Energy stakeholders, academics urge support for clean technology
OTTAWA — The federal government should create a national clean-energy plan to stabilize the playing field and foster growth for emerging cleantechnology companies, says a report to be published Tuesday by the Pembina Institute, an Alberta-based research organization.
Based on interviews with leading executives, entrepreneurs and academics, the report concluded that clean-energy growth in Canada was at risk from foreign competition. But it said Canada could catch up to the rest of the world and increase the market share of its clean- technology companies to $60 billion from $9 billion by 2020 by introducing the right financial tools and policies.
Dianne Zimmerman, manager of strategic relations for Suncor Energy, said in the report that there is strong support for innovation and growth in some provinces that have committed to a long-term vision in support of renewable energy.
“I believe that at the federal level, there is an opportunity to create a commitment that would establish a vision of where the federal government would like to see Canada going,” Zimmerman said. “Having that very strong vision would help to provide some of the certainty that we’re all looking for.”
Ed Whittingham, executive director of the Pembina Institute, noted that the report also shows that the concept of a “national energy strat- egy” is now acceptable, even in Calgary, “without having to worry about the ghost of Pierre Trudeau coming out and haunting you in chains.”
“It’s not the National Ener- gy Program any more,” he said, referring to a federal program created by the Trudeau government in 1980 that was widely criticized for transferring wealth out of Alberta’s energy industry to Eastern Canada.
“It (a national energy strategy) is greater intergovernmental co-operation on energy to help us take advantage of this $3 trillion economy by 2020. Right now, we’re just not seeing that at the federal level.”
The report also highlighted various opportunities for growth in sectors such as manufacturing of electric buses in Quebec, waste heatrecovery technologies in Western Canada or technolo- gies and infrastructure for the wind industry in Ontario.
But stakeholders consulted by the research organization said governments must lead the way by reducing incentives or subsidies for the fossil fuel industry and by ensuring businesses pay a price for polluting the atmosphere.
“I’m an economist,” said Dawn Farrell, CEO of TransAlta, an Alberta power company. “I do not believe that you will ever make the right and most efficient decisions on how to do carbon without a price on carbon. If society agrees that the use of the atmosphere for taking up CO2 is a scarce resource, then we know that pricing resources minimizes their use.”