Last October, we posted a blog titled, Beware of BPA When Buying? about the average cash register using BPA-receipt technology (not all cash registers do) having 60 - 100 mg of the substance available and ready for uptake. This may occur through the skin or by being transferred onto food and ingested.
Well now the Environmental Working Group (EWG) has found that 40% of the 36 receipts sampled from major U.S. businesses and services, including McDonald's, CVS, KFC, Whole Foods, Walmart, and Safeway, contained BPA. Testing also determined that the total amounts of BPA on the tested receipts were 250 - 1,000 times greater than other exposure sources.
Receipts from some major chains, including Target, Starbucks, and Bank of America ATMs, were BPA-free or contained only trace amounts, clearly indicating that BPA (pdf) exposure via cash register receipts isn’t the way it has to be.
Click here for more information on the EWG study.
Wednesday, July 28, 2010
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
Clouds looming over Ontario solar power
After receiving an avalanche of applications (over 16,000 in just eight months) for Ontario’s Feed-in Tariff (FIT) program, a new incentive for renewable electricity generation, the Ontario Power Authority (OPA) have proposed reducing the guaranteed price paid for ground-mounted solar power projects.
Frustration is building, and rightly so, with the OPA and the Ministry of Energy and Infrastructure over the surprise change in price. Currently, both ground-mounted and rooftop projects under 10kW are eligible for the 80.2 cents/kWh FIT rate. The new proposed category would reduce the FIT price for ground mounted solar projects to 58.8 cents/kWh (a 27% decrease).
As expected, the solar industry is overheating, but they are not the only ones calling foul. The Ontario Federation of Agriculture has voiced its concern demanding the minister restore the original rate as farmers stand to lose a considerable stream of income and have in some cases already made major investments. Today, the Ontario Environment Commissioner has publicly stated that Ontario's solar sector is being harmed by uncertainty around the microFIT. MicroFIT Action, a website dedicated to a petition on the proposed price change, has also popped up and a group called the Ontario Solar Network is hosting a town hall meeting tomorrow night.
The OPA claims that the current FIT price results in a higher than expected rate of return for ground-mounted solar projects. While their price assumptions could be correct, opponents to the price change argue that the process of setting the assumptions is not transparent. They argue that money has already been spent and contracts have been signed with landowners at the original price and developers expected to be rubber stamped by the OPA. They had no reason to believe otherwise. The integrity of the FIT program is itself being challenged as investors question whether or not the program will remain stable enough.
No one disputes that the FIT rates should be adjustable. In fact, FIT programs are designed to decrease over time as the prices of technologies go down. The Netherlands have an annual review. Germany uses predetermined regression in price and a periodic review. Portugal’s FIT price is linked with technology targets. Spain’s system uses a hybrid of these. Ontario was planning a two year review, but is changing the price abruptly at less than 12 months.
Ontario needs to stick to a program, not change the rules mid-game. If we do, people won’t want to play on our home turf.
Frustration is building, and rightly so, with the OPA and the Ministry of Energy and Infrastructure over the surprise change in price. Currently, both ground-mounted and rooftop projects under 10kW are eligible for the 80.2 cents/kWh FIT rate. The new proposed category would reduce the FIT price for ground mounted solar projects to 58.8 cents/kWh (a 27% decrease).
As expected, the solar industry is overheating, but they are not the only ones calling foul. The Ontario Federation of Agriculture has voiced its concern demanding the minister restore the original rate as farmers stand to lose a considerable stream of income and have in some cases already made major investments. Today, the Ontario Environment Commissioner has publicly stated that Ontario's solar sector is being harmed by uncertainty around the microFIT. MicroFIT Action, a website dedicated to a petition on the proposed price change, has also popped up and a group called the Ontario Solar Network is hosting a town hall meeting tomorrow night.
The OPA claims that the current FIT price results in a higher than expected rate of return for ground-mounted solar projects. While their price assumptions could be correct, opponents to the price change argue that the process of setting the assumptions is not transparent. They argue that money has already been spent and contracts have been signed with landowners at the original price and developers expected to be rubber stamped by the OPA. They had no reason to believe otherwise. The integrity of the FIT program is itself being challenged as investors question whether or not the program will remain stable enough.
