Just got word tonight that the Toronto Works Committee has voted unanimously to defer the issue of Segway use on city sidewalks to Toronto Legal Services. Robyn Reisler, who runs Segway of Ontario, asked the Works Committee to take this measure. “We felt this would give the legal group ample time to investigate the Segway in depth, and with all the precedents world wide we would be able to live with their recommendations,” Reisler told me in an e-mail. At the very least it will stop uninformed knee-jerk reactions. I completely understand why a pedestrian committee would raise safety issues regarding Segways on sidewalks. But to immediately compared them to bicycles, which are technically illegal on sidewalks, and then to recommend they continue to be banned is a bit premature at this point. As suspected, a co-chair on the pedestrian committee confirmed that nobody on the committee has ever taken a ride on a Segway. Basing decisions on the unknown isn’t the right way to go.

Up in Canada, the big news here in the solar industry is a company called Spheral Solar, which is actually a wholly owned subsidiary of manufacturing automation specialist ATS Automation Tooling Systems.

I wrote a fairly lengthy piece about this company back in November. It makes flexible solar modules of about 10 per cent efficiency using a new production method. Basically, they pop pin-size holes in an aluminum sheet and fill the holes with tiny poppy-seed sized balls of silicon. They then bond each side and voila, flexible solar modules ideal for integration into building supplies and other applications that require flexible materials.

Spheral Solar has been busy ramping up production and is likely to start expanding capacity because of the huge demand for solar modules in a market — thanks to Germany and other European countries — short on supply.

ATS, by the way, also has a France-based solar PV subsidiary called Photowatt, and there’s been some talk lately in investor circles of the benefits of spinning out Photowatt, Spheral Solar or both through an initial public offering — a strategy that would likely unlock some major value hidden under the publicly traded ATS umbrella. Considering the major growth in the solar sector the timing couldn’t be better.

Cypress Semiconductor’s surprise announcement last week that it will pursue an IPO for its own SunPower solar subsidiary certainly draws more attention to ATS’s plans for Spheral Solar. MacMurray Whale, an alternative energy research analyst with Sprott Securities in Toronto, pointed out that Cypress’s stock jumped 15 per cent on the SunPower IPO announcement, even though it coincided with weaker-than-expected earnings.

“The steep rise in the face of the disappointing results seems to be a result of an announcement on the conference call that Cypress will IPO its photovoltaic cell unit, SunPower, sometime in 2005,” wrote Whale in a research brief.

“ATS could see a similar appreciation in share price if it moves to IPO Photowatt, SSP, or a combination of the two.”

Whale is upbeat about ATS’s solar business. Photowatt is ramping up supply to meet huge demand in its own backyard. In the face of an industry silicon shortage that’s driving up the prices of solar PV cells, he says Spheral Solar is in a good position because its production method requires only 40 per cent of the material used by a conventional PV cell, and the silicon that is used is lower grade than, say, the stuff the semiconductor companies and traditional PV manufacturers require. Spheral Solar’s manufacturing process also allows the company to recycle its silicon to eliminate needless waste of the material.

So overall, the timing seems right for a Spheral Solar/Photowatt IPO. No doubt ATS is considering its options. Perhaps it will wait for the SunPower offering before making its move. Either way, it’s great to see so much momentum in this industry.