Solar and wind power curtailments are rising in California

Inflation Reduction Act climate provisions accelerate clean energy, EV tax credits, methane fee, hydrogen incentives, and a green bank, cutting carbon emissions, boosting manufacturing, and advancing environmental justice and net-zero goals through 2030.

Key Points

They are U.S. policies funding clean energy, EV credits, a methane fee, hydrogen, and justice programs to cut emissions.

✅ Up to $7,500 new and $4,000 used EV tax credits with income limits

✅ First federal methane fee to curb oil and gas emissions

✅ $60B for clean energy manufacturing and environmental justice

The Biden administration this year signed a historic climate and tax deal that will funnel billions of dollars into programs designed to speed the country’s clean energy transition, with ways to tap new funding available to households and businesses, and battle climate change.

As the U.S. this year grappled with climate-related disasters from Hurricane Ian in Florida to the Mosquito Fire in California, the Inflation Reduction Act, which contains $369 billion in climate provisions, was a monumental development to mitigate the effects of climate change across the country, with investment incentives viewed as essential to accelerating clean electricity this decade. 

The bill, which President Joe Biden signed into law in August, is the most aggressive climate investment ever taken by Congress and is expected to slash the country’s planet-warming carbon emissions by about 40% this decade and move the country toward a net-zero economy by 2050, aligning with a path to net-zero electricity many analyses lay out.

The IRA’s provisions have major implications for clean energy and manufacturing businesses, climate startups and consumers in the coming years. As 2022 comes to a close, here’s a look back at the key elements in the legislation that climate and clean energy advocates will be monitoring in 2023.

Incentives for electric vehicles
The deal offers a federal tax credit worth up to $7,500 to households that buy new electric vehicles, as well as a used EV credit worth up to $4,000 for vehicles that are at least two years old. Starting Jan. 1, people making $150,000 a year or less, or $300,000 for joint filers, are eligible for the new car credit, while people making $75,000 or less, or $150,000 for joint filers, are eligible for the used car credit.

Despite a rise in EV sales in recent years, the transportation sector is still the country’s largest source of greenhouse gas emissions, with the lack of convenient charging stations being one of the barriers to expansion. The Biden administration has set a goal of 50% electric vehicle sales by 2030, as Canada pursues EV sales regulations alongside broader oil and gas emissions limits.

The IRA limits EV tax credits to vehicles assembled in North America and is intended to wean the U.S. off battery materials from China, which accounts for 70% of the global supply of battery cells for the vehicles. An additional $1 billion in the deal will provide funding for zero-emissions school buses, heavy-duty trucks and public transit buses.

Stephanie Searle, a program director at the nonprofit International Council on Clean Transportation, said the combination of the IRA tax credits and state policies like New York's Green New Deal will bolster EV sales. The agency projects that roughly 50% or more of passenger cars, SUVs and pickups sold in 2030 will be electric. For electric trucks and buses, the number will be 40% or higher, the group said.

In the upcoming year, Searle said the agency is monitoring the Environmental Protection Agency’s plans to propose new greenhouse gas emissions standards for heavy-duty vehicles starting in the 2027 model year.

“With the IRA already promoting electric vehicles, EPA can and should be bold in setting ambitious standards for cars and trucks,” Searle said. “This is one of the Biden administration’s last chances for strong climate action within this term and they should make good use of it.”

Taking aim at methane gas emissions
The package imposes a tax on energy producers that exceed a certain level of methane gas emissions. Polluters pay a penalty of $900 per metric ton of methane emissions emitted in 2024 that surpass federal limits, increasing to $1,500 per metric ton in 2026.

It’s the first time the federal government has imposed a fee on the emission of any greenhouse gas. Global methane emissions are the second-biggest contributor to climate change after carbon dioxide and come primarily from oil and gas extraction, landfills and wastewater and livestock farming.

Methane is a key component of natural gas and is 84 times more potent than carbon dioxide, but doesn’t last as long in the atmosphere. Scientists have contended that limiting methane is needed to avoid the worst consequences of climate change. 

Robert Kleinberg, a researcher at Columbia University’s Center on Global Energy Policy, said the methane emitted by the oil and gas industry each year would be worth about $2 billion if it was instead used to generate electricity or heat homes.

“Reducing methane emissions is the fastest way to moderate climate change. Congress recognized this in passing the IRA,” Kleinberg said. “The methane fee is a draconian tax on methane emitted by the oil and gas industry in 2024 and beyond.”

