(July 20*) Greenpeace takes aim at Hudak

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Keith Stewart, a climate and energy campaigner with Greenpeace Canada,spoke with The Star's editorial board Tuesday, July 19, 2011.

Photograph by: NICK BRANCACCIO, The Windsor Star

By Kristie Pearce, The Windsor Star July 20, 2011

With a provincial election looming, Greenpeace is questioning Tory Leader Tim Hudak's commitment to renewable energy.

"Hudak has said he's pro green energy," Keith Stewart, climate and energy campaigner for Greenpeace, told a meeting of The Star's editorial board Tuesday. "We would like to see how he would actually get green energy built."

Greenpeace supports the Liberal government's feedin-tariff program introduced in 2009, but Stewart said some of the projected costs of their renewable energy programs are too high.

"NDP and Conservatives say they like green energy, they just don't like the way we're doing it," Stewart said, adding Greenpeace would like to see the opposition strategies in investing in renewable energy.

The Conservatives have made rising electricity bills a major theme this election, blaming the increases on green energy. However, Stewart said the price increases came from long neglect of the province's power infrastructure.

"The primary thing driving the price increase right now is a need to rebuild the system because we went for a decade without investing in it," he said.

© Copyright (c) The Windsor Star

Retrieved from http://www.windsorstar.com/technology/Greenpeace+takes+Hudak/5129184/story.html

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(July 21*) Suzuki warns Tory scheme to cancel green energy plans is ‘absolute insanity’

Published On Thu Jul 21 2011

David Suzuki and Premier Dalton McGuinty take a stroll in Vancouver's Stanley Park on Wednesday. Suzuki is urging Ontarians to re-elect McGuinty this fall to save the Liberals' “groundbreaking” green energy policies.

CHRISTINE MCAVOY/FOR THE TORONTO STAR

David Suzuki, Canada’s most famous environmentalist, is urging Ontarians to re-elect Premier Dalton McGuinty this fall to save the Liberals’ “groundbreaking” green energy policies.

In an exclusive interview with the Star, Suzuki made a rare foray into partisan politics, warning it is “absolute insanity” for Progressive Conservative Leader Tim Hudak to want to scrap wind and solar power initiatives that the Tories claim are too expensive.

“I don’t get it, because it’s a job creator — I would have thought that the Conservatives would be banging away at the need to create jobs,” the host of CBC’s The Nature of Things said during a stroll with McGuinty in Stanley Park on Wednesday.

“Ontario right now is a leader in North America. Why would anybody come in and throw that out the window? It doesn’t make any sense.”

Suzuki expressed concern at Hudak’s pledge to kill the “feed-in tariff” subsidy program that promotes green electricity generation by enabling farmers and other producers to sell hydro, wind, and solar power to the grid.

The Tories, who lead in public-opinion polls, blame McGuinty’s Green Energy Act and the 13 per cent harmonized sales tax for rising hydro bills.

If they win the Oct. 6 election, they would also scrap the 25-year, $437-million deal with Samsung that should see the South Korean firm invest $7 billion in Ontario.

“I don’t know what Mr. Hudak’s idea is, but energy costs are going to rise in the future,” Suzuki said, noting demand is only increasing with new household electronics and, eventually, widespread use of electric cars.

“I’m offering an endorsement of what Mr. McGuinty has done, absolutely. This is a great plan. Any party would be foolish to talk about abandoning it,” he said, noting the David Suzuki Foundation works closely with the government on promoting energy conservation.

Suzuki also hailed McGuinty for enacting a pesticide ban and for his work on protecting the boreal forest, though he chided the premier for continuing Ontario’s reliance on nuclear power and for refusing to implement a carbon tax.

The premier, for his part, said he was “really honoured” by Suzuki’s endorsement on the eve of the Council of the Federation meeting of provincial and territorial leaders here.

“This has been a challenge for us in some parts of Ontario so when David lends his support to our initiatives it’s very meaningful,” he said.

“Just as we’re the number one auto producer in North America, I’ve got this vision for us to be a powerful player in the North American economy. You want wind turbines? Nobody makes them better than we do in Ontario. You want solar panels? We’ve got the expertise, we’ve got the manufacturing capacity.”

The Liberals hope to create 50,000 green energy jobs by the end of next year. So far, about 13,000 jobs are up and running.

