26 Ways to Cut Emissions

“There are a lot of ideas out there and people are taking the issue seriously.”

by Paul Marck

This month marks a milestone in Alberta’s climate change strategy. The Alberta Climate Change and Emissions Management Fund releases details of its first 26 projects that will see measures developed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by the province’s top 100 emitters. Created just more than a year ago as a mandate of the Alberta government, CCEMF is funded by industry to the tune of more than $80 million a year.

The fund’s chairman, Eric Newell – former CEO of Syncrude – is as excited by the prospects of environmental remediation afforded by the fund as any of the advances made in Alberta’s oil sands over the past 30 years. Alberta is the first jurisdiction in North America to operate a mandatory reduction program for large industrial emitters, and Newell wanted to be part of this new wave of change.

When the fund asked for industry submissions for projects last summer, it was inundated with 223 individual responses – that, if all approved, would have amounted to a whopping $1.6 billion in research funding – well beyond the fund’s kitty of $123 million collected so far.

Newell is pleased at that overwhelming response. “What it indicates is that there are a lot of ideas out there and people are taking the issue seriously,” he said during an interview at his modest office at the University of Alberta. “I’m very encouraged.”

Those 223 plans were eventually whittled down to 30, and 26 made the final cut, after vetting by a panel of experts from Alberta’s research and innovation community. Accounting and management firms PricewaterhouseCoopers and Deloitte also play important roles in managing the process to ensure fairness, project viability and measurable outcomes.

When the fund was initiated, the provincial government gave the top 100 greenhouse gas emitters in the province – power generators, oil sands operators, refineries, chemical and gas plants – the options of making facility improvements, buying carbon offset credits, or contributing to a fund towards developing new greenhouse gas reduction technologies.

An arbitrary $15 per tonne of greenhouse gas emissions was set – a figure that Newell predicts will rise – and the fund collected $80 million in its first year. Based on emissions levels, it will be self-sustaining, creating an ongoing cycle of innovation, with new projects announced every year.

The fund has been divided into three envelopes of research dollars: efficiency and conservation; carbon capture and storage; and greening the environment. “We need to develop broader base knowledge,” says Newell. “It’s going to take real transformative technology, not just tinkering around the edges.”

The first round of approved applications from the fund includes pilot programs, demonstration projects and commercial demonstrations.

While Newell says the project list is impressive, research and commercialization will take time. “It’s the battle we have to win in the long run. We have to demonstrate that the technology works,” Newell says. He foresees game-changing technology evolving that will put Alberta and Canada into the global lead of greenhouse gas reduction.

To him, success was having the entirety of the fund up and running in its first year – mission accomplished – followed by demonstration projects functioning within five years, and 10 years “before bending the line” with commercially viable greenhouse gas emission-reduction technology.

The fund’s work is drawing global interest. The model was discussed at the Public Policy Forum conference in Washington in April as part of an effort to build relationships on carbon capture and emission reduction strategies with the U.S. The Conference Board of Canada is also evaluating the fund’s strategy and it has also drawn interest from Japan.

“There’s a lot of people out there thinking about it,” says Newell. And that’s good news. Because thinking generates ideas, and ideas are what the Alberta Climate Change and Emissions Management Fund is looking for.

“Anybody can have a good idea,” says Newell.

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