Green energy sector jobs surpass total oil sands employment

Canada’s green energy sector has grown so quickly and has become such an important part of the economy that it now employs more people than the oil sands.

About $25-billion has been invested in Canada’s clean-energy sector in the past five years, and employment is up 37 per cent, according to a new report from climate think tank Clean Energy Canada to be released Tuesday. That means the 23,700 people who work in green energy organizations outnumber the 22,340 whose work relates to the oil sands, the report says.

Jobs, Jobs, Jobs: Not From Keystone -- From Clean Energy

As Congress tries to go around President Obama to approve Canada's Keystone XL tar sands pipeline, we continue to hear about jobs, jobs, jobs.

If members of Congress are so concerned about jobs, why in the world are they willing to bet our future on the Canadian pipeline while refusing to support crucial, overdue policies that will expand clean energy that's homegrown right here in the USA?

Canada Missing Out On Green Energy Revolution, Report Says

At a time when investment in clean energy technologies is growing worldwide, Canada is “looking the other way” and risks missing out on trade and growth opportunities, according to a new report from an advocacy group for green energy.

The study from Clean Energy Canada was released Monday to coincide with the United Nation Climate Summit in New York City. It says Canada spent $6.5 billion on the renewable energy transition last year.

Senators Call For Extension Of Key Energy Tax Credits

WASHINGTON -- Twenty-four senators are asking the leaders of the Senate Finance Committee to renew a slate of tax credits for renewable energy and efficiency, some of which are set to expire at the end of the year.

Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) took the lead on the letter, sent to Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus and the committee's ranking member, Orrin Hatch. In it, Markey identified 10 different tax provisions designed to benefit clean energy that the senators want to see extended as soon as possible. Twenty-two Democrats and two Independents, Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Angus King of Maine, signed the letter, which argues that the tax incentives help create jobs while lowering greenhouse gas emissions.

Desert Solar Power Presents Opportunities For Green Energy, But Challenges In Application

The vast and glittering Ivanpah solar facility in California will soon start sending electrons to the grid, likely by the end of the summer. When all three of its units are operating by the end of the year, its 392-megawatt output will make it the largest concentrating solar power plant in the world, providing enough energy to power 140,000 homes. And it is pretty much smack in the middle of nowhere.

The appeal of building solar power plants in deserts like Ivanpah’s Mojave is obvious, especially when the mind-blowing statistics get thrown around, such as: The world’s deserts receive more energy beamed down from the sun in six hours than humankind uses in a year. Or, try this one: Cover around 4 percent of all deserts with solar panels, and you generate enough electricity to power the world. In other words, if we’re looking for energy—and of course, we are—those sandy sunny spots are a good place to start.

Is green energy fading to black in Ontario?

Queen’s Park has downsized its supersized Samsung renewable energy deal.

Once hailed as the miracle cure for Ontario’s ailing industrial sector, it has been cut down to size — by a hefty $2 billion.

Is green energy fading to black?

Where's the Vision for Clean Green Jobs?

There was a time when the British Columbia Liberal Party had some vision for how the government might reshape the provincial economy to provide good jobs and benefit the environment, said Mark Jaccard, a professor of environmental economics at Simon Fraser University.

"Prior to Christy Clark, Gordon Campbell did contact me from time to time," said Jaccard in a phone interview from Washington, DC where he was attending a meeting. "Green jobs from reducing greenhouse gasses in our province were something BC Liberals talked a lot about. She has changed the discourse."

The giants of the green world that profit from the planet's destruction

The movement demanding that public interest institutions divest their holdings from fossil fuels is on a serious roll. Chapters have opened up in more than 100 US cities and states as well as on more than 300 campuses, where students are holding protests, debates and sit-ins to pressure their to rid their endowments of oil, gas and coal holdings. And under the "Fossil Free UK" banner, the movement is now crossing the Atlantic, with a major push planned by People & Planet for this summer. Some schools, including University College London, have decided not to wait and already have active divestment campaigns.

Changes to LNG Plan Pull Plug on Jobs Say First Nations

When Premier Christy Clark unveiled her liquefied natural gas (LNG) strategy just over a year ago, it had the look and feel of a grand compromise.

The Liberal government's plans included at least three new LNG terminals on the North Coast (one of them producing enough liquefied gas to fill seven B.C. Place Stadiums each day) and hundreds, perhaps even thousands, of tankers navigating its pristine waters.

Cheaper green energy storage solution invented by Calgary profs

A new discovery by a pair of University of Calgary chemists could make the large-scale use of wind and solar energy more feasible.

Curtis Berlinguette and Simon Trudel have invented an environmentally friendly, highly customizable way to make a key component in a process that stores electricity by turning water into hydrogen fuel — at a price they say is roughly 1,000 times cheaper than current methods for making that component.