While Suzuki, who grew up in London, Ont., lives in British Columbia, he took a break from his summer vacation to come back to Vancouver to meet with McGuinty.

“I’m very, very admiring of what he’s done,” said the man who finished fifth in CBC’s 2004 nationwide search for The Greatest Canadian, behind Tommy Douglas, Terry Fox, Pierre Trudeau and Sir Frederick Banting.

“I live about half my time in Ontario and I still think of myself as an Ontario guy.”

That’s why he felt it was important to inject himself into an election that will be closely fought by McGuinty, Hudak and NDP Leader Andrea Horwath.

“The big thing to me is the Green Energy Act,” said Suzuki.

“It has created jobs. For me it says we’ve got a future that’s bright with job creation and we can drop our dependence on fossil fuels.”

Retrieved from http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/politics/article/1028008--suzuki-warns-tory-scheme-to-cancel-green-energy-plans-is-absolute-insanity

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(July 15*) Tories seen as threat to green energy firms

Tamsin McMahon Jul 15, 2011 – 8:01 AM ET

Richard Monk has learned a lot about Ontario politics since he joined a Spanish solar panel manufacturer lured by the Liberal government’s lucrative green energy program to open a factory in Windsor.

Having just opened in May, Siliken Group announced last week it was planning to lay off most of its 120 workers, citing a sales slump the company blamed on a Tory promise to kill the province’s subsidized green energy program if the party takes power Oct. 6, as polls suggest it is poised to do.

“They have affected sales, they have frightened new customers as well as existing customers, they have confused the public and they seem to be anti-environmental,” said Mr. Monk, Siliken’s production manager in Windsor.

Down the road from where Siliken had set up shop in a former auto parts factory, solar panel retailer Certified Solar was experiencing an entirely different fallout from the Conservatives’ pre-election promise: A surge in sales, as customers look to lock in to 20-year solar contracts at generous rates before the Tories can kill the program.

“That’s the big incentive. Whenever there is a sense of urgency, sales tend to increase,” manager Craig O’Brien said. “People wanted to get involved before the program ends.”

The province’s green energy sector is shaping up to be ground zero in the fall election, as both parties stake their reputation on the success or failure of the program, known as feed-in-tariff because it pays above-market rates to feed wind, solar and other renewable energy into the electrical grid.

The most recent poll has the Conservatives 11 percentage points ahead of the Liberals, and few are willing to bet the program will survive, and that is wreaking havoc within the industry.

The Liberal government is pushing the program as a way to kickstart Ontario’s struggling manufacturing sector with what energy minister Brad Duguid said is $20-billion in new investment and 13,000 new jobs since it was introduced two years ago — although the government’s goal was 50,000 jobs.

“We’re very happy and proud of the program; our opponents are going to get rid of it and that’s going to be a major distinction” during the election, Finance Minister Dwight Duncan told the National Post.

The Conservatives, meanwhile, are attacking the feedin-tariff program as a costly job-killer that drives up electricity rates through long-term price guarantees that in some cases promise more than 10 times the market price for electricity.

“They’ve created a gold rush that everyone wants to get rich on,” said John Yakabuski, the Conservative energy critic as he stood in front of a lemonade stand the party had set up on the lawn of Queen’s Park to hand out cheap lemonade he said was made from subsidized lemons. “If they announce tomorrow that they’re going to pay $7 a dozen for eggs, I suspect a lot of people are going to be investing in laying hens. But that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s going to be good for the people buying eggs in the supermarket.”

Green energy has become so politicized that the Canadian Solar Industry Association set up a booth at the recent Ontario PC convention in Toronto in hopes of wooing some Tories.

“We received a lot of positive comments. A lot of people were very knowledgeable about solar,” said association president Elizabeth McDonald. “I believe that’s the reality of the situation. But this is not a platform that’s based on renewable energy and solar. This is a platform based on critical pocketbook issues.”

Launched in 2009, the feed-in-tariff program offers largescale wind farms and solar power generators as much as 71.3¢ per kilowatt hour (enough power to light a 100-watt bulb for 10 hours), well above the going rate of 6.5¢ per kilowatt hour on Ontario’s energy market. Most contracts are guaranteed for 20 years.

