Air conditioner suck up a lot of energy in hotter months by dumping heat from inside buildings to the outside, ironically heating up neighbouring locations. A Stanford research team developed a more efficient cooling system for AC by pre-cooling water that circulates through the machine. It cools water during the
Continue readingTag: energy
Things Are Good: Wind Power: One of the Cheapest Sources of Energy
Sustainable and renewable energy sources continue to get more cost effective when compared to fossil fuel based energy. This is fantastic since the economics of scale are really kicking into effect around solar and wind technology. Thanks to better and more production wind turbines have become more effective and energy
Continue readingThings Are Good: How One Hawaiian Mayor is Making His Town Better
Hawaii is a beautiful part of the world and like most gorgeous parts pf this planet it’s feeling the pressures of climate change. Despite the American government’s blatant rejection of science and sense in environmental policy one Hawaiian mayor, Bernard Carvalho, is bringing his community into the 21st century. Indeed,
Continue readingThings Are Good: Alberta’s Carbon Tax Brings Cash to Great Programs
The Canadian province of Alberta is best known for the tar sands and the damage extraction of the bitumen has done to the planet. The province is now aware that their extraction economy won’t last forever because it isn’t renewable, so they have started to implement policies to make their
Continue readingThings Are Good: A Solar Solution on Indian Railways
The largest railway system in the world runs in India and it consumes a lot of energy to run it. Back when oil was more expensive they started looking into way to lower their fuel bill from using biofuel to solar. Today, they are running one solution that will save
Continue readingThings Are Good: Tonawanda Provides a Template for Transitioning a Town’s Economy from Coal
Globally, coal is on the way out and in America small towns are suffering because coal demand is dropping. The predictable plight of coal-backed small towns in the USA has some politicians trying to bailout the coal industry in order to protect jobs, which is obviously the wrong approach. Instead,
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: Fiscal situation of Canada’s ‘oil rich’ provinces
I’ve just written a blog post about the fiscal situation of Canada’s ‘oil rich’ provinces (i.e., Alberta, Saskatchewan and Newfoundland and Labrador). It consists of a summary of key points raised at a PEF-sponsored panel at this year’s Annual Conference of the Canadian Economics Association. Points raised in the blog
Continue readingEnvironmental Law Alert Blog: Kinder Morgan’s IPO: Risk > Reward
Thursday, June 1, 2017 Kinder Morgan’s risky Trans Mountain Pipeline expansion just got a whole lot riskier, just as the company was taking steps to offload some of that risk onto Canadian investors. That is why this week, we released a new legal brief outlining the legal risk for the
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: Ontario’s Electricity Sector III: Legislative & Finance Update
My January and March posts on the Ontario electricity sector described how decisions by different Ontario governments gave rise to excess electricity generation with an inflated cost structure, leading to higher electricity prices. Here I discuss the latest development, the Liberal Government of Ontario’s proposed financial framework for its “Fair
Continue readingEnvironmental Law Alert Blog: Why the Oil Tanker Moratorium Act is worth celebrating
Wednesday, May 17, 2017 On May 12, 2017, the federal government introduced Bill C-48, the Oil Tanker Moratorium Act, for first reading in Parliament. You could say that the Act has been almost half a century in the making. So, is it a win? Keeping in mind the old adage,
Continue readingEnvironmental Law Alert Blog: United we beat Enbridge: Celebrating the defeat of Northern Gateway with the people of Haida Gwaii
Monday, April 10, 2017 West Coast Environmental Law was happy to accept an invitation to attend a celebration in Gaaw (Old Massett) on March 25, co-hosted by Haida Gwaii CoAST and the Council of the Haida Nation, to mark the defeat of the Enbridge Northern Gateway project. Staff Counsel Gavin
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: Ontario’s Electricity Sector II: Political Economy Update
This is a third guest post by Edgardo Sepulveda, who is a Toronto-based expert in telecommunications and regulatory economics. Twitter: @E_R_Sepulveda By Edgardo Sepulveda In my previous post of January 29 I described how decisions by different Ontario governments gave rise to excess electricity generation with an inflated cost
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Leadership 2017 Links
The latest on the NDP’s leadership campaign. – Karl Nerenberg sees the youth debate in Montreal as having shown more differences in style than substance, while Christo Aivalis identifies some more clear distinctions. And James Munson examines the candidates’ positions on economic development, innovation and the social safety net. –
Continue readingEnvironmental Law Alert Blog: Wresting authority from the regulators: The proper role of the National Energy Board in environmental assessments
Friday, March 31, 2017 It is not every day that we have an opportunity to effect transformative legal change. It is natural, then, that when last summer a number of cabinet ministers announced the review of four key federal environmental laws, West Coast Environmental Law – along with other lawyers,
Continue readingThings Are Good: Renewables Had a Record Year in 2016
Renewable energy production is growing more every year and 2016 was no exception to that growth. In 2016 capacity of renewables increased by 8.7% and for the first time solar growth outpaced wind energy. Unsurprisingly the majority of the growth occurred in Asia seeing 58% of global growth happening in
Continue readingThe Canadian Progressive: What will it take to get Canada’s Arctic off diesel?
The planned Innavik Hydro Electric Project will provide clean energy and propel the indigenous Inukjuak community in Northern Quebec off its dependency on dirty diesel energy. But the project faces serious challenges, including lack of adequate funding, and mega hydro projects’ disastrous legacy of wiping out thousands of caribou and
Continue readingEnvironmental Law Alert Blog: A Kinder Morgan snapshot
Tuesday, March 14, 2017 It’s been a while since we’ve updated you about Kinder Morgan’s Trans Mountain pipeline and tanker expansion project (KMX). A lot has happened in the past few months, so here’s a snapshot of where we’re at. It’s been a while since we’ve updated you about Kinder
Continue readingThings Are Good: More Americans Working in Solar Than in Coal
The coal industry is failing and sustainable alternatives are on the rise. No matter what politicians do to try and “save” coal it’s clear that the dirty source of electricity is on its way out. A recent report revealed that in the USA more people are employed by the solar
Continue readingEnvironmental Law Alert Blog: Will the Pacific north coast oil tanker ban hold water? A review of Canada’s proposed new legislation
Tuesday, January 31, 2017 On November 29, 2016, the federal government announced that it will introduce legislation in spring 2017 to entrench an oil tanker ban on the north coast of British Columbia, and it provided preliminary details on the content of the legislation. In our new publication, West Coast
Continue readingEnvironmental Law Alert Blog: Will the Pacific north coast oil tanker ban hold water? A review of Canada’s proposed new legislation
Tuesday, January 31, 2017 On November 29, 2016, the federal government announced that it will introduce legislation in spring 2017 to entrench an oil tanker ban on the north coast of British Columbia, and it provided preliminary details on the content of the legislation. In our new publication, West Coast
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