In addition to the IRA provision on methane, the Biden Interior Department this year proposed rules to curb methane leaks from drilling, which it said will generate $39.8 million a year in royalties for the U.S. and prevent billions of cubic feet of gas from being wasted through venting, flaring and leaks. 

Boosting clean energy manufacturing
The bill provides $60 billion for clean energy manufacturing, including $30 billion for production tax credits to accelerate domestic manufacturing of solar panels, wind turbines, batteries and critical minerals processing, and a $10 billion investment tax credit to manufacturing facilities that are building EVs and clean energy technology, reinforcing the view that decarbonization is irreversible among policymakers.

There’s also $27 billion going toward a green bank called the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, which will provide funding to deploy clean energy across the country, particularly in overburdened communities, and guide utility carbon-free electricity investments at scale. And the bill has a hydrogen production tax credit, which provides hydrogen producers with a credit based on the climate attributes of their production methods.

Emily Kent, the U.S. director of zero-carbon fuels at the Clean Air Task Force, a global climate nonprofit, said the bill’s support for low-emissions hydrogen is particularly notable since it could address sectors like heavy transportation and heavy industry, which are hard to decarbonize.

“U.S. climate policy has taken a major step forward on zero-carbon fuels in the U.S. and globally this year,” Kent said. “We look forward to seeing the impacts of these policies realized as the hydrogen tax credit, along with the hydrogen hubs program, accelerate progress toward creating a global market for zero-carbon fuels.”

The clean energy manufacturing provisions in the IRA will also have major implications for startups in the climate space and the big venture capital firms that back them. Carmichael Roberts, head of investment at Breakthrough Energy Ventures, has said the climate initiatives under the IRA will give private investors more confidence in the climate space and could even lead to the creation of up to 1,000 companies.

“Everybody wants to be part of this,” Roberts told CNBC following the passage of the bill in August. Even before the measure passed, “there was already a big groundswell around climate,” he said.

Investing in communities burdened by pollution
The legislation invests more than $60 billion to address the unequal effects of pollution and climate change on low-income communities and communities of color. The funding includes grants for zero-emissions technology and vehicles, and will help clean up Superfund sites, improve air quality monitoring capacity, and provide money to community-led initiatives through Environmental and Climate Justice block grants.

Research published in the journal Environmental Science and Technology Letters found that communities of color are systematically exposed to higher levels of air pollution than white communities due to redlining, a federal housing discrimination practice. Black Americans are also 75% more likely than white Americans to live near hazardous waste facilities and are three times more likely to die from exposure to pollutants, according to the Clean Air Task Force.

Biden signed an executive order after taking office aimed to prioritize environmental justice and help mitigate pollution in marginalized communities. The administration established the Justice40 Initiative to deliver 40% of the benefits from federal investments in climate change and clean energy to disadvantaged communities. 

More recently, the EPA in September launched an office focused on supporting and delivering grant money from the IRA to these communities.

Cutting ag emissions
The deal includes $20 billion for programs to slash emissions from the agriculture sector, which accounts for more than 10% of U.S. emissions, according to EPA estimates.

The president has pledged to reduce emissions from the agriculture industry in half by 2030. The IRA funds grants for agricultural conservation practices that directly improve soil carbon, as well as projects that help protect forests prone to wildfires.

Separately, this year the U.S. Department of Agriculture announced it will spend $1 billion on projects for farmers, ranchers and forest landowners to use practices that curb emissions or capture and store carbon. That program is focusing on projects for conservation practices including no-till, cover crops and rotational grazing.

Research suggests that removing carbon already in the atmosphere and replenishing soil worldwide could result in a 10% carbon drawdown.

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Ukraine Wind Energy Resilience shields the grid with wind power along the Black Sea, dispersing turbines to withstand missile attacks, accelerate clean energy transition, aid EU integration, and strengthen energy security and rapid recovery.

Key Points

A strategy in Ukraine using wind farms to harden the grid, ensure clean power, and speed recovery from missile strikes.

✅ Distributed turbines reduce single-point-of-failure risk

✅ Faster repair of substations and lines than power plants

✅ Supports EU-aligned clean energy and grid security goals

The giants catch the wind with their huge arms, helping to keep the lights on in Ukraine — newly built windmills, on plains along the Black Sea.