The costs are buried in a premium on monthly hydro bills that makes up the difference between the market price for electricity and the rates promised through long-term contracts with generators. The cost of those contracts has risen sharply in recent years, from $654-million in 2005 to $3.8-billion last year, although much of the increase has come from contracts with nuclear, natural gas and other major power producers.

But with only a fraction of the nearly 8,000 proposed feed-in-tariff projects up and running, with most set to begin two to three years from now, critics say the costs could quickly escalate.

A separate microFIT program for small generators, such as homeowners with rooftop solar panels, offers rates as high as 80.2¢ per kilowatt hour. Killing the program will end up hurting consumers by shutting out homeowners, churches, schools and community groups that hope to make some money off generating their own power, said Kristopher Stevens, executive director of the Ontario Sustainable Energy Association.

The Conservatives say the program is not benefitting struggling homeowners, but instead attracting profit-seeking businesses such as a company advertising free barns to farmers in exchange for the rights to install solar panels on the roof and sell the power.

“You might want to check where these panels are,” Mr. Yakabuski said. “They’re not on the struggling senior homeowners home.”

The renewable energy industry itself has been openly talking about sweeping changes to the program, including a price reduction. “Everybody knows that the program could use improvement and everybody knew that it couldn’t keep on pumping out contracts at the same volume and the same pricing forever,” said Dan Gormley, who leads the green energy practice at Toronto law firm Goodmans LLP. “It was always going to have to evolve over time. But I don’t really understand why the Tories have simply come out and said it’s got to be killed altogether.”

The program is set for a price review this year, although Mr. Duncan said in an interview that the government has no plans to lower prices ahead of the October election. “Over time those rates will come down,” he said. “It’s something we’ll watch and we want to make sure the policy achieves its goals.”

Retrieved from http://news.nationalpost.com/2011/07/15/tories-seen-as-threat-to-green-energy-firms/

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(July 2011*) Global Investments in Green Energy Up Nearly a Third to US$211 billion

China, developing countries are now biggest investors in large-scale renewables while Germany surges ahead on rooftop solar;

Positive trend in government research and development in renewables spotlighted-up over 120 per cent to well over US$5 billion;

UNEP and Frankfurt School launch Collaborating Centre

for Climate and Sustainable Energy Finance

Wind farms in China and small-scale solar panels on rooftops in Europe were largely responsible for last year's 32% rise in green energy investments worldwide according to the latest annual report on renewable energy investment trends issued by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP).

Last year, investors pumped a record US$211 billion into renewables - about one-third more than the US$160 billion invested in 2009, and a 540% rise since 2004.

For the first time, developing economies overtook developed ones in terms of "financial new investment"-spending on utility-scale renewable energy projects and provision of equity capital for renewable energy companies.

On this measure, US$72 billion was invested in developing countries vs. US$70 billion in developed economies, which contrasts with 2004, when financial new investments in developing countries were about one quarter of those in developed countries.

The report, Global Trends in Renewable Energy Investment 2011, has been prepared for UNEP by London-based Bloomberg New Energy Finance.

It was launched today by UN Under-Secretary-General and UNEP Executive Director Achim Steiner and Udo Steffens, President and CEO of the Frankfurt School of Finance & Management as it was also announced that a new UNEP Collaborating Centre for Climate & Sustainable Energy Finance is being inaugurated at the Frankfurt School.

China, with US$48.9 billion in financial new investment in renewables (up 28%), was the world leader in 2010. However, other parts of the emerging world also showed strong growth:

South and Central America: up 39% to US$13.1 billion;

Middle East and Africa: up 104% to US$5 billion;

India: up 25% to US$3.8 billion, and

Asian developing countries excluding China and India: up 31% to US$4 billion.

Another positive development, highlighted in the report with implications for long-term clean energy developments, was government research and development. That category of investment climbed over 120 per cent to well over US$5 billion.

Mr. Steiner said: "The continuing growth in this core segment of the Green Economy is not happening by chance. The combination of government target-setting, policy support and stimulus funds is underpinning the renewable industry's rise and bringing the much needed transformation of our global energy system within reach.''

"The UN climate convention meeting in Durban later in the year, followed by the Rio+20 summit in Brazil in 2012, offer key opportunities to accelerate and scale-up this positive transition to a low carbon, resource efficient Green Economy in the context of sustainable development and poverty eradication," he added.

