US expert assesses Canada's progress towards clean energy

A leading US energy expert says the Conservative government's adoption of intensity-based greenhouse gas emission targets "make no sense" and that the recent opposition bill holding the government to Canada's Kyoto obligations is a step in the right direction.

Dr Daniel Kammen, Univ of California Berkeley, says Canada has a wealth of renewable energy technologies but they're being largely ignored due to the dominance and profitability of oil, gas and coal.

"There's no reasonable argument to do intensity-based targets unless you're trying to avoid the truth. The truth is, nature doesn't care about intensity. It cares about gigatons of carbon in the air," says Kammen, director U of C Berkeley's Renewable and Appropriate Energy Laboratory. "The short-term profits (from oil and gas) are very high and Canada has unfortunately taken the US lesson of learning how not to do division properly because intensity targets make no sense."

Under intensity-based emissions caps, emissions are relative to economic output, meaning their levels rise as overall production increases.

Kammen has extensive knowledge of the Canadian energy environment, having recently toured the oil sands at Fort McMurray AB and as a member of the National Advisory Panel on Sustainable Energy, Science and Technology. The Panel's report was finally released late last year (R$, November 27/06) and Kammen says its recommendations provide a balanced approach to dealing with the nation's energy options.

Kammen credits the Panel's work with the government's decision to launch its $230-million Eco Energy Technology Initiative (R$, February 5/07). He says that funding for renewable energy combined with the opposition's success in holding the government to Canada's Kyoto targets bode well for the future.

"Kyoto is a slowing of the rate of increase in greenhouse gas emissions but you've got to start with that," says Kammen, who outlined his views of clean energy technologies at last week's conference of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. "You can get seduced by short-term profits and that's what we're seeing in the oil and gas field."

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