In 15 months of war, Russia has launched countless missiles and exploding drones at power plants, hydroelectric dams and substations, trying to black out as much of Ukraine as it can, as often as it can, even amid talk of limiting attacks on energy sites that has surfaced, in its campaign to pound the country into submission.

The new Tyligulska wind farm stands only a few dozen miles from Russian artillery, but Ukrainians say it has a crucial advantage over most of the country’s grid, helping stabilize the system even as electricity exports have occasionally resumed under fire.

A single, well-placed missile can damage a power plant severely enough to take it out of action, but Ukrainian officials say that doing the same to a set of windmills — each one tens of meters apart from any other — would require dozens of missiles. A wind farm can be temporarily disabled by striking a transformer substation or transmission lines, but these are much easier to repair than power plants.

“It is our response to Russians,” said Maksym Timchenko, CEO of DTEK Group, the company that built the turbines in the southern Mykolaiv region — the first phase of what is planned as Eastern Europe’s largest wind farm. “It is the most profitable and, as we know now, most secure form of energy.”

Ukraine has had laws in place since 2014 to promote a transition to renewable energy, both to lower dependence on Russian energy imports, with periods when electricity exports resumed to neighbors, and because it was profitable. But that transition still has a long way to go, and the war makes its prospects, like everything else about Ukraine’s future, murky.

In 2020, 12% of Ukraine’s electricity came from renewable sources — barely half the percentage for the European Union. Plans for the Tyligulska project call for 85 turbines producing up to 500 megawatts of electricity. That’s enough for 500,000 apartments — an impressive output for a wind farm, but less than 1% of the country’s prewar generating capacity.

After the Kremlin began its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the need for new power sources became acute, prompting deliveries such as a mobile gas turbine power plant to bolster capacity. Russia has bombarded Ukraine’s power plants and cut off delivery of the natural gas that fueled some of them.

Russian occupation forces have seized a large part of the country’s power supply, and Russia has built power lines to reactivate the Zaporizhzhia plant in occupied territory, ensuring that its output does not reach territory still held by Ukraine. They hold the single largest generator, the 5,700-megawatt Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, which has been damaged repeatedly in fighting and has stopped transmitting energy to the grid, with UN inspectors warning of mines at the site during recent visits. They also control 90% of Ukraine’s renewable energy plants, which are concentrated in the southeast.

The postwar recovery plans Ukraine has presented to supporters including the European Union, which it hopes to join, feature a major new commitment to clean energy, even as a controversial proposal on Ukraine’s nuclear plants continues to stir debate.

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Germany Solar Boom is accelerating amid energy security pressures, with photovoltaic capacity surging as renewables displace gas. Policy incentives, grid upgrades, and storage, plus agrivoltaics and rooftop systems, position solar as cornerstone of decarbonization.

Key Points

Germany Solar Boom is rapid PV growth enhancing energy security, cutting emissions, and expanding domestic, low-carbon electricity.

✅ Targets 250 GW PV by 2032 to meet rising electricity demand.

✅ Rooftop, agrivoltaics, and BIPV reduce land use and grid stress.

✅ Diversifies supply chains beyond China; boosts storage and flexibility.

Europe is in crisis mode. Climate change, increasing demand for energy, the war in Ukraine and Russia's subsequent throttling of oil and gas deliveries have pushed the continent into a new era.

Germany has been trapped in a corner. The country relies heavily on cheap imported natural gas to run its industries. Some power plants also use gas to produce electricity. Finding enough substitutes quickly is nearly impossible.

Ideas to prevent a looming power crisis in Germany have ranged from reducing demand to keeping nuclear power plants online past their official closing date at the end of the year. Large wind turbines are doing their part, but many people don't want them in their backyard.

Green activists have long believed renewable energies are the answer to keeping the lights on. But building up these capabilities takes time. Now many experts once again see solar power as a shining light at the end of the tunnel, as global renewables set fresh records worldwide. Some say a solar boom is in the making.

Before the war in Ukraine put energy security at the forefront, the new German government had already pledged that renewable sources — wind and solar — would make up 80% of electricity production by 2030 instead of 42% today. By 2035, electricity generation should be carbon neutral.