"The finance industry is still recovering from the recent financial crisis," adds Udo Steffens, President of the Frankfurt School of Finance and Management. "The fact that the industry remains heavily committed to renewables demonstrates its strong belief in the prospects of sustainable energy investments. "

"The investment activity in the developing world is not only leading to innovations in renewable energy technologies. Further more, it will open up new markets as first mover investors are facilitating a range of new business models and support entrepreneurship in the developing world", explains Udo Steffens.

The report points out that not all areas enjoyed positive growth in 2010: there was a decline of 22% to US$35.2 billion in new financial investment in large-scale renewable energy in Europe in 2010. But this was more than made up for by a surge in small-scale project installation, predominantly rooftop solar.

Michael Liebreich, chief executive of Bloomberg New Energy Finance, said: "Europe's small-scale solar energy boom owed much to feed-in tariffs, particularly in Germany, combined with a sharp fall in the cost of photovoltaic (PV) modules."

Investments in Germany in "small distributed capacity" rose 132% to US$34 billion, in Italy they rose 59% to US$5.5 billion, France up 150% to US$2.7 billion, and the Czech Republic up 163% to US$2.3 billion.

The price of PV modules per megawatt has fallen 60% since mid-2008, making solar power far more competitive in a number of sunny countries.

By the end of 2010, many countries were rushing to make their PV tariffs less generous. Indeed, Spain and the Czech Republic both moving to make retroactive cuts in feed-in tariff levels for already-operating projects "damaged investor confidence," the report says. "Other governments, such as those of Germany and Italy, announced reductions in tariffs for new projects - logical steps to reflect sharp falls in technology costs."

Nevertheless the small-scale solar market is likely to stay strong in 2011, the report suggests.

Further drops in costs for solar, wind and other technologies lie ahead, the report says, posing a growing threat to the dominance of fossil-fuel generation sources in the next few years.

Throughout the last decade, wind was the most mature renewable energy technology and enjoyed an apparently unassailable lead over its rival power sources.

Wind turbine prices have fallen 18% per megawatt in the last two years, reflecting, as with solar, fierce competition in the supply chain.

In 2010, wind continued to dominate in terms of financial new investment in large scale renewables, with US$94.7 billion (up 30% from 2009). However, when investments in small scale projects are added in solar is catching up, with US$86 billion in 2010, up 52% on the previous year. With US$11 billion invested, biomass and waste-to-energy come in third in front of biofuels, which boomed at US$20.4 billion in 2006, but fell off dramatically - to US$5.5 billion last year.

The sharpest percentage jumps in overall investment were seen in small-scale projects - up 91% year-on-year at US$60 billion, and in government-funded research and development, up 121% at US$5.3 billion, as more of the "green stimulus" funds promised after the financial crisis arrived in the sector.

Two areas of investment showed a fall in 2010 compared to 2009: corporate research, development and deployment (down 12% at US$3.3 billion, as companies retrenched in the face of economic hard times) and provision of expansion capital for renewable energy companies by private equity funds (down 1% to US$3.1 billion).

Clean energy share prices fell in 2010, with the WilderHill New Energy Global Innovation Index (NEX) down 14.6%, under-performing wider stock market indices by more than 20%. This showing reflected investor concerns about industry over-capacity, cutbacks in subsidy programs and competition from power stations burning cheap natural gas.

Acquisition activity in renewable energy, representing money changing hands rather than new investment, fell from US$66 billion in 2009 to US$58 billion in 2010. The two largest categories of M&A - corporate takeovers and acquisitions of wind farms and other assets - both fell by around 10%.

The low price of natural gas-which was between US$3 and US$5 per million BTU for almost all of 2010- hurt the growth of renewables, the report says. The price of natural gas was far less than it was in much of the mid-2000s, before it peaked at US$13 in 2008.

"This gave generators in the US, but also in Europe and elsewhere, an incentive to build more gas-fired power stations and depressed the terms of power purchasing agreements available to renewable energy projects," says the report.

Frankfurt School of Finance & Management and UNEP launch new Collaborating Centre

The report launch marks the beginning of the new UNEP Collaborating Centre for Climate & Sustainable Energy Finance at the Frankfurt School of Finance & Management. Its goal is to develop cost-effective ways to reduce energy-related carbon emissions by mobilizing sustainable energy investments and strengthening their associated markets.

