Clean technology the next wave

by Bruce Mason

• Cleantech – the most significant under-reported story of 2014 – might be the best news you receive this year. Unless you are ‘Big Oil’ or ‘Bad Government.’ Then it is very bad news, indeed, something you would prefer mainstream media to continue to gloss over, belittle or bury beneath distractions.

Hopefully, you read in alternative media – or picked up the whispers from the corporate press echoed electronically across social media last month – that Canada’s green energy sector now employs more folks than the Alberta tar sands!

For those keeping score: 23,700 are currently employed in our nation’s burgeoning green energy industry while 22,340 souls toil in the dark satanic mills surrounding Fort McMurray – an area of 140,000 square kilometres, slightly smaller than the state of Florida.

It might be a tad dizzying to continue to keep a tally: 6.5 million people are employed worldwide in cleaner energy and that number is growing exponentially, leaving oilers and frackers in the dust and waste.

That information is contained in a new study from the climate think-tank – yes, we now have these – Clean Energy Canada. It reports that $25 billion has been invested here in the past five years and employment is up 37%.

“Clean energy has moved from being a small niche or boutique industry to really big business in this country,” says Merran Smith, director of Clean Energy Canada. Investment since 2009 rivals the combined bucks pumped into agriculture, fishing and forestry combined. For example, investment in the energy-generating capacity of wind, solar, run-of-river hydro and biomass plants has soared by 93%. As a result, experts predict the industry will continue to realize huge growth potential, beyond most other businesses.

Predictably, right wing pundits and think-tanks are saying it can’t be so, incessantly mumbling the maddening political mantra that nothing but increasing resource extraction can ensure a stable economy. That scary presumption is finally being definitively challenged by positive action and numbers.

Unlike Céline Bak, who tracks cleantech nationally, most economic observers don’t have a handle on what’s happening. “We haven’t named this as an economic sector in this country; it doesn’t have defined status with Stats Canada or the Bank of Canada,” reports the president of Analytica Advisors.

Her Ottawa-based company has monitored Canada’s expanding clean technology sector for five years. Its 2014 report confirms that not only is the industry broader and deeper than previously thought, it is growing steadily and can simultaneously be a big winner on environmental and economic fronts.

Cleantech shouldn’t be confused with ‘envirotech’ or ‘greentech,’ popularized in the 70s and 80s as high-flying investment opportunities, then faltering from 2010 to 2013. Subsidies and political support waned as economic woes and initial irrational exuberance morphed into underwhelming investor returns that conspired against it.

Clean technology represents the next wave, providing solutions to such issues as global climate, challenges to resources and the desire for energy independence. New models are emerging, offering competitive returns for investors and customers while providing answers to global challenges. These embrace a diverse range of products, services and processes designed to reduce or eliminate negative ecological impact and improve the productive and responsible use of natural resources.

Bak’s analysis comprises 700 companies in 10 sectors across Canada, including renewable energy, water treatment, green building and the development of environmentally friendly consumer products. It is an industry coming of age.

“Clean Technology is one of Canada’s first 21st century industries. It has a growing presence in international markets and is bringing economic opportunity across the country,” Bak says. “It is growing faster than every other major sector of the economy, directly employing 41,000 people – up six percent from 38,800 in 2011 – and generating $11.3 billion in revenues in 2012.”

And there is much more good news, highlighted by the increasing numbers of keen, employed, well-paid young people and the need for more of them, including humanities-related graduates. The industry is producing very high rates of exports while investing $1 billion in research and development – a greater investment than in oil and gas extraction, mining, agriculture, forestry and fishing. It is also much less liable to boom and bust cycles, commonplace in resource extraction.

Bak estimates that, if Canadians recognize and pay attention to cleantech as well as actually creating policy to support it, growth would skyrocket to $32 billion by 2022, employing 120,000. Without policies, cleantech will stall at half that size. Wait too long and the technology, intellectual property, manufacturing and jobs may migrate to greener shores.

However, clean energy is still not a priority in Ottawa. “Every major industrial sector in Canada – from the aerospace industry to the oil sands – has gotten off the ground with support from the federal government. But in the clean-energy sector, the federal government is really missing in action,” says Clean Energy Canada’s Smith.

Four out of five of the largest investors in Canada’s cleantech expansion currently come from outside the country. Meanwhile, Stephen Harper and Christy Clark continue to bolster oil sands and natural gas development, western coal exports and proposed oil pipelines and fail to heed the immediate and overwhelming message of climate science that no future stable economy can rely on carbon-intensive development.

Another well recognized Canadian export, Bank of England’s governor Mark Carney, recently warned that vast reserves of fossil fuels can’t be burned if the world is to avoid catastrophic climate change resulting from a rise in global temperature beyond a dangerous 2° C.

Despite that alarming fact, not only does the oil industry still get more substantial subsidies and tax breaks, it eats up a good deal of the country’s politics and diplomatic relations efforts, through the lobbying for the Keystone XL pipeline, for example.

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon recently chided Canada while calling on the country to become more “ambitious and visionary” in dealing with issues like climate change. “Canada is an advanced country; you have many ways to make some transformative changes,” he said.

He was also overheard during climate talks in Lima stating, “If climate justice was lightning, then we would surely find Stephen Harper atop a hilltop in a thunderstorm wearing wet copper armour and shouting ‘Climate Change is an alarmist hoax.’”

In September, Bak spoke in Vancouver to a forum sponsored by the David Suzuki Foundation, which was opened by Suzuki who stressed that too often Canadian brainpower has fled to other countries. Bak shared the results of her research with a large and enthusiastic audience, followed by a roundtable of local leaders. See the entire presentation at:

http://www.davidsuzuki.org/issues/climate-change/projects/the-cleantech-edge-canadas-fastest-growing-industry-in-the-age-of-climate-change.

Clearly, Canadians excel at cleantech. The sky is the limit. Perhaps one question to ask candidates in the federal election is how much they know about it and what they intend to do to help grow this essential industry. Here at Common Ground, we look forward to sharing more about cleantech and invite readers to join in the overdue, game-changing, life-altering conversation.

–

Bruce Mason is a Vancouver and Gabriola-Island based five-string banjo player, gardener, freelance writer and author of Our Clinic. brucemason@shaw.ca

The post Clean technology the next wave appeared first on Common Ground.