It is an ambitious plan, but the country seems to be on its way. July was the third month in a row when solar power output soared to a record level, trade publication pv magazine reported, and clean energy's share reached about 50% in Germany according to recent assessments. For the month, photovoltaic (PV) systems generated 8.23 ​​terawatt hours of power, around a fifth of net electricity production. They were only behind lignite-fired power plants, which brought in nearly 22% of net production. 

Solar cells hanging on a modular solar house during the Solar Decathlon Europe in Wuppertal, Germany
Solar panels can come in many different shapes and sizes, and be used in many different ways

Last year, Germany added more than 5 gigawatts of solar power capacity, 10% more than in 2020. That took the total solar power capacity to 59 gigawatts, overtaking installed onshore wind power capacity in Germany, pv magazine said in January. Last year's solar production was about 9% of gross electricity consumption, according to Harry Wirth, who is head of photovoltaic modules and power plant research at the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems in Freiburg.

"For 2032, the government target is around 250 gigawatts of solar energy. According to their estimates, electricity consumption will increase to 715 terawatt hours by 2030," Wirth told DW. A different study by consultancy McKinsey says this is the lower limit. "So if we assume 730 terawatt hours for 2032, we would be at around 30% photovoltaic electricity in gross electricity consumption," he added. 

The energy expert also envisions great potential to install more solar panels without taking up valuable land. Besides adding them on top of parking garages or buildings, photovoltaic parts can be integrated into the exterior of buildings or even on the outside of e-vehicles. This would "not only produce electricity on surfaces already in use, but it would also create synergies in its own application," said Wirth.

Foreign investment in German solar
It is not just researchers that are taking note. Big businesses are stepping in too. In July, Portuguese clean energy firm EDP Renovaveis (EDPR) announced it had agreed to take a 70% interest in Germany's Kronos Solar Projects, a solar developer, for €250 million ($254 million).

The Munich-based company has a portfolio of 9.4 gigawatts of solar projects in different stages of development in Germany, France, the Netherlands and the UK, according to the press release announcing the purchase. Germany represents close to 50% of the acquired solar portfolio.

EDPR, which claims to be the fourth-largest renewable energy producer worldwide, said it generated 17.8 terawatt hours of clean energy in the first half of 2022.

Miguel Stilwell d'Andrade, chief executive of EDPR and its parent EDP, said they have great expectations from Germany in particular as "it is a key market in Europe with reinforced renewable growth targets." 

Fabian Karthaus is one of the first farmers in Germany to grow raspberries and blueberries under photovoltaic panels. His solar field near the city of Paderborn in northwestern Germany is 0.4 hectares (about 1 acre), but he would like to expand it to 10. He could then generate enough electricity for around 4,000 households — and provide more berries for supermarkets.

Germany was once a leader in solar power. For many years the country enjoyed a large share of the world's total solar capacities. A lot of that early success had to do with innovative government support. That support, however, proved too successful for some as a fall in wholesale electricity prices in Northern Europe hurt the profits of power companies, leading to calls for a change in the rules.

Updated regulations, and changes to the Renewable Energy Sources Act that reduced feed-in tariffs slowed things down. Feed-in tariffs usually grant long-term grid access and above-market price guarantees in an effort to support fledgling industries.

With less direct financial incentives, the industry was neglected leaving it open for competitors. The pace of solar infrastructure growth has also been hampered by issues of red tape, supply chain backlogs, a lack of skilled technicians and, despite solar-plus-storage now undercutting conventional power in Germany, a shortage of storage for electricity produced when it is not needed.

Now the war in Ukraine and Europe's dependency on Russia is refocusing efforts and "will strengthen the determination for an ambitious PV expansion," said Wirth. But the biggest challenge to the region's solar industry remains China.

Public buildings can play a big role, not just because of their size, but because the government is in charge of them

An overreliance on China
China took an early interest in photovoltaic technology and soon galloped past countries like the US, Japan and Germany thanks to huge state subsidies that manufacturers enjoyed. Today, it has become the place to go for all things solar, even as Europe turns to US solar equipment suppliers to diversify procurement.

A new report from the International Energy Agency puts it into numbers. "China has invested over $50 billion in new PV supply capacity — 10 times more than Europe — and created more than 300,000 manufacturing jobs across the solar PV value chain since 2011."

Today China has over 80% of all solar panel manufacturing capacity and is home to the top-10 suppliers of photovoltaic manufacturing equipment. Such a high concentration has led to some incredible realities, like the fact that "one out of every seven panels produced worldwide is manufactured by a single facility," according to the report.

