Given this post-humus environmental footprint — and given our concern about climate change — innovation in this area is on the rise. In Denmark and Sweden, some municipalities are taking the waste heat from their local crematoriums and using it as part of their district heating systems. In North America, there’s a new technology called Resomation — generically, biocremation — that avoids incineration by chemically breaking down the body. A Toronto-based company called Transition Science Inc. has licensed the technology and recently signed up its first customer, cemetery and crematorium operator Park Lawn Trust, which plans to have its first Resomation system up and running in Toronto next spring. I’ve got an article on this company and the technology in today’s Toronto Star. You can read the article for a detailed description of how it works. It’s kind of yucky — basically the body is loaded into a metal chamber that’s filled with an alkali-based solution that, under heat and pressure, turns the non-skeleton portion of the body into a soapy soup that’s simply flushed down the drain (apparently it’s benign and gets treated in our wastewater treatment system just like what we flush down the toilet). The process uses a fraction of the energy required for cremation.

Sure, sounds gross, but since we’re always talking about the need for cradle-to-grave energy analyses, it makes sense that we leave the world in the most energy-efficient way possible. The interesting thing about biocremation is that plastic and metal devices left in the body — knee and hip replacements, pacemakers, stents, etc. — are retrieved in perfect condition and can be recycled. Alternatively, if you’ve got land to spare, you could always have a good old-fashioned burial.

Are we being paranoid? Maybe — but then again, the privacy erosion that came rapidly with the Internet caught many consumers and businesses off guard. Certainly, it’s worth learning from past mistakes and thinking about these privacy issues before, rather than after, the infrastructure and supporting applications for the smart grid are rolled out. Cavoukian co-authored the paper with Jules Polonetsky and Christopher Wolf, who are co-chairs of the Washington-based Future of Privacy Forum. Polonetsky, it should be pointed out, is former chief privacy officer of AOL and, before that, online-advertising pioneer DoubleClick, which was acquired by Google in 2007 for $3.1 billion (U.S.).

Disclosure: I co-authored a consumer privacy book with Cavoukian back in 2002 called The Privacy Payoff.

Those of you who regularly read this blog know that I’m a big fan of congestion charging and distance-based transport charging scheme. It’s the best way to manage the growing problem of congestion in large cities and to get more people taking public transit (not to mention the best way to raise funds for public transit expansion projects). It’s just silly that in Canada our property taxes go toward road infrastructure, even if you’re a household that doesn’t drive much and uses mostly public transit. Makes sense that the more road you use the more you pay to maintain that road. At the same time, there’s no way Canada could embrace a cross-country charging scheme, given our immense size, but certainly large cities such as Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver should be seriously looking at this option.

NOTE: Here’s a recent article in the Globe and Mail about pay-as-you-drive road charging schemes, in this case discussing a pilot test of technology developed by Toronto-based Skymeter Corp.

Certainly a big mission, but after chatting with Cody Friesen, Arizona State professor and founder of Fluidic, I quickly realized it’s not mission impossible. And it gave me great hope that five or 10 years from now, whether it’s Fluidic or EEStor or Premium Power or some other company, the big breakthrough we’re looking for will happen. And that, my friends, is an exciting thing.

I urge you to read this story on MIT Technology Review, posted today, which explains what Fluidic is doing and why it may overcome many of the challenges that have dogged the commercial, mass-market introduction of rechargeable metal-air batteries.

The University of Western Ontario, led by engineering professor and wind-analysis expert Horia Hangan, has been given the go-ahead to build a $24 million hexagonal wind tunnel, a first-of-its-kind in the world that will allow for the substantially more accurate study of the wind and how it affects wind turbines, buildings, bridges and anything else that’s constantly ravaged by this unpredictable and often devastating force of nature.

Called the WindEEE Dome, it will be a six-sided structure about 40 metres across and its walls and ceiling will house 240 high-power fans. The facility will be able to physically simulate all kinds of winds, from gusts and storm bursts to tornados and hurricanes. It will be unique in the world. Most wind testing tunnels are straight and unidirectional — i.e. a long tunnel with a bunch of fans on one side. The fans in the WindEEE Dome will be reversible and able to change direction, and can be controlled individually — even randomly as part of a program — to recreate natural chaos. Hangan expects to break ground on the project in a year and hopes to have the facility operational in 2011.

Check out my more detailed story in the Toronto Star.

By positioning smart meters as more of an infrastructure play the cost of deployment can be simply incorporated into annual capital budgets and households are more resigned to the fact that getting the new device is mandatory. Let’s face it, initially smart meters are about helping utilities manage their networks better — i.e. they can pinpoint problems and do more detailed analysis of individual household, neighbourhood, and community power consumption, improving system planning and maintenance operations and preparing utilities for increased distributed generation in their service territories.

