Cleantech

If the US government is coming out strong for clean tech, Canada’s federal government seems committed to the exact opposite: the economic engine of the oil sands, and anything that supports it. Cleantech investment tops $6.8 billion: US leads while Canada chooses oil

16 January 2014. Global market intelligence firm the Cleantech Group reports that worldwide venture investment across all clean technology sectors totaled $6.8 billion during 2013. This signals a positive shift in the market after five consecutive quarters of decreasing investment, beginning in early 2012. Distributed generation, resource sharing, agriculture, and the digital oilfield theme are popular areas.

In 2013 the energy efficiency sector led the way with $1.3 billion invested and 20 per cent of the sector total, followed by the transportation sector and then solar. These strong numbers are welcome news for the sector following a recent report by 60 Minutes suggesting that ‘cleantech’ may have become a dirty word.

But the good news for green doesn’t stop there. The US Department of Energy has announced a $3 million initiative to support American clean energy entrepreneurs. The National Incubator Initiative for Clean Energy (or NIICE) "will support a strong national network of clean energy incubators and early-stage companies," the department wrote in a release. While $3 million may seem like spare change for the US — the Department of Energy's 2014 discretionary funding request to Congress topped $28 billion in total — the department has seen relatively small investments pay dividends before. CleanTechnica noted that the Department of Energy's SunShot initiative pumped $92 million worth of investments into solar energy companies that then attracted close to $1.7 billion in private investment.

If the US government is coming out strong for clean tech, Canada’s federal government seems committed to the exact opposite: the economic engine of the oil sands, and anything that supports it. Now, CBC’s investigative The Fifth Estate highlights moves by the Harper government not just against media coverage of climate and environmental concerns, but on government labs themselves. Key research centres and programs have been closed and scientists who have been conducting research in a variety of critical environmental areas have been muzzled or dismissed. Media access to federal scientists has been obstructed: simple media requests are left unfilled for months; questions are often required ahead of time; and answers are filtered through government public relations departments. The Fifth Estate episode shines a spotlight on the research of Sidney, BC Fisheries and Oceans scientists Dr. Peter Ross, who studied toxicology in marine mammals, as well as David Schindler, retired from the University of Alberta, whose work on toxicology in animals around the oil sands brought images of deformed fish to the media.