Government cleantech announcement: yawn
As I suspected the Harper government is throwing a bit more money at cleantech R&D and demonstration, with a focus on “key priorities that include carbon dioxide sequestration, clean coal, clean oil sands production and renewable energy.” Notice how renewable energy is the last one mentioned.
The commitment? A not so whopping $230 million invested over four years in a program called the ecoEnergy Technology Initiative. What’s not clear is whether this will be part of Sustainable Development Technology Canada (created by the Liberals), how the money will be invested, and whether the money is actually new or part of SDTC’s existing budget.
SDTC, which began allocating funds in April 2002, began with a budget of $550 million. So far it has funded nine rounds and allocated $241 million. The rest will be allocated by 2010, working out to an average of $61 million a year. Of interest is that SDTC funds projects on a 1:2 basis, meaning for every dollar SDTC invests $2 must come from the private sector/industry.
What the Conservatives announced today equals $57.5 million a year. So, if it is merely announcing money that SDTC already has, then, this is a pathetic announcement. If it’s new money, then that would amount to a doubling of clean investment over the next four years — not bad, but not necessarily enough.
So either way, I find this announcement underwhelming.
UPDATE: The Conservatives say they won’t provide details of how this $230 million will be allocated until April (likely after an election, surprise, surprise). They have hinted it will likely be invested as part of some public-private partnerships, which is the approach SDTC is taking. That said, a source at SDTC told me their budget remains in tact and completely separate from this announcement, so the $230 million appears so far to be *new* money. But again, we won’t know details until April.
Tyler Hamilton is senior energy reporter and columnist for the Toronto Star, Canada's largest daily newspaper. In addition to this Clean Break blog, Tyler writes a weekly column of the same name that discusses trends, happenings and innovators in the cleantech market. This blog is a personal project started in April 2005. It is not an official blog of the newspaper. Tyler can be reached at tyler@cleanbreak.ca
January 17th, 2007 at 4:42 pm
It would be a shame (but not a surprise) for the government to duplicate the efforsts of SDTC. If its a similar mandate then why not save on adminstation costs and bureaucracy.
January 19th, 2007 at 3:51 am
So this is new money…
But what about his seemingly narrow vision of our energy future? Clean Coal, Clean Oil Sands, Co2 sequestration? Yikes! You can put the word “Clean” in front of anything to put on a new spin and extend its shelf life.
These technologies are all very very far away from being environmentally friendly. Harper has a fixation on fossil fuels and seems to want to make the industries of Alberta proud by giving them continual breaks and reason for continuing on the path to global destruction… very scary.
And you mention the 2:1 ratio of public to SDTC… does this mean that giants such as the Oil / Gas industry will see the bulk (having generous industry investment) while the budding renewable / sustainable technology industry gets the crumbs? Sounds a little biased to me.
January 19th, 2007 at 3:59 am
Glen Estill has an interesting blog post regarding a new Nuke Plant proposal for the Tar Sands… maybe this is what Harper is talking about when he’s pushing the “Clean Oil Sands” topic. Scary stuff. Using Nukes to prop up the Alberta Oil Industry.
http://www.biofuels.coop/windblog/?p=122#more-122