These economies of scale have brought down costs, and the country can make solar components 35% cheaper than in Europe. This gives China outsized power and makes the industry susceptible to supply chain bottlenecks. To diversify the industry and get back some of this market, Europe needs to invest in innovation and make solar growth a top priority.

Germany has several high-tech photovoltaic manufacturers and research institutes. But it only has one manufacturer of solar cells specializing in high-performance heterojunction technology, says Wirth. Yet even though the European photovoltaic industry is fragmented and not what it once was, he is still counting on big demand for solar technology in the foreseeable future, with markets like Poland accelerating adoption across the region. 

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Alberta Renewable Energy Boom highlights corporate investments, power purchase agreements, wind and solar capacity gains, grid decarbonization, and job growth, adding 2 GW and $3.7B construction since 2019 in an open electricity market.

Key Points

Alberta's PPA-driven wind and solar surge adds 2 GW, cuts grid emissions, creates jobs, and accelerates private builds.

✅ 2 GW added since 2019 via corporate PPAs

✅ Open electricity market enables direct deals

✅ Strong wind and solar resources boost output

Alberta has seen a massive increase in corporate investment in renewable energy since 2019, and capacity from those deals is set to increase output by two gigawatts —  enough to power roughly 1.5 million homes. 

“Our analysis shows $3.7 billion worth of renewables construction by 2023 and 4,500 jobs,” Nagwan Al-Guneid, the director of Business Renewables Centre Canada, says. 

The centre is an initiative of the environmental think tank Pembina Institute and provides education and guidance for companies looking to invest in renewable energy or energy offsets across Canada. Its membership is made up of renewable energy companies.

The addition of two gigawatts is over two times the amount of renewable energy added to the grid between 2010 and 2017, according to the Canadian Energy Regulator. 

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“This is driven directly by what we call power purchase agreements,” Al-Guneid says. “We have companies from across the country coming to Alberta.”

So far this year, 191 megawatts of renewable energy will be added through purchase agreements, according to the Business Renewables Centre, as diversified energy sources can make better projects overall.

Alberta’s electricity system is unique in Canada — an open market where companies can ink deals directly with private power producers to sell renewable energy and buy a set amount of electricity produced each year, either for use or for offset credits. The financial security provided by those contracts helps producers build out more renewable projects without market risks. Purchasers get cheap renewable energy or credits to meet internal or external emissions goals. 

It differs from other provinces, many of which rely on large hydro capacity and where there is a monopoly, often government-owned, on power supply. 

In those provinces, investment in renewables largely depends on whether the company with the monopoly is in a buying mood, says Blake Shaffer, an economics professor at the University of Calgary who studies electricity markets. 

That’s not the case in Alberta, where the only real regulatory hurdle is applying to connect a project to the grid.

“Once that’s approved, you can just go ahead and build it, and you can sell it,” Shaffer says.

That sort of flexibility has attracted some big investments, including two deals with Amazon in 2021 to purchase 455 megawatts worth of solar power from Calgary-based Greengate Power. There are also big investments from oil companies looking to offset emissions.

The investments are allowing Alberta to decarbonize its grid, largely with the backing of the private sector. 

Shaffer says Alberta is the “renewables capital in Canada,” a powerhouse in both green and fossil energy by many measures.

“That just shocks people because of course their association with Alberta is nothing about renewables, but oil and gas,” Shaffer says. “But it really is the investment centre for renewables in the entire country right now.”

Alberta has ‘embarrassing’ riches in wind energy and solar power
It’s not just the market that is driving Alberta’s renewables boom. According to Shaffer there are three other key factors: an embarrassment of wind and solar riches, the need to transition away from a traditionally dirty, coal-reliant grid and the current high costs of energy. 

Shaffer says the strong and seemingly non-stop winds coming off the foothills of the Rockies in the southwest of the province mean wind power is increasingly competitive and each turbine produces more energy compared to other areas. The same is true for solar, with an abundance of sunny days.

“Southern Alberta and southern Saskatchewan have the best solar insolation,” he says. “You put a panel in Vancouver, or you put a panel in Medicine Hat, and you’re gonna get about 50 per cent more energy out of that panel in Medicine Hat, and they’re gonna cost you the same.”

