Thermal Energy International is counting on projects such as one to harness heat from vents at paper mills to take it to the next level of growth. But many companies in Canada's growing clean-tech sector would be happy just to get to the first stage.
For more than 50 years, rich plumes of steam have risen in the heart of the capital region from the Kruger Products plant in nearby Gatineau, just down the street from the Museum of Civilization and across the river from Parliament Hill. The energy comes from heat used to make Spongetowels, Scotties tissues and White Swan industrial towels. It's a secretive and competitive technology that gives products the fluffy feel consumers demand.
The plant consumes a huge amount of energy. Gusts of hot, humid air mix with cooler, dryer air at every step of the process. The accumulated heat rises quickly, filling the mezzanine of the plant with jungle-like humidity before dispersing through giant vents.
The steam will soon be reduced when Kruger installs heat-reclamation technology developed by Ottawa-based Thermal Energy International. The $4.8-million project is small relative to some of the promised multi-billion-dollar projects in the works as the world embraces a new green agenda. But unlike some of the big-ticket green-wash projects attracting nebulous promises and vast amounts of attention, this project is actually happening.
Studies for Sustainable Development Technologies Canada, a federally funded agency, show Canadian industry and government are slow to take a chance on the technology of promising new companies, preferring to buy from giants.
Many Ottawa technology startups have for several years been promised $35-million in federal funding to prove their technology. But with venture capital in short supply, many cannot raise the matching private money for the demonstration projects necessary to take their products to market.
Others are still in development stages, reluctant to make the plunge to full-scale marketing -- another fault of small inventor-driven companies.
Meanwhile, companies outside Ottawa such as Enerkem in Montreal and many in the United States and around the world are gaining key new financing in the critical race to be first to market. Ken Lawless, former head of the Ottawa Life Sciences Council who now leads BDR, a bio-fuel play, said he hopes U.S. President Barack Obama's tough demand for new green energy initiatives in the wake of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill will trigger new financing.
Gordon Buchanan, a Kruger engineer managing the Gatineau plant job, said "there has been talk about reducing energy consumption here for years but now we have the technology that will make it happen."
The Thermal technology will capture steam bound for vents to heat the plant in winter as well as power the boilers that generate the steam. Financed in part by a $1.93-million grant from the heavy oil consumption reduction program of Quebec's Agence de l'efficacite energetique, the equipment is expected to reduce consumption by 20%. It could also reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 10,000 tonnes a year, the equivalent of taking 2,500 cars off the road.
The tiny companies most likely to survive the credit squeeze also have long experience dealing with market realities when the public was indifferent to green technology. Thermal has had a rocky history, numerous management changes and an ill-fated sales effort in China. It installed the heat-reclamation technology at a Fraser Pulp plant in Thurso, Que., one of several installations in the United States and Canada. Then the Fraser plant closed in the industry collapse. Now the Fraser plant is reopening under new owner Fortress Specialty Cellulose to produce high-grade security paper. Thermal expects the deal with Fortress will generate $1.8-million in the next 18 months.
Thermal chief executive William Crossland said, "the price of energy is rising, the economy is improving and we think that will create long-term opportunities."
Another hopeful Ottawa clean-tech company, Ensyn Technologies, has lived with the vagaries of the market for a generation, patiently developing technology that turns sawdust and bark into pyrolytic oil for blending in traditional lubricants and other products. The new plant at the Tolko Industries sawmill at High Level, Alta., north of Edmonton, shows how far innovators have to go to turn rhetoric into sales. Ensyn will jointly develop, finance and run the Tolko energy-conversion facility.
For Ottawa's promising clean-tech sector, the Ensyn project is an important milestone. "It's an overnight success story that took 17 years," Mr. Lawless said.