This is achieved by working with financial institutions to develop technical know-how, innovative financing approaches and new forms of entrepreneurial and end-user finance.

The Centre's approach combines project implementation on the ground with research, think tank activities, training and education.

One of Europe's leading business schools, the Frankfurt School also builds and strengthens financial sector capacities in emerging markets and developing countries through consulting and training projects. Through its "Sustainable Energy Finance" centre, the Frankfurt School has implemented energy efficiency and renewable energy projects worldwide.

"At the Frankfurt School we look back on profound experience with international advisory in all fields of development finance," says the school's President and CEO Udo Steffens. "The UNEP Collaborating Centre allows us to apply this expertise and knowledge to climate and sustainable energy finance, covering research, advisory and education."

Retrieved from http://www.unep.org/Documents.Multilingual/Default.asp?DocumentID=2647&ArticleID=8805&l=en&t=long

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(July 12*) High-powered lobby calls on Canada to wean itself off oil

By Mike De Souza, Postmedia News July 12, 2011

OTTAWA — A wide-ranging group of businesspeople, scientists, investors, municipal leaders and non-profit organizations is urging Canadian energy ministers to use an upcoming national summit to move away from oil, gas and coal and toward a greener economy.

"It's hugely unfortunate that we've waited this long," said Andrew Heintzman, president of Investeco Capital, a Toronto-based firm that invests in clean technology companies or environmentally-friendly products, managing about $40 million in assets for about 100 investors.

Heintzman said he favours immediate action by governments to lead Canadians away from oil and other fossil fuels as part of a long term transition over the next few decades.

"That's not to say you wait until the 49th year and make your change," said Heintzman. "You got to get on it right now and we have to start putting in place the policies that are going to drive a transformative change."

Heintzman and other stakeholders supporting the plan were brought together by Tides Canada, a non-profit group promoting a healthy environment and social justice. It believes that oil, coal and gas will be "supplanted by clean and plentiful alternatives" by 2050. It also believes that economic prosperity can be linked directly with deep cuts in greenhouse gas emissions that are normally produced through consumption of fossil fuels.

Merran Smith, the director of the Tides Canada Energy Initiative, said the stakeholders also hope this message gets through to federal, provincial and territorial energy ministers who are scheduled to meet later this month in Kananaskis, Alberta.

Smith said that a global energy transition is already underway, with leading economies such as the United States, China and the European Union making huge investments in renewable energy.

"For Canada to maintain its position as an energy superpower, we need to evolve to be a clean energy superpower," she said. "Canada has the opportunity to do that, because we are blessed with such an abundance of hydro, wind, biomass and other renewable energy sources."

The message supported by stakeholders was based on a policy paper released last spring by Tides Canada that envisions a future with more energy-efficient buildings and cleaner transportation networks in Canada that produce less pollution by 2050.

"It paints a picture of Canada that has moved on as a society that uses very little hydrocarbons (for fuel) and is predominantly powered by clean renewable energy sources," said Smith.

The list of stakeholders supporting the policy paper include the City of North Vancouver, Mayor Ken Melamed from Whistler, British Columbia, as well as scientists Andrew Weaver from the University of Victoria and David Keith from the University of Calgary.

Several faith-based groups also have signed on to support the effort from a variety of different religions.

mdesouza@postmedia.com

Twitter.com/mikedesouza

© Copyright (c) Postmedia News

* Retrieved from http://www.vancouversun.com/business/High+powered+lobby+calls+Canada+wean+itself/5091629/story.html

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(July 4*) Solar energy is at a crossroads – and the government must do a U-turn

Posted byCaroline Lucas Monday 4 July 2011 12.29 BSTguardian.co.uk

The government has a choice – invest in solar and create jobs, or slash subsidies and cripple British industrial growth

Workmen install solar panels on to the roofs of homes on a street in Delabole near Bodmin in Cornwall. Photograph: Simon Burt/PA

Mark Twain once said that he was "seldom able to see an opportunity until it had ceased to be one". I sometimes wonder if this government, which seems so wilfully short-sighted when it comes to good opportunities, shares the same problem. The UK solar industry, currently standing at a crossroads, is a case in point.

At a meeting on solar power organised by the Renewable Energy Association in parliament last week, we saw strong evidence – including in a recent report by Ernst and Young (pdf) – that solar has huge potential to deliver affordable and secure energy, and can play a significant role in the decarbonisation of our economy.

