Japan/Canada in clean energy dispute
The Japanese mission to the WTO said the dispute centres on guaranteed long-term pricing for solar and wind generators made with a certain percentage of locally produced components.
Ontario, CanadaÂ’s most populous province, launched an incentive program for renewable energy producers last October, aiming to create jobs and eliminate coal-fired power generators.
Tokyo believes that the pricing guarantees offered by Ontario in the wind and solar sectors constitute subsidies that violate CanadaÂ’s obligations under international trade law.
The request for consultations by Tokyo is the first step in a WTO dispute. If the two sides do not reach an agreement on their own, a WTO panel would be set up to arbitrate the dispute in a process that could eventually lead to retaliation.
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TORONTO - As countries race to get their power grids off fossil fuels to fight climate change, there's a big push in the U.S. to upgrade dams built for purposes such as water management or navigation with a feature they never had before — hydroelectric turbines.
And the strategy is being used in parts of Canada, too.
The U.S. Energy Information Administration says only three per cent of 90,000 U.S. dams currently generate electricity. A 2012 report from the U.S. Department of Energy found that those dams have 12,000 megawatts (MW) of potential hydroelectric generation capacity. (According to the National Hydropower Association,…