No one disputes that the FIT rates should be adjustable. In fact, FIT programs are designed to decrease over time as the prices of technologies go down. The Netherlands have an annual review. Germany uses predetermined regression in price and a periodic review. Portugal’s FIT price is linked with technology targets. Spain’s system uses a hybrid of these. Ontario was planning a two year review, but is changing the price abruptly at less than 12 months.
Ontario needs to stick to a program, not change the rules mid-game. If we do, people won’t want to play on our home turf.
Wednesday, July 14, 2010
Ontario workers are doing a sun salutation over new solar jobs in Toronto and London
In mere days, two big announcements for green manufacturing in Toronto and London. This type of massive shift in Ontario’s economy has been a dream for many environmentalists and workers alike, as Ontario positions itself as a leader in the new green economy.
Canasia Power Corp announced Tuesday that they would establish a solar module manufacturing facility in London, Ontario. The facility would initially have a 50MW annual capacity, employing roughly 100 people, but as capacity grows to 200MW, it will employ over 500 people.
SunEdison and Samco Machinery Ltd, a struggling Scarborough auto parts manufacturer, also announced yesterday that they would be retooling an Ontario factory to produce equipment for solar power projects in Ontario. Steps to retool the plant have already begun and the racking systems it will produce are expected to roll off the line as early as September 2010.
Samco has lost 37 % of their workforce, mainly due to a 63 % decline in automotive sales. The new contract is expected to increase their workforce by 25%, with 100 direct and indirect jobs expected as a result of this investment.
Samco Machinery credits this surge in demand to Ontario’s new feed-in tariff (FIT), guaranteed rate paid for renewable power. The FIT program has a local content requirement that requires renewable energy project developers to use equipment made in Ontario.
SunEdison has already made several announcements as a result of projects to be developed under the FIT program. In April, SunEdison announced it would be build 14 rooftop solar projects totaling 3MW in the Toronto area for the development and property management firm Remington Group. In June, SunEdison announced they would begin construction on eight systems totaling 2.1 MW hosted at facilities owned or operated by LaSalle Investment Management.
Swann Dive
What's up with Liberals straying from their roots in the faint hope of attracting Conservatives?
Latest up: Alberta Liberal leader David Swann, an honest-to-goodness nice guy who came to prominence by getting fired by the Ralph Klein government for supporting Kyoto.
Now, he's going against federal Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff for the latter's promise to formalize a tanker ban in BC waters, a move that would effectively end Enbridge's pitch to bring dirty oil from the tar sands to the BC coast.
Last time I checked, BC voters were overwhelmingly against having supertankers plying their coastline - those are of course voters that Mr. Swann by definition cannot court, unlike Mr. Ignatieff.
Which raises the question: exactly which voters is Mr. Swann going after here? His two biggest provincial rivals are trying to out-do one another with their pro-tar sands rhetoric, whereas polls show that Albertans have a more nuanced version of needing to do a better job on that file.
Perhaps Mr. Swann would have better luck returning to his roots, and taking a more progressive position on the issues.
Matt Price
Policy Director
Latest up: Alberta Liberal leader David Swann, an honest-to-goodness nice guy who came to prominence by getting fired by the Ralph Klein government for supporting Kyoto.
Now, he's going against federal Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff for the latter's promise to formalize a tanker ban in BC waters, a move that would effectively end Enbridge's pitch to bring dirty oil from the tar sands to the BC coast.
Last time I checked, BC voters were overwhelmingly against having supertankers plying their coastline - those are of course voters that Mr. Swann by definition cannot court, unlike Mr. Ignatieff.
Which raises the question: exactly which voters is Mr. Swann going after here? His two biggest provincial rivals are trying to out-do one another with their pro-tar sands rhetoric, whereas polls show that Albertans have a more nuanced version of needing to do a better job on that file.
Perhaps Mr. Swann would have better luck returning to his roots, and taking a more progressive position on the issues.
Matt Price
Policy Director
Tuesday, July 13, 2010
Petro-Determinists
New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman coined the term "petro-determinist" to apply to a person who believes that we will use oil a long time, so there's no point in doing anything about it.
There's a lot of this about in the debate about the future of the tar sands - with proponents trying to shut down debate about the environmental impacts on the grounds that we simply need the oil.
Vancouver Sun columnist Barbara Yaffe seems to be the latest addition to this club, but is not alone. Recently we've seen it creep into the editorial pages of our own New York Times equivalent, the Globe and Mail.
