Arise Technologies Corp., a 13-year-old company based in Ontario produces photo voltaic cells used in solar panels - from a factory in Europe. Arise was able to buid its first factory in Bischofswerda, near Dresden, in 2006 due to an $80-million investment offer by the German government, where some 100 people work at the plant today. It supplies Europe's solar energy market, which founder and Chief Technology Officer, Ian MacLellan, calls "far more established and mature" than Canada's.
The European Union set up an emissions trade system in 2005. It forces emitters who exceed greenhouse gas emissions limits to buy credits from less-polluting companies. One result is that 250,000 people now work in Germany's renewable-energy industry.
MacLellan is anticipating that governments in the U.S. and Canada will put into force the same kind of green energy laws within a year. His industry will expand on this side of the Atlantic Ocean, he expects. So Arise is positioning itself to take advantage.
Arise has plans to set up a 68,000-square-foot pilot plant in Kitchener, Ontario. It would produce silicon for solar applications. "What we've been holding our breath on, is the Ontario government following through with implementing regulations for the Green Energy Act," MacLellan says.
Ontario passed the Green Energy Act in May. One of the aims of it, is to encourage investment in renewable energy firms such as Arise. However, a timetable to begin enforcing a proposed national industrial-emissions plan has been delayed from 2010 to 2011. Green-energy firms, experts and groups concerned with global warming say they know little about what the proposed plan will look like, or how tough it will be.
Environment Minister Jim Prentice has said the emissions scheme will be unveiled before December, where governments from arond the world will gather in Copenhagen, Denmark, to discuss a new agreement to replace the Kyoto Protocol.
Experts have been arguing for years that making climate-warming gases more expensive to produce is the best way to fight global warming.
"I tell politicians that they have to price carbon if they are serious about reducing GHG emissions," says Mark Jaccard, a professor of energy policy and modelling at Simon Fraser University who has been advising the federal government. He points to North America's first consumer-based carbon tax as an example. It was introduced in B.C. in 2008, and it's designed to rise each year before leveling out at $30 per metric ton of carbon dioxide in 2012.
Still, Canadian emissions policies are not as good as what the U.S. government has been working on.
Congress approved US$59 billion in funding for green-energy initiatives in February as part of Washington's expansive economic recovery program. The U.S. Senate is also set to debate a bill for a European-style emissions trade system this fall, after the House of Representatives passed it in June.
As developed countries move more aggressively to discourage carbon emissions, climate-change groups are warning that Canadian renewables firms may be left behind.
Like what Clare Demerse, an associate director at The Pembina Institute says, "We're clearly one of the laggards internationally. That's creating very serious competitiveness issues for local green energy firms".
Ottawa's 2009 federal budget included $1 billion for the Green Infrastructure Fund, which deals with electricity generation, and $1 billion for the Clean Energy Fund, which targets renewable-energy technology. However, the U.S. government will invest six times more per capita in renewable-energy and energy-efficiency projects this year compared to Ottawa, the Pembina Institute calculates.
"When they see the amount of support on offer in the United States versus Canada, it's pretty obvious where a company would want to invest," Demerse says.
Yet there are signs Ottawa could be heading towards an emissions-trade system similar to the ones used in countries like the US.
During the "three amigos summit", Prime Minister Stephen Harper, U.S. President Barack Obama and Mexican President Felipe Calderon issued a joint statement, pledging to cooperate to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions across the continent. Still, Jaccard doubts that the federal government's climate-change policy will keep pace with that of its southern neighbour.
No comments:
Post a Comment