Companies like Suncor and Husky are sharing in a $22-million funding announcement made Friday in south Edmonton to green up the energy they produce. Seven projects from six companies were given a share of the funding from Natural Resources Canada, and announced by Edmonton-Centre MP Randy Boissonnault at the Edmonton Research Park.
“We’ve always said that we’re going to develop the resource and we’re going to protect the environment for the long term,” Boissonnault said about the importance of expanding TransMountain to increase revenue. “The (two) clean investment fund(s) are exactly our commitment to doing both.”
“The Government of Canada is clear we’re going to develop the resource, and we’re going to be investing in those companies that are spending more and more innovation time and research on developing clean energy and clean-tech initiatives.”
The announcement was made at the labs of Quantium Technologies, where they are taking carbon dioxide and hydrogen and turning it into methanol. They’re getting $500,000 to expand research.
“Us converting carbon dioxide to methanol is a very green, attractive way to get a fuel, a feedstock and consuming carbon dioxide,” Quantium CEO Steve Petrone said. “We’re actually looking for sources of carbon dioxide and converting them to something useful and green.”
Three of the projects are funded through Natural Resource Canada (NRCan)’s Oil and Gas Clean Tech Program, which provides $50 million over two years to support Canadian companies’ development of clean oil and gas technologies that will help reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
They are being shared by Husky Oil for $9.4 million, Suncor Energy for $7.8 million, and $375,000 for Proton Technologies to extract, produce and use resources more cleanly.
The other four projects are funded through NRCan’s Clean Energy Innovation Program, which provides $25 million over two years for companies to accelerate clean technology development. Inventys Thermal Technologies, Carbon Upcycling Technologies, Carbon Engineering and Quantiam Technologies are researching improved ways to use carbon-capture technology to create new methods and products.
Petrone said Quantium is three to five years away from being able to convert carbon dioxide to methanol on a large enough scale that it can be commercially successful.
“In a technology timeline, that’s quite attractive. We’re three to five years from most of the technical risk being removed. It’s a good place to be.”
Comments