The spark that set off the surge in investments wasn’t strictly an open-market mechanism. Under the previous NDP government, the province brought in a program that allowed private producers to compete for government contracts, with some solar facilities contracted below natural gas demonstrating cost advantages.

The government agreed to a certain price and the producers were then allowed to sell their electricity on the open market. If the price dropped below what was guaranteed, the province would pay the difference. If, however, the price was higher, the developers would pay the difference to the government. 

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UK Transport Policy Overhaul signals bans on petrol and diesel cars, rail franchising reform, 15-minute cities, and active travel, tackling congestion, emissions, microplastics, urban sprawl, and public health with systemic, multimodal planning.

Key Points

A shift toward EVs, rail reform, and 15-minute cities to reduce emissions, congestion, and health risks.

✅ Phase-out of petrol and diesel car sales by 2030

✅ National rail franchising replaced with integrated operations

✅ Urban design: 15-minute cities, cycling, and active travel

Could it be true? That this government will bring all sales of petrol and diesel cars to an end by 2030, even as a 2035 EV mandate in Canada is derided by critics? That it will cancel all rail franchises and replace them with a system that might actually work? Could the UK, for the first time since the internal combustion engine was invented, really be contemplating a rational transport policy? Hold your horses.

Before deconstructing it, let’s mark this moment. Both announcements might be a decade or two overdue, but we should bank them as they’re essential steps towards a habitable nation.

We don’t yet know exactly what they mean, as the government has delayed its full transport announcement until later this autumn. But so far, nothing that surrounds these positive proposals makes any sense, and the so-called EV revolution often proves illusory in practice.

If the government has a vision for transport, it appears to be plug and play. We’ll keep our existing transport system, but change the kinds of vehicles and train companies that use it. But when you have a system in which structural failure is embedded, nothing short of structural change will significantly improve it.

A switch to electric cars will reduce pollution, though the benefits depend on the power mix; in Canada, Canada’s grid was 18% fossil-fuelled in 2019, for example. It won’t eliminate it, as a high proportion of the microscopic particles thrown into the air by cars, which are highly damaging to our health, arise from tyres grating on the surface of the road. Tyre wear is also by far the biggest source of microplastics pouring into our rivers and the sea. And when tyres, regardless of the engine that moves them, come to the end of their lives, we still have no means of properly recycling them.

Cars are an environmental hazard long before they leave the showroom. One estimate suggests that the carbon emissions produced in building each one equate to driving it for 150,000km. The rise in electric vehicle sales has created a rush for minerals such as lithium and copper, with devastating impacts on beautiful places. If the aim is greatly to reduce the number of vehicles on the road, and replace those that remain with battery-operated models, alongside EV battery recycling efforts, then they will be part of the solution. But if, as a forecast by the National Grid proposes, the current fleet is replaced by 35m electric cars, a University of Toronto study warns they are not a silver bullet, and we’ll simply create another environmental disaster.

Switching power sources does nothing to address the vast amount of space the car demands, which could otherwise be used for greens, parks, playgrounds and homes. It doesn’t stop cars from carving up community and turning streets into thoroughfares and outdoor life into a mortal hazard. Electric vehicles don’t solve congestion, or the extreme lack of physical activity that contributes to our poor health.

So far, the government seems to have no interest in systemic change. It still plans to spend £27bn on building even more roads, presumably to accommodate all those new electric cars. An analysis by Transport for Quality of Life suggests that this road-building will cancel out 80% of the carbon savings from a switch to electric over the next 12 years. But everywhere, even in the government’s feted garden villages and garden towns, new developments are being built around the car.

Rail policy is just as irrational, even though lessons from large electric bus fleets offer cleaner mass transit options. The construction of HS2, now projected to cost £106bn, has accelerated in the past few months, destroying precious wild places along the way, though its weak business case has almost certainly been destroyed by coronavirus.

If one thing changes permanently as a result of the pandemic, it is likely to be travel. Many people will never return to the office. The great potential of remote technologies, so long untapped, is at last being realised. Having experienced quieter cities with cleaner air, few people wish to return to the filthy past.

Like several of the world’s major cities, our capital is being remodelled in response, though why electric buses haven’t taken over remains a live question. The London mayor – recognising that, while fewer passengers can use public transport, a switch to cars would cause gridlock and lethal pollution – has set aside road space for cycling and walking. Greater Manchester hopes to build 1,800 miles of protected pedestrian and bicycle routes.

