PriceWaterhouseCoopers has come out with a handy chart for Canadian companies that are looking to “go green” but are also unaware of the incentives that are offered by the federal government and the provinces.  It has created charts for federal incentives, and also charts for incentives offered by different provinces. Click here to access the charts.

Just an update: U.S. joins IRENA to “speed up adoption of renewable energy.”

I’ll have more to say on this acquisition in a few days, but wanted to draw attention to GridPoint’s purchase of Lixar SRS, a scrappy but secretive energy management startup in Ottawa/Toronto that within the utility sector has attracted a lot of well-deserved attention. GridPoint, which has raised more than $200 million in venture capital, has been using that money to bolster its smart-grid software offerings. With Lixar is gets a flexible, user-friendly, cleverly designed energy management and demand-response system that works over multiple protocols and through any Web connection, be it PC-based, BlackBerry or iPhone. I’ve seen it in action and, in my humble opinion, it’s an impressive product.

While it’s a shame to see another promising Canadian venture scooped up by a foreign company, it seems GridPoint is serious about building up its Canadian presence and plans to more than double Lixar’s numbers in Ottawa. Lixar has built up quite a following within the industry, and it has done so quietly. Again, I’ll have more on that in a few days… stay tuned. But for background on what Lixar has done in Ontario, click here.

I just had to point this out ’cause it made me laugh. President Obama had a Q&A session Sunday with reporters about Friday’s House vote on the U.S. clean energy bill. Energy Secretary Steven Chu and Carol Browner, the White House coordinator on energy and climate policy, also sat in. First, I urge you to read the Q&A, which was published online by the New York Times. It never ceases to amaze me how knowledgeable and well-spoken Obama is on the energy file. He truly *gets it*.

At one point in the interview, Chu made the following comment:

Well, I just want to reiterate what the President said in terms of how do you prepare the United States for the future — with some reasonable certainty we’re going to be looking towards higher oil and gas prices 10, 20 years from today. I think what the contractors are finding out about the climate, especially in the last five years, we will be looking at a carbon constrained economy, whether it’s two years from now or 10 years from now.

So this is an opportunity for the United States to say that’s where the puck is going to be — to quote Wayne Gretzky — 10 or 20 years from now this is where it’s going to be, so why don’t we meet in this new industrial revolution, meaning that we’re going to get energy, abundant energy, the clean energy. So we have the ability to lead.

Obama then chimes in:

I just want to point out my Secretary of Energy used a *very cool* Wayne Gretzky metaphor.

Then Chu continues:

You know, here’s this skinny kid who is arguably the greatest hockey player in the world. And they say how — and he says, I position myself on the ice. Well, how do you do it? I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it’s been. And so for decades we’ve been trying to figure out how to — you know, this is where we wanted it — do we want it back to 1950? Well, it isn’t going to be back to 1950. And so this bill begins to say to America this is where it’s going to be and so why don’t we take the industrial lead on this.

I don’t know how many times I’ve heard the “where the puck is going to be” line in Canadian political speeches, particularly as it relates to energy. It’s become somewhat cliche here in Canada, so to hear Chu saying it kind of made me chuckle. Gretzky, of course, is a great Canadian. It’s ironic, given that the Canadian federal government appears to have lost sight of the puck.

It’s not enough. It’s too much. It will kill jobs. It will create jobs. If there’s one thing about climate politics, it’s tough to make anyone, let alone everyone, happy. Sure, Waxman-Markey isn’t the kind of tough-ass climate legislation many environmentalists were hoping for, but what’s the reality of scrapping it, starting from scratch and getting something better? Nil.

Fact is, it’s better than what was there before. And considering the U.S. position on climate issues only a year ago, it’s a pretty spectacular feat to pass this kind of legislation in the House in the middle of an economic recession. It’s better than what Canada has, I’m sad to say. And I’m counting on the fact that this piece of law — assuming it can be pushed through the U.S. Senate — will light a fire  blowtorch under Canada’s federal government. It’s not perfect, but it lays the foundation. At the very least, it positions that U.S. battleship in the direction of its target, when not so long ago that ship was completely off course.

Congrats to my U.S. readers and friends on this landmark vote in the House. As former vice-president Al Gore remarked this evening in a published statement, “We are at an extraordinary moment, with an historic opportunity to confront one of the world’s most serious challenges. Our actions now will be remembered by this generation and all those to follow — in our own nation and others around the world.”

Here, here.