Combatting Climate Change by Investing in CleanTech: Government of Canada Announces CleanTech Companies to Receive$58 Million

January 22, 2010

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Sixteen clean technology projects from across Canada will receive $58 million in funding to help move innovative technology solutions to the market. The announcement, confirming the decision of the Board of Directors of Sustainable Development Technology Canada (SDTC), was made today by the Honourable Lisa Raitt, Minister of Natural Resources, and Vicky Sharpe, SDTC’s President and CEO.

“Our Government continues to help bring innovative renewable energy technologies from idea to marketplace,” said Minister Raitt. “Investing in these projects will stimulate the growth of a domestic clean energy industry, create high-quality jobs for Canadians and help protect our environment.”

“Through SDTC, the Government of Canada is helping cleantech companies convert their new technologies into market-ready products,” said SDTC Chairman Juergen Puetter. “When these companies bring their technologies to businesses and consumers, they create jobs, provide Canada a technological edge and contribute to an overall reduction in Canada’s greenhouse gas emissions”.

These innovative clean technologies involve many of Canada’s main economic sectors, including energy utilization, transportation and waste management. Some highlights of this round include:

Technologies that will help reduce the environmental impacts of the transportation sector by using renewable energy such as electricity and hydrogen to power vehicles.

Biomass-related technologies that will add value to Canada’s forestry and agricultural industries, furthering the development of a bio-based economy. READ MORE

1. Lead organization: Agrisoma Biosciences Inc., Vancouver, British-Columbia

Project title: ETL Oilseed

Environmental Benefits: Clean Soil / Climate Change / Clean Air / Clean Water

Economic Sector: Agriculture

Consortium Members:
Agrisoma BioSciences Inc.
General Bio Energy Inc.
Canadian Bioenergy Inc.
Saskatchewan Mustard Development Commission
NRC-Plant Biotechnology Institute

Project Description:
Biotechnology has an important role to play in increasing the economic and environmental performance of renewable fuels. Agrisoma’s unique, proprietary crop genetic engineering system, ETL (Engineered Trait Loci), will be used to rapidly develop an improved Brassica carinata, a non-food oilseed of the mustard family. Agrisoma will modify the contents of the crop so that it can be used to produce a premium biodiesel with a lower cloud point (-18oC) and improved stability, suitable for Canada’s climate. The process will also allow the addition of traits to improve drought resistance, weather tolerance and agronomic robustness, which will enable these high-yield oilseeds to be able to grow on marginal land. The result of these improvements will be up to a 50% reduction in feedstock costs to biodiesel producers, significant greenhouse gas and clean air benefits from increased biofuels usage and soil benefits from the cultivation of a feedstock crop that doesn’t need superior land and other inputs normally required for oilseeds for food production.

6. Lead organization: Ferme Olivier Lépine inc., St-Alexis, Quebec

Project title: Cellulosic Ethanol Pilot Plant

Environmental Benefits: Clean Soil/ Climate Change / Clean Air / Clean Water

Economic Sector: Agriculture

Consortium Members:
Ferme Olivier Lépine inc.
Ferme Sébastien Lépine inc.
Coopérative Profid’Or

Project Description:
Ferme Olivier Lépine, together with its consortium partners, have developed a unique integration of processes from other industries to produce ethanol and important co-products from otherwise unused agricultural waste materials. The consortium will build a 12 million litre per year pilot plant and demonstrate innovative processes and equipment to harvest, pretreat and hydrolyse crop residues, improve fermentation, produce enzymes on-site and produce cellulosic ethanol. The generated co-products will support local agriculture while reducing water and energy consumption. The mid-size scale of the facility and the integration of this unique process with agricultural operations within a local farm community will contribute to the sustainability of the Canadian agricultural sector while offering a biofuel option from non-food feedstocks without the use of additional land.

13. Lead organization: SBI BioEnergy Inc., Edmonton, Alberta

Project title: Novel Heterogeneous Catalyst-Based Continuous Biodiesel Production Technology

Environmental Benefits: Clean Water / Climate Change / Clean Water / Clean Soil

Economic Sector: Energy Utilization

Consortium Members:
SBI BioEnergy Inc.
CanGen Energy Corp.
Olds College School of Innovation
novaNAIT
Alfa Laval Inc.
Spartan Controls
AVAC Ltd.
Alberta Agriculture / Alberta Energy

Project Description:
A key challenge in current biodiesel production is the complex and capital-intensive chemical processes. SBI BioEnergy’s innovative single-step biodiesel reactor is a modular and scalable technology designed to eliminate 62% of the capital costs and 12% of the operating costs compared to current biodiesel production. This is achieved by replacing the current aqueous consumable chemical catalysts and water requirements with a combination of reaction- specific solid catalysts that are not consumed, do not require additional water, are durable and can be regenerated if necessary. The process is more cost effective and energy efficient, while drastically reducing consumption of water and other chemicals. The single-step continuous process also eliminates 90% of the footprint, making it ideal for retrofitting and upgrading existing biodiesel facilities.

14. Lead organization: SunOpta BioProcess Inc., Brampton, Ontario

Project title: Cellulosic Ethanol and Xylitol Pilot Plant

Environmental Benefits: Clean Water / Clean Air / Climate Change

Economic Sector: Energy Exploration and Production

Consortium Members :
SunOpta BioProcess Inc.
Xylitol Canada
Emerald Forest Sugars Inc.

Project Description :
The fabrication of valuable co-products allows biofuel producers to increase their profitability and competitiveness. SunOpta BioProcess has developed an end-to-end process that will produce both food grade xylitol a healthy sugar
substitute and fuel grade cellulosic ethanol, therefore increasing the sustainability of ethanol production. Using wood chips as feedstock, the technology decreases process water consumption by up to 75% compared to producing corn ethanol while retaining all of the life-cycle carbon benefits inherent to cellulosic ethanol. The proposed project involves the construction of a pilot plant that expects to produce up to 620 tonnes of xylitol and two million litres of cellulosic ethanol per year.

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