Mar/Apr 2006
Future Promise
Canadian Consulting Engineer
By Heather Kent
Sustainable Development Technology Canada (SDTC), a federal
government agency, was launched in 2001. Its mandate reflects its
name. "There is a need in Canada to have technological solutions to
environmental problems and, when doing that, to make sure there is
an economic return," says Dr. Vicky Sharpe, the agency's chief
executive officer. "We de-risk these technologies and take them to
market," she adds.
For clean technologies, there is a "pre-commercial gap," a lack of
both understanding and funding to bring them to a point where the
private sector will become involved in their financing. "It's a
valley of death, so entrepreneurs develop these ideas and we fund
the testing to determine the performance of these technologies in
real world environments," says Sharpe.
SDTC has 57 technology groupings dealing with every sector of the
economy. Entrepreneurs approach the agency with a wide range of
expertise and many receive help to develop a business plan. "We are
now becoming a funder of first resort," says Sharpe. Funding per
project ranges from about $250,000 to $8 million.
The agency deals with consortiums. On average, it takes them three
years to work through SDTC's evaluation process. "We are very
market-oriented," says Sharpe, explaining that the agency wants to
know whether the market is niche or global, how the technology
performs and the nature of its environmental impact. An end-user is
engaged in the process to determine whether the project meets their
needs. Funded projects are tracked for three years.
Following are just three of the projects that have received
preliminary approvals for SDTC funding recently and are undergoing
final contract negotiations. These projects relate to saving energy
and greenhouse gases.
SHEC LABS, generating hydrogen from landfill gas
Landfills account for 33% of methane emissions in Canada and
hydrogen is often seen as the fuel of the future. A project using
solar-power to convert landfill methane into hydrogen is therefore
a "very significant" alternative to the current method of steam
reformation of fossil fuels to generate hydrogen, says Tom Beck,
president of SHEC LABS/Solar Hydrogen Energy Corporation of
Saskatoon. Its partners in the project are Giffels Associates
(Ingenium) and Clean 16 Environmental Technologies, in conjunction
with the University of Toronto Department of Chemical Engineering
and Applied Chemistry.
The "SHEC Station #1" project, which is now in the design phase,
will be constructed at the Regina Fleet Street landfill. It will
have the capacity of producing 1.2 million kilograms of renewable
hydrogen per year and will prevent 81,000 tonnes of
CO2-equivalent emissions from entering the atmosphere
every year.
The technology involves 12m x 12m unique solar concentrators that
provide concentrated solar energy to Dry Fuel Reformation solar
reactors and Direct Water Splitting technologies. It is the first
of its kind in the world for commercial use. The first modules will
be in place in 2007 and eventually the landfill site will have 30
reactors. The production from the landfill is based on a
conservative average of 20% solar availability. This means the
system will work at capacity with an average of 4.8 hours of
sunlight per day.
Beck says there is world-wide interest and anticipates a very large
market by 2010. He projects that 57 million kilograms of hydrogen
capacity could be available. Other applications for the hydrogen
technology include solar thermal heating and air conditioning,
wastewater sterilization and groundwater remediation.
Above: SHEC LABS' solar hydrogen generator uses
concentrated sunlight at 5,000 times the intensity of the sun in
its thermochemical hydrogen production process
Sunarc's on-demand insulation systems
Montreal-based Sunarc of Canada is installing demonstration units of
its insulation systems on vegetable-growing greenhouses in Quebec
and Ontario. