Ok, they have an awkward name, the Climate Change Emissions Management Corporation (CCEMC) but it's one of the most novel and forward thinking ideas Alberta's ruling party has come up with recently.

Couched in this terrible nomenclature is a seed of a good idea. Set a limit on carbon emissions from your worst emitters, set a cap and tax them $15 a ton or let them offset their activities through the carbon offset market. Then use the money raised through the tax to back greenhouse gas reducing projects and technology.

You'd never think it, or see it reported, but Alberta keeps quite good tabs on our largest GHG emitters. Called specified gas emitters, the CCEMC and it's related family of corporations are in charge of collecting data on Alberta's GHG emitters as well as the upkeep of a small carbon credit system. While you might find the data impossible a little tricky to find, I imagine the majority of them are coal fired power plants with the rest being cement/lime/concrete operations. From this they've raised $121 million dollars. Now what do you do with it?

The objectives of the fund are to achieve actual and sustainable reductions in greenhouse gas emissions and to assist in adapting to climate change. That's a pretty fuzzy goal but I'm not going to complain, at least there's been some movement on this file and they're backing projects that aren't all carbon capture and storage related. They put out a request for proposals last year and received 233 different ones. They then narrowed it to 30 candidates. You can read an older blog post of mine on the shortlist here. From that shortlist they decided on 16 different projects spending $71 of their $121 million dollars.

Of those 16 they've picked, they announced the details on five projects today. These were the renewable energy projects. Earlier today I did a blog post on the subject with the facts and some more context at Alberta Oil's website.

I'll relist them again with a bit of commentary after each. The projects and organizations receiving CCEMC funding are:

Enerkem Inc., $1.8 million for reduction of greenhouse emissions through greening biofuel production and carbon dioxide utilization, from pilot plant to commercialization, in Edmonton - This is quite interesting and speaks to the quality of Edmonton's waste management practices. I recommend you read this article on the subject. Here's a quote.

Consider Enerkem, for instance. The Montreal firm uses a thermochemical process to produce a synthetic gas, which can be converted to liquid fuels like ethanol plus a range of biochemicals. In Edmonton’s case, the waste-to-biofuel facility will convert sorted municipal waste – roughly 100,000 tonnes per year – into 36 million liters of ethanol per year. The city, Enerkem and Greenfield Ethanol, Canada’s largest producer, inked a 25-year agreement in 2008 that promises emission reductions in excess of six million tonnes – the equivalent of taking 12,000 cars off the road. The potential market is huge: 20 million vehicles were registered in Canada as of 2009.

City of Medicine Hat, $3 million, for the Medicine Hat Concentrating Solar Thermal Power Project - If you click the link it will take you to the Wikipedia page on the subject. Concentrating solar thermal is cool and I'm no expert but I'm pretty sure it's not the best fit for Canada. Mostly because our sunniest areas are arable land and at this point it's not the best use. If you have a desert just sitting around CSP works great. 

ECB Enviro North America Inc., $8.2 million for Lethbridge Biogas, Biogas Cogeneration Project - I had a great conversation with president  Thane Hurlburt after the offical speeches. While ECB has faced some difficulty and delay in getting their large scale biogas idea off the ground biogas is such a great fit for the Lethbridge area that this should put them over the hump. Lethbridge is home to Feedlot Alley, a 500 square kilometer region northwest of Lethbridge known for it's preponderance of CAFOs (confined animal feeding operations). With all of those animals in one place you get a lot of waste. That waste can sit in a barn offgassing methane all year or you can use an anaerobic digester to harvest the methane, burn it for heat and electricity, get rid of the smell and create wonderful organic fertilizer. It's a quadruple win, except for, you know, the animals. 

Plasco Alberta Inc., $10 million for the Plasco Alberta Energy and Waste Conversion Project, in Red Deer County - I had an interesting conversation with former MP and now senior advisor to Plasco, Bob Mills after the official speeches. An interesting dude he's one of the most passionate people I've ever met in regards to the subject of garbage. I'm not too familiar with the technology but this Ottawa based company essentially has a very high-tech incinerator that vapourizes muncipal waste with plasma arc technology.

Enmax Corporation, $14.5 million, for home generation - This is the one project that most Albertans are going to have a chance to interact with. Enmax has been planning this for a long time and it looks like they're finally ready to roll out small scale renewables in the home and increase the number of micro-generators in Alberta exponentially. Details are coming but essentially the plan is to roll out 9000 turnkey home generation operations with installations starting in 2011. There are currently around 150 micro-generators in the province. This is quite a drastic repositioning for a utility company and I wish Enmax all the best in regards to this scheme.

One final note. The CCEMC has only spent 57% of money it raised, with $50 million left over for next year. That's quite a haul. Given that 2009 will probably be a better year than 2008 the CCEMC could be sitting on quite a pile of cash in its short existence.