The general lesson is this. While I'm willing to say that yes, you can get some results from subsidies for green power on the electricity supply side—so I wouldn't rule them out there—the research is very interesting. A lot of leading researchers are supporting this now. It's evidence coming from the period when I chaired the B.C. Utilities Commission, for example, and from Canada, the United States, and Europe.
Subsidy programs for energy efficiency are very problematic and are probably much less effective than the people implementing them actually believe. It's because it's very difficult to pick out what are called “free riders”, people who were actually going to buy a more efficient device. They always represent a certain percentage of the economy. They tend to be the ones who can capture those subsides. As you give them the money, you think you're making the system more efficient, but you're actually not.
What would be the alternatives to that from a policy point of view? I again go back to the fact that I don't know how much energy efficiency will actually occur. I would prefer to get the right signals in there about the value of the atmosphere and then let the chips fall where they may. In other words, maybe we will have less energy efficiency. Maybe Canadians will use even more energy in 2050 than they do today. But if we get the policies right, it will be their choice, because they'll have opted for more of a supply of clean electricity instead.
On the only places where I can see some possibility for regulation, especially for cutting out the lower third of devices every 10 years, there are studies that show you do not affect consumer choice in a major way if you clean up technologies over time. The energy efficient regulations are not as a driving force for efficiency but are rather a consolidating force in concert with other policies that value the atmosphere.