transition from fixed-rate remuneration to a competitive tendering process for every model. We will keep value creation and employment in Germany, and expand through additional exports," Giese added.

Europe moves slowly but surely towards offshore supergrid By Darius Snieckus Recharge News in London,Monday, July 20 2015

A North Sea supergrid is seen as the spearhead of a pan-European network that would underpin greater co-operation to integrate renewables

A North Sea supergrid is seen as the spearhead of a pan-European network that would underpin greater co-operation to integrate renewables





Construction of a North Sea supergrid — seen as the spearhead of a pan-European network that would underpin a flexible energy market and greater regional co-operation to integrate renewables — could at last be gathering pace, now that the main contracts for the biggest of several planned "ring main" offshore interconnectors have been handed out.
Last week, contracts totalling €1.5bn ($1.65bn) were awarded for the 1.4GW North Sea Network (NSN) trunkline between Norway and the UK. Cable suppliers Prysmian and Nexans will provide the high-voltage DC (HVDC) link, with the $450m order for the converter stations at either end of the line going to power technology group ABB.
Prysmian will handle the 950km of line for the North Sea sections of the route, with cables fabricated at its Arco Felice factory in Naples, Italy, and installation carried out by the cable-laying vessel Giulio Verne. Nexans is supplying the fjord, tunnel and lake sections of the NSN, made up of 500km of HVDC cables manufactured at its Halden, Norway, plant, which will be laid by its Skagerrak vessel. ABB will deliver converter stations using its HVDC Light technology.
NSN, slated to be in operation by 2021, will form a key link in a newbuild offshore transmission infrastructure that will include the recently approved 1.4GW NordLink line between Norway and Germany; as well as the Viking Line between Denmark and the UK; and the Nemo Link between Britain and Belgium, both of which are at an advanced planning stage.
Tied together with existing interconnectors such as the 1GW BritNed line linking the UK and the Netherlands, the Norway-Netherlands' 700MW NorNed and the 2GW IFA line connecting the UK and France, and the potential for a supergrid capable of pulling in the North Sea's rich wind resources — potentially 65GW by 2030, enough to make up more 25% of electricity generation in Europe — comes into focus.
Although critical to the longer-term future of Europe's renewables vision, bigger and beefier interconnectors are only a first step in the region's electricity infrastructure build-out. What is needed, according to the offshore wind industry, is a"meshed" grid woven between these trunklines that would mean the giant projects off Britain and Germany now on the drawing boards could be wired in over much shorter (read "less expensive") distances.
The savings from a meshed grid would be enormous. Estimates varying widely, from €1.5bn to €13bn, but even by the European Commission's more conservative calculations, the figure could be €5.1bn — a major fillip for the fast-evolving offshore wind business.
Expansion and reconfiguration of the European grid to deal with coal and nuclear plant retirements and the rapid growth of offshore wind generation represents a big prize indeed, according to figures from Navigant Research. Over the next decade, the continent is expected to account for more than half of the submarine cable projects around the globe, a market forecast to grow from $16.8bn this year to $24.8bn in 2024.
Led by Europe's Energy Union framework project, the Dutch, who take over the EU presidency in the first half of next year, could exercise great sway in how swiftly plans for a North Sea network move from idea to reality.
But it could be Britain, armed with a soon-to-be-unveiled study — contributed to by developers of the Dogger Bank, Hornsea and East Anglia mega-zones — on the regulatory changes needed for a meshed grid that proves most influential over the medium term, not least as it holds the EU reins for the second half of 2017.
The paradox for offshore wind infrastructure is that unlike the wider sector, it is the regulatory side that is lagging behind the technology.
Ultra-large turbines and high-capacity, low-loss HVDC lines are moving towards the mainstream. Matters of financial and regulatory logistics and how cross-border offshore power is transported, allocated and traded need concrete resolution before the European supergrid can be reeled out in full.