Cycling to work is described by some doctors as “the miracle pill”, massively reducing the chances of early death: if you want to save the NHS, get on your bike. But support from central government is weak and contradictory, and involves a fraction of the money it is spending on new roads. The major impediment to a cycling revolution is the danger of being hit by a car.

Even a switch to bicycles (including electric bikes and scooters) is only part of the answer. Fundamentally, this is not a vehicle problem but an urban design problem. Or rather, it is an urban design problem created by our favoured vehicle. Cars have made everything bigger and further away. Paris, under its mayor Anne Hidalgo, is seeking to reverse this trend, by creating a “15-minute city”, in which districts that have been treated by transport planners as mere portals to somewhere else become self-sufficient communities – each with their own shops, parks, schools and workplaces, within a 15-minute walk of everyone’s home.

This, I believe, is the radical shift that all towns and cities need. It would transform our sense of belonging, our community life, our health and our prospects of local employment, while greatly reducing pollution, noise and danger. Transport has always been about much more than transport. The way we travel helps to determine the way we live. And at the moment, locked in our metal boxes, we do not live well.

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East-West Power Transmission Grid links provinces via hydroelectric interconnects, clean energy exports, and reliable grid infrastructure, requiring federal funding, multibillion-dollar transmission lines, and coordinated planning across Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Ontario, and Newfoundland.

Key Points

A proposed interprovincial grid to share hydro power, improve reliability, and cut emissions with federal funding.

✅ Hydroelectric exports from Manitoba to prairie and eastern provinces

✅ New interconnects and transmission lines require federal funding

✅ Enhances grid reliability and supports coal phase-out

Manitoba's energy minister is recharging the idea of building an east-west power transmission grid and says the federal government needs to help.

Cliff Cullen told the Energy Council of Canada's western conference on Tuesday that Manitoba has "a really clean resource that we're ready to share with our neighbours" as new hydro generation projects, including new turbines come online.

"This is a really important time to have that discussion about the reliability of energy and how we can work together to make that happen," said Cullen, minister of growth, enterprise and trade.

"And, clearly, an important component of that is the transmission side of it. We've been focused on transmission ... north and south, and we haven't had that dialogue about east-west."

Most hydro-producing provinces currently focus on exports to the United States, though transmission constraints can limit incremental deliveries.

Saskatchewan Energy Minister Dustin Duncan said his province, which relies heavily on coal-fired electricity plants, could be interested in getting electricity from Manitoba, even as a Manitoba Hydro warning highlights limits on serving new energy-intensive customers.

"They're big projects. They're multibillion-dollar projects," Duncan said after speaking on a panel with Cullen and Alberta Energy Minister Margaret McCuaig-Boyd.

"Even trying to do the interconnects to the transmission grid, I don't think they're as easy or as maybe low cost as we would just imagine, just hooking up some power lines across the border. It takes much more work than that."

Cullen said there's a lot of work to do on building east-west transmission lines if provinces are going to buy and sell electricity from each other. He suggested that money is a key factor.

"Each province has done their own thing in terms of transmission within their jurisdiction and we have to have that dialogue about how that interconnectivity is going to work. And these things don't happen overnight," he said.

"Hopefully the federal government will be at the table to have a look at that, because it's a fundamental expense, a capital expense, to connect our provinces."

The 2016 federal budget said significant investment in Canada's electricity sector will be needed over the next 20 years to replace aging infrastructure and meet growing demand for electricity, with Manitoba's demand potentially doubling over that period.

The budget allocated $2.5 million over two years to Natural Resources Canada for regional talks and studies to identify the most promising electricity infrastructure projects.

In April, the government told The Canadian Press that Natural Resources Canada has been talking with ministry representatives and electric utilities in the western and Atlantic provinces.

The idea of developing an east-west transmission grid has long been talked about as a way to bring energy reliability to Canadians.

At their annual meeting in 2007, Canada's premiers supported development and enhancement of transmission facilities across the country, although the premiers fell short of a firm commitment to an east-west energy grid.

Manitoba, Ontario and Newfoundland and Labrador are the most vocal proponents of east-west transmission, even as Quebec's electricity ambitions have reopened old wounds in Newfoundland and Labrador.

Manitoba and Newfoundland want the grid because of the potential to develop additional exports of hydro power, while Ontario sees the grid as an answer to its growing power needs.

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