Comments on: Conservative cleantech announcement: care to speculate?

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Wed, 17 Jan 2007 15:51:00 +0000

I have found that those that DID get a contract are less happy than those that did not! Not only is the selection criteria extremely strict, the reporting is horribly onerous, but they regularly do not allow significant portions of claims.

If it is even available, it would be interesting to see the difference between the total money given to ‘the foundation’ by the government, the amount allocated to projects and the actual amount spent. There is a real parallel to Bush’s “1.2B for hydrogen” announcements versus the actual spent – just ask the DOE guys that administer the programs.

Yes, probably the biggest noise about Cleantech investing in North America. And yes, SDTC is almost exclusively geared towards VCs and finance institutions and so it makes sense that our US friends would like to see less R&D funding and more ‘last step to commercialisaton’ money available to reduce their risks.

Statistic can be used anyway one wants: “1,249 submissions from more than 3,100 organizations, representing $10.1 billion” and only $217m allocated so are 98% of the cleantech people in Canada not worthy?

From another angle, look at the 1249 submissions, let’s be really crazy and say each takes one month, that is 104 person-years lost in applying for 33% funding.

I actually & truly appreciate the image Canada gets from SDTC but it is not the dreamy picture presented.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Tue, 16 Jan 2007 23:41:00 +0000

I would imagine that those who didn’t get a contract aren’t happy with SDTC. That’s not a sign that it hasn’t done a good job, though I do know it has strict criteria for selecting projects. I can only speak from my experiences with the organization and those companies that have received funding. On top of that, SDTC arguably represents the largest cleantech investment fund in North America, and many venture capitalists and entrepreneurs I speak with in the United States wish they had a similar federal funding mechanism.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Tue, 16 Jan 2007 15:55:00 +0000

A bit surprised that you think SDTC is doing a good job. You might want to talk to some of the ‘contract award recipients’ and some that were unsuccessful with their applications. Most of industry thinks that SDTC is an excellent tool to NOT actually invest in clean/sustainable technologies. Just create the illusion of caring.

So yes, it makes sense that Harper would turn to SDTC with more money to not actually spend. Nobody else looks like they are doing as a good a job as SDTC so you are probably right.

And ‘clean coal’ is sure to get money – the DOE has switched most of its money to this so will Harper