Alberta is gearing up to close a long-standing gap in its energy programming, putting an end to its status as the only North American jurisdiction that makes no effort to support energy efficiency.
Earlier this month, the Alberta Energy Efficiency Alliance hosted a meeting of practitioners from across Canada and the United States, who gathered “not to berate the province, but to talk about how it can leap right from energy efficiency tadpole to a majestic bullfrog,” reports the Pembina Institute’s Green Energy Futures blog.
“There’s a chart that I shared that identified the budget per capita for energy efficiency programs across North America,” said Portland, OR efficiency entrepreneur Dain Nestel. “You see a lot of numbers in the United States. You see a lot of numbers in Canada. But the really big number you see in Alberta—zero. Because Alberta doesn’t have energy efficiency programs.”
That gap translates into an enormous local opportunity, he told bloggers David Dodge and Dylan Thompson.
“I would say it boils down to three key things: jobs, jobs, and jobs,” Nestel said. “The money that’s freed up stays local. [One study] showed that if you made a $30-billion investment in energy efficiency, the total economic value would be $150 billion. That’s a nice multiplier. $94 billion of [that] would stay in Canada. Those are huge numbers.”
Alberta Energy Minister Marg McCuaig-Boyd told participants the province plans to direct revenues from its carbon levy into energy efficiency programming. “By investing the carbon levy funds in the right energy efficiency programs, we can create green jobs, stimulate the economy, and further reduce emissions,” she said.
The carbon levy will also deliver a $10-million cash infusion for an Edmonton company that believes it can produce a cost-competitive biofuel, suitable to replace all uses of diesel, by the end of the year.
“SBI Bioenergy in south Edmonton is in the final stages of building a biorefinery to convert canola oil and animal fats into a renewable fuel that can replace or be blended with regular diesel,” CBC reports. “CEO Inder Pal Singh said his technology produces a cleaner fuel than other renewable products, because it doesn’t use water or hydrogen. The process also doesn’t produce any waste.”
“Any kind of vegetable oil can be converted into renewable diesel or renewable jet fuel using our technology,” Singh said. “There’s international interest,” he added, “because our technology provides a major advantage in greenhouse gas reduction benefits, and in operating and capital costs, compared to what’s out there today.”
“The potential of this innovation is game-changing,” Premier Rachel Notley told media last week.