Worse, perhaps, is coupling petro-determinism with political cynicism, which is on display in this piece by Norman Spector. In chronicling Quebec Premier Charest's own mild determinism that we exploit the tar sands because they are there, Spector tut tuts us idealistic environmentalists by telling us that tar sands money drives politics, so presumably we should just stop trying to make things better.
There's two things about petro-determinism, though, that should be pointed out:
1) It's intellectually lazy: just because we now use oil, it doesn't make the tar sands clean. It is possible to point out simultaneously that we are energy users and that Canadian and Albertan regulators are failing miserably at mitigating the worst impacts of the tar sands.
2) It's actually false: there are things we can do right now to dramatically reduce our dependence on oil, and guess what - nobody is making oil anymore, so at some point we have no choice but to embrace these solutions. Petro-determinism is by definition an argument with a limited shelf life.
It's a worrying trend that our media seems to be dominated these days by those who are rationalizing an energy system that is undermining the security of our life support systems. Our children deserve better.
Matt Price
Policy Director
Environmental Defence
There's a lot of this about in the debate about the future of the tar sands - with proponents trying to shut down debate about the environmental impacts on the grounds that we simply need the oil.
Vancouver Sun columnist Barbara Yaffe seems to be the latest addition to this club, but is not alone. Recently we've seen it creep into the editorial pages of our own New York Times equivalent, the Globe and Mail.
Worse, perhaps, is coupling petro-determinism with political cynicism, which is on display in this piece by Norman Spector. In chronicling Quebec Premier Charest's own mild determinism that we exploit the tar sands because they are there, Spector tut tuts us idealistic environmentalists by telling us that tar sands money drives politics, so presumably we should just stop trying to make things better.
There's two things about petro-determinism, though, that should be pointed out:
1) It's intellectually lazy: just because we now use oil, it doesn't make the tar sands clean. It is possible to point out simultaneously that we are energy users and that Canadian and Albertan regulators are failing miserably at mitigating the worst impacts of the tar sands.
2) It's actually false: there are things we can do right now to dramatically reduce our dependence on oil, and guess what - nobody is making oil anymore, so at some point we have no choice but to embrace these solutions. Petro-determinism is by definition an argument with a limited shelf life.
It's a worrying trend that our media seems to be dominated these days by those who are rationalizing an energy system that is undermining the security of our life support systems. Our children deserve better.
Matt Price
Policy Director
Environmental Defence
Thursday, July 8, 2010
Correction
A story ran yesterday that dealt in part with a letter I sent to Ministers Aglukkaq and Prentice about naphthenic acid, a key tar sands pollutant.
In that letter I said that the U.S. requires companies to report on releases of over one hundred pounds of this pollutant, whereas in Canada there is no requirement. In fact, the U.S. requires this reporting only at the many so-called "superfund" sites - places of heightened pollution concern.
I apologize for the error.
We still believe, however, that tar sands companies should be required to report on releases of this substance considering that scientists believe it to be one of THE key tar sands pollutants, and also given that tar sands companies themselves admit that their tailings ponds leak into the groundwater (and occasionally into surface water). Now, another company is applying for yet another tailings pond, so the problem is only growing.
Matt Price
Policy Director
In that letter I said that the U.S. requires companies to report on releases of over one hundred pounds of this pollutant, whereas in Canada there is no requirement. In fact, the U.S. requires this reporting only at the many so-called "superfund" sites - places of heightened pollution concern.
I apologize for the error.
We still believe, however, that tar sands companies should be required to report on releases of this substance considering that scientists believe it to be one of THE key tar sands pollutants, and also given that tar sands companies themselves admit that their tailings ponds leak into the groundwater (and occasionally into surface water). Now, another company is applying for yet another tailings pond, so the problem is only growing.
Matt Price
Policy Director
Monday, July 5, 2010
Whew!
As many of us swelter away, a reminder that when it comes to global warming there is a difference between weather and climate.
Nonetheless, 2010 is on track to be the warmest year on record.
Canada's response? Fire up those tar sands!
Matt Price
Policy Director
Nonetheless, 2010 is on track to be the warmest year on record.
Canada's response? Fire up those tar sands!
Matt Price
Policy Director
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