As you know, some countries are trying to reduce fossil fuels consumption by creating a carbon tax that is applied to products such as gasoline. One such example is British Columbia, Canada, where a tax of 2.4 cents for each liter of gasoline is going to be included in gas prices next summer. Voices have been raised in opposition to this measure. One of them is such as Don Martin, who writes in an article for the National Post that, with oil prices above $100 per barrel, Canadian consumers are paying 10 cents per liter more for their gas already. And yet they continue to drive their cars and heat their houses. Therefore, a low 2.4 cent tax would have little to no impact on consumer habits to reduce their fuel consumption.

Similar taxes in other countries seem to have had a similar effect. Germany's gas prices are almost twice as high as Canada's and yet Germans drive a lot, and in powerful cars as well. In the end, it might seem that these taxes just seem a nice way to add revenue, albeit for a good cause, for Mr. Taxman.

[Source: National Post via Automotive]

Less than a week ago, we told you about a CBC report with Zenn complaining Transport Canada was not allowing its low speed vehicle to sold in Canada. The report included a regulatory enforcement engineer that explained they were not being allowed to be sold yet because they were going to change the law. Turns outs the idea of ex post facto is still around, so they got a National Safety Mark.

CBC confirmed they received the safety mark and Transport Canada says it's up to individual provinces and territories how to legislate which roads are allowed to be used by the cars. British Columbia is currently the only Canadian province that lets low speed vehicles on the road. So, don't be surprised if you see a Zenn on BC streets soon.

Cheers for the press shinning a light and probably solving this problem! Jeers for the provinces and territories not stepping up with legislation.

[Source: CBC and tipster Mike]

BC Transit, the company that operates transit bus services in the Vancouver-British Columbia region, has decided to go with new diesel buses instead of hybrids for the time being. The company has been operating half a dozen buses equipped with the GM-Allison two-mode hybrid system for over a year in the Victoria and Kelowna BC areas. The hybrids performed well in the more urban Victoria service area where the stop-and-go duty cycle allowed them to achieve up to twenty eight percent better efficiency than the 1999-2003 generation of diesel buses.

However, when compared to the newer Nova Cummins clean diesel buses purchased since 2003 the hybrids only had an eight percent advantage on the Victoria routes. On the Kelowna routes that feature fewer stops per mile and higher average speeds the advantage dropped to only one percent. Based on the price of $800,000 compared to $500,000 for the Nova bus, BC Transit can't make a business case for the switch to hybrids for these service areas because they have no hope of recovering the difference over the twenty-year lifespan of a bus. The Nova buses use Cummins diesels that run on ultra-low sulfur diesel and run much cleaner than the previous generation of diesel buses. If the cost of the hybrid buses can't be offset by the savings the transit company would have to raise fares, driving down ridership and offsetting the gains even more.

[Source: Saanich News via GreenCarCongress]

Many of the world's best winter athletes will be converging on Whistler, British Columbia in early 2010 for the next Winter Olympic games and they will be followed by thousands of tourists. When those crowds descend on the resort town 70 miles north of Vancouver a lot of them will get around on the local buses, which by that time will consist of the largest fleet of fuel celled powered buses in the world. Twenty of the thirty buses in Whistler will be powered by fuel cells by the end of 2009 in a program funded by the federal and provincial governments. This will be the first transit system in the world that is driven predominantly by hydrogen.

[Source: Globe and Mail, thanks to Troy for the tip]

A new provisional policy has been announced by the progressive Canadian state of British Columbia to clean up coal-fired power stations; the same state that the GLOBE Foundation believes could be energy self-sufficient by 2025. The new policy requires that new coal-fired power plants must emit no carbon dioxide, but instead capture and sequester their carbon dioxide emissions using technology that is currently available today according to local politicians. The cost to build such a plant are estimated to be at least 10 to 15 percent higher than a regular pulverized-coal plant however.

Some experts feel the result of the policy will be to effectively mandate Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle (IGCC) coal gasification technology which produces a purer waste stream to extract the CO2 from. IGCC is commonly seen as one of the few realistic approaches to effectively capture carbon dioxide. It also has the advantage of reducing NOx and sulfur dioxide emissions to be more in line with those from a natural gas-fired power plant. The best way to actually sequester the captured carbon dioxide is proving to be far more contentious.

Analysis: Reduced emissions and easier carbon dioxide capture make IGCC attractive (as far as coal-fired power stations go). The technology to sequester this captured carbon dioxide in deep geologic formations is still far from being proven in the long-term though. I don't think pumping carbon dioxide into the ground is really the answer in the same way that pumping crude oil out of the ground isn't either. A better solution is to pursue growing algae for biodiesel with all that carbon dioxide.

Related:

• British Columbia sees biofuels as part of 2025 energy self-sufficiency plan
• Think coal gasification and coal-to-liquid is the same? Not even close
• Fewer coal plants in Texas as a result of environmental groups and a buyout offer

[Source: Technology Review]

British Columbia Agriculture Minister Pat Bell has called for a feasibility study for the first implementation of a biodiesel production facility in the Peace region of the western Canadian province.

Bell puts his faith in biodiesel as an answer to fluctuating fuel prices and feeble farmer profits and touts biodiesel as "the most significant change in agriculture, probably in the history of agriculture."

To reinforce his argument, Bell points out that with oil prices over $60 (U.S.) per barrel, the price of biodiesel becomes competitive and says, "perhaps there is an opportunity for our canola growers to get into the business."

Unfortunately, the agriculture minister was also quoted saying, "There's a huge potential market for this. General Motors is now producing vehicles that can consume up to 85-per-cent biodiesel in their vehicles." Now correct me if I'm wrong, but GM isn't currently selling any biodiesel capable cars. I think he's referring to ethanol or E85 here, not B85.

[Source: Canoe]

Electric car conversions are more frequent in British Columbia, since the release of the documentary "Who Killed the Electric Car?"

Randy Holmquist runs Canadian Electric Vehicles in Errington, B.C. and says he used to sell only one or two conversions a year. Now he's selling up to two a month. Cost is over $18,000, including the kit, batteries and installation. The best vehicles are Honda Civic, Toyota Echo, Chevy S-10 and Dodge Neon, Holmquist said. He's also performed the swap on a Citroen. The $3,000 batteries need to be replaced once every three years. A high-powered charging station such as ones used by airlines can recharge a vehicle in 20 minutes. A typical household outlet may take up to eight hours.

One of his customers, university professor Kimberly Kerns, says she's surprised why even more people aren't interested in electric vehicles.

"It's been blissful not to know what the price of gas is," the driver of an S-10 conversion says.

An official from the B.C. Sustainable Energy Association estimates an entire community of electric vehicles could run on 8,000 gigawatts of power each year.

{Source: Monday Magazine]