It’s beginning to look a lot like BioYule in Canada

#2. The Elections

As we reported in October, the Liberal party under the leadership of 43-year old Justin Trudeau, swept to victory in the Canadian federal elections. Prime Minister Trudeau has pledged that his government will run a short series of budget deficits aimed at boosting infrastructure spending.

The primary agency for renewables development in Canada is Sustainable Development Technology Canada, and its SD Tech Fund. In August, we reported: “the SD Tech Fund and the SD Natural Gas Fund are now open for applications through October 14, 2015. The SDTC portfolio is currently composed of 269 clean technology projects with a total value of $2.5 billion, of which over $1.8 billion is leveraged primarily from the private-sector.”

Another agency that is “on the biubble” and may benefit from a stronger focus on renewables is BioFuelNet Canada, whose network benefits from a $25 million grant over 5 years (2012 to 2017) through the federal Network of Centres of Excellence program.

The Trudeau government is pledged to “Make “critical investments” in the clean energy industry, and “support clean energy and energy-efficiency projects to “help reduce climate change causing gases, and to add high-paying, cutting edge jobs”. Specifically, the incoming government is pledged to “quadrupling Canada’s production of renewable energy from sources such as solar and wind, by 2017” — and to investments in “renewable energy production such as solar, wind, geothermal and biomass”.

The extent to which a Trudeau government will focus on transport and alternative fuels — as opposed to power generation — is as yet unclear. But the incoming government’s pledge to introduce a cap-and-trade system for greenhouse gas emissions suggests that transport may be on the table — especially in that the party platform states that a Canadian cap-and-trade system must “cover all industries with no exceptions.”