Clean Power Collateral Damage: Of Birds, Tortoises And The Transition From Fossil Fuels

Is kickstarting a clean-energy industry and accelerating a movement away from fossil fuels worth the expense of, say, a few desert tortoises or a collection of piping plovers? If so, how many of these threatened species would you be willing to sacrifice to build a commercial wind farm, or a utility-scale solar array?

It's a stark and oversimplified way to frame things, of course, but the exercise helps to highlight the reality that renewable energy has environmental impacts, too. It's a point that was raised with me recently by Eric Glitzenstein, an attorney representing, among other groups, the Alliance to Protect Nantucket Sound, a determined and well-funded coalition of residents in and around Cape Cod who are opposed to the construction of an offshore wind farm in nearby waters.

Tories short-sighted on green energy

When Peter Julian visited his in-laws in Shandong province in 2011, he was struck by skies which, depending on weather, either were grey, or grey and wet.

The New Democratic Party MP for Burnaby-New Westminster recalls, on sunny days, blue skies were absent with the sun appearing only faintly as a faint yellow blob behind thick haze.

As NDP energy and natural resources critic, Julian lately has been thinking a lot about greenhouse gas emissions.

Report urges federal support for clean tech

The federal government should create a national clean energy plan to stabilize the playing field and foster growth for emerging clean technology companies, says a report to be released Tuesday by the Pembina Institute, an Alberta-based research organization.

Based on interviews with leading executives, entrepreneurs and academics, the report concluded that clean energy growth in Canada was at risk from foreign competition.

Making petrol out of fresh air?

Aberdeen, Scotland - With one of the world's most famous railway lines, Stockton-on-Tees has already given birth to one transport revolution. On September 27, 1825, it carried the first ever passenger rail service along its 40km route through industrial north-east England - changing the world forever.

Today, it is at the centre of another technological breakthrough that some scientists and engineers believe could be just as significant as steam locomotion.

Strong conservation laws and policies could foster green growth, Peter Kent told

OTTAWA – Strong environment laws and policies could foster growth for Canadian businesses in a rapidly expanding green economy, Environment Minister Peter Kent was told in an internal government memo obtained by Postmedia News.

“The clean technology sector in Canada looks to governments to overcome existing barriers to allow it to realize its economic and environmental potential,” said the memo, sent by Kent’s former deputy minister, Paul Boothe, a few weeks before the last federal budget. “Environment Canada… leads the green growth (and green economy) file for the government of Canada and plays an important role in fostering clean technology innovation through well-designed environmental regulations and policies.”

Brigadier General On Keystone XL Pipeline: 'All Americans Should Be Outraged'u

In an interview with HuffPost Live Thursday, former U.S. Army Brigadier General Steven M. Anderson spoke out against the building of the Keystone XL pipeline, warning that "all Americans should be outraged" about the national security implications of the project.

"I want to stop paying big oil and I want to start seeing a green economy in this nation," he told host Alicia Menendez. "And big oil is pushing Keystone, and Keystone is essentially going to maintain the status quo for another 25 years. And during that time I can only imagine the impact it's going to have on our environment and, indeed, our national security."

Wave Power to Prove Its Mettle with 30 Megawatts to be Built Off Mexico's Coast

Wave power is the oft-forgotten cousin of solar and wind power. It has huge potential, but it is not quite as far along as the better known sources of clean power, so it tends to be overlooked. But it shouldn't! To clean up our power grid we'll need all the help we can get. Granted, in many places where wave power would work, offshore wind power would also work, but that might not be the case everywhere (ie. very deep water), and if wave power's cost can be brought down enough, that might not even matter.

Dalton McGuinty scores an assist as WTO torpedoes Ontario green strategy

Say goodbye to Dalton McGuinty’s green industry strategy for jobs and manufacturing. The World Trade Organization may have put the boots to it. But the Ontario premier and his government were unwitting accomplices.

Critics are already denouncing the trade body for vetoing a Buy Ontario plan designed to revitalize the province’s manufacturing base.

Federal investment in clean energy would create 20,000 new jobs

If the federal government invested the $1.3 billion it gives the oil and gas industry annually in subsidies into clean energy, the cash injection would create nearly 20,000 new jobs across Canada, according to a report by an organization of unions and environmental groups.

Blue Green Canada hopes the report, to be released Thursday morning, will spark a serious discussion about a national green energy strategy going into the 2013 budget, said Mark Rowlinson, United Steelworkers assistant to the national director and president of Blue Green Canada.

Green Economy: Canada Needs Strategy Or Risk Losing Competitive Edge, Axed Panel Says

OTTAWA - Low-carbon goods and services are the way of the future, and Canada had better embrace that fact or expect to lose its competitive edge, says the National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy.

The federal advisory body lost its $5.2 million in annual funding in the last budget, and is using its very last breath to design a national environment-and-energy framework that would position Canada to become a global player in the burgeoning low-carbon economy.