But if the government sticks with its policy of slashing support for large-scale solar projects, the potential for the industry to flourish here in the UK will be completely undermined.

In its review of the responses to the feed-in tariffs (Fits) consultation, the government admits that while changes to Fits may have a negative impact on investor confidence in both the solar photovoltaics (PV) sector and other renewable energy sectors, it is determined to make them because "the need for fiscal responsibility across all areas of government spending is a key objective of the coalition government."

From the outset, the government has looked at feed-in tariffs through the wrong end of the telescope. It has asked how little it could get away with spending in the short term and worked forwards from there – rather than looking ahead to the huge benefits that could come from significant investment, and working backwards.

Ministers are completely wrong to argue that the Fits programme has become an expensive measure that needs to be controlled. In the first year of the feed-in tariff, the actual spend on the scheme was only £11m. And that is not £11m just for solar – it is £11m for all technologies.

They are also wrong to suggest that Fits are adding unacceptably to energy bills. While I would prefer to see support for solar and other renewables coming from general taxation instead of from levies on bills, I do think it is important to keep things in perspective.

Last year, the cost of the solar Fit on a typical household energy bill was less than 1p per month. And the forecast cost of the domestic levy for all renewables support in this financial year is £1 – or just 0.08% of a typical household energy bill.

And the irony is that in opposition, current members of the government criticised the last government for its "modest" PV Fit scheme. The Liberal Democrats, in particular, went into the last election promising to triple the ambition of Labour's offer – saying Labour weren't doing enough. Yet now the government wants to do even less.

The evidence in favour of a different approach is overwhelming; with the right investment now, solar power can be cheaper, or at least no more expensive than average energy to produce (so-called grid parity), in the UK within a few years – and in countries with better-supported solar industries, much sooner than that.

The strength of feeling against the changes is clear – 81% of respondents to the Fit review disagreed with the proposed reduction of support for solar, and all respondents who commented on the largest PV generation band felt that the proposed tariff would not provide sufficient incentive for any installations at this scale.

This is bad news for jobs, bad news for the economy and bad news for the environment. Because despite our famously unreliable weather, the UK receives very similar levels of irradiation (sunlight) to Germany – which now employs 100,000 people in its solar industry (around 10 times the number employed in the UK). Ernst and Young's analysis clearly shows that our government is putting similar potential benefits for the UK at risk.

It is particularly frustrating that the government's advisers, the Committee on Climate Change, has failed to appreciate the worth of a more dynamic approach, arguing instead that solar power remains too expensive in the short term and that the UK should instead buy in renewable power from overseas later.

Compare this with the huge financial support that has been given to nuclear for decades. The government is so committed to reviving nuclear in the UK that the Commons energy and climate change select committee recently warned that the government risks distorting its planned reform of the entire electricity market .

Solar power has had a fraction of the support that nuclear has received over many years. In the short term, a gap remains between costs and returns: profitability is not currently possible without Fit support. Which means that fast-tracked reviews and slash-and-burn policies simply scare off many investors.

Given the potential of the solar industry to speed the UK's transition to a sustainable economy, hopefully the government will reconsider its solar policy. This would be yet another coalition U-turn that I would welcome.

* Retrieved from http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/blog/2011/jul/04/solar-energy-britain-subsidies-fits

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(July 6*) Behind the switch: pricing Ontario electricity options

Published July 6, 2011

By Tim Weis , P.J. Partington

This report examines how scaling back Ontario's plans to develop renewable energy would affect electricity prices, using an integrated energy system simulator to compare two main scenarios.

The first scenario is based on Ontario's current Long-Term Energy Plan, in which a large part of new electricity generation comes from additional renewable capacity supported under the Green Energy Act; the second scenario tests the effect of eliminating the Act and largely expanding natural gas in place of future renewable resources.

Behind the switch: pricing Ontario electricity options finds that Ontario consumers would see virtually no relief from high electricity prices if the province cancelled its support for renewable energy under the Green Energy Act.

In fact, the study indicates that investing in renewable energy today is likely to save Ontario ratepayers money within the next 15 years, as natural gas becomes more expensive and as the cost of renewable energy technology continues to decrease.

* Retrieved from http://www.pembina.org/pub/2238

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