By making this seem like some gift to consumers, as has been done, utilities open themselves up to consumers expecting certain results and wanting the option of getting or not getting the smart meter. I witness this every day in the e-mails I get and conversations I have with disgruntled Toronto Hydro customers. Later, once the smart meter infrastructure is in place, the utility can begin deploying the in-home monitors and Web applications that allow customers, on an optional basis, to better take advantage of time-of-use pricing and demand-response programs. This, of course, needs to be preceded by gradual price hikes that are blamed on the rising cost of new generation and grid renewal so that consumers more clearly see smart-meter-enabled applications as a way to offset those inevitable increases (which are simply the reality of our times, not the cause of smart meters).

So how, as my subject line hints, does time-of-use pricing potentially undermine programs that promote the uptake of domestic solar hot-water systems? I have one of these systems on my roof, and I like it. It works well. I’m not sure I use enough water every month to justify the payback (disclosure: I’m part of a pilot program, so when I say “payback” I’m referring to the typical installed cost of these systems), but it’s nice to know the hot water we use for our dishwasher, showers, and occasionally our laundry can come from the sun, not natural gas. But here’s the problem with time-of-use pricing. If I want to run the laundry or dishwasher when the hot water in my house is completely heated by the sun, I must do it during what are typically peak times under time-of-use schedules. It means I pay double for the electricity so I can save on the natural gas. Alternatively, I can do the laundry during off-peak hours when power is cheap, but the sun is down and my water tank relies more on natural gas.

So, it seems, this is a classic case of the law of unintended consequences — two programs aimed at reducing our use of non-renewable energy that end up undermining their respective objectives. This is a good argument against mandatory time-of-use pricing. At the very least, it’s a good argument for retail electricity providers such as Direct Energy, Bullfrog Power, and others who offer fixed-rate pricing. Using green-energy retailer Bullfrog Power, for example, is a nice complement to solar thermal because you pay the same rate for green electricity at any time of the day so are not penalized for running your dishwasher or laundry machine in the afternoon on a sunny day.

According to the survey of 1,510 adult Canadians, “a full 7 in 10 Canadians say it’s a social faux pas to do things that are environmentally irresponsible.” Dr. David Bell, a professor of environmental studies at Toronto’s York University, compares this social trend to how some people look down on smokers.

He said a combination of green legislation, public policy incentives and disincentives, and leadership from government, schools and corporations has increased awareness so much that he expects within five years the “eco-delinquent” label might stick. ”Canadians are starting to close the gap between their eco-beliefs and their actions — and while we have a ways to go, I see this country at the cusp of great social change,” said Bell.

I’m somewhat skeptical, at least with regards to his optimistic timeline. I do think that as a society we’ll have no choice but to change our views on such things. Just as we automatically fasten seatbelts, take out the green bin, and accept that smoking isn’t appropriate in public places, I think there will be a social stigma at some point attached to people who feel it’s their right to pollute and waste without limit, or who simply don’t think about the consequences of their actions in the grand scheme of things.

If and when we get to this point, I wonder if the pressure to Keep Up With the Joneses will create a market of green imposters — people who want to appear green, but don’t want to pay the money required to get there. I’m thinking about fake solar panels for residential rooftops, and stickers for cars and homes that suggest people have efficient vehicles or use green power…

It’s sad that I’m even considering such things.

Germany’s solar industries association, BSW-Solar, doesn’t like that very much. It has issued a position statement to its members, including some of the biggest solar PV module manufacturers in the world, urging them to raise their concern with Canadian and Ontario authorities. A European Union trade delegation also raised the issue during trade talks in Ottawa last week. Technically, however, I’m not so sure Ontario’s rules violate World Trade Organization agreements, as BSW-Solar claims. For one, the rules only apply to a portion of a project — not 100 per cent — so this doesn’t preclude any specific product made in Europe. Second, Ontario has not signed onto any WTO agreement regarding product procurement, and it’s doubtful whether this issue falls under a procurement scenario.

And let’s face it, even though Germany didn’t have specified local content targets, this is a cultural given. And because Germany was a first mover in Europe, and to a large extent globally, it really didn’t have to compete with many jurisdictions. It’s likely that BSW-Solar is worried that the German government’s plans to start lowering subsidies for solar will draw attention away from Germany and toward jurisdictions such as Ontario. It will, however, be interesting to see if this issue gets elevated to being a formal complaint filed with the WTO.

Of interest, Vestas has just opened a North American offshore turbine sales office in Toronto. From what I understand the location could have been either Boston or Toronto. It’s easy to read into the choice of Toronto as an early indication that the company is considering a greater presence in Ontario, but it’s too early to tell. Also, this morning Toronto Hydro got approval to put an anemometer in Lake Ontario off the Scarborough Bluffs, where the utility has interest in building a 100 MW offshore wind project. Expect an uproar from anti-wind folks in the area who have consistently and forcefully protested, not only the proposal, but just the idea of putting an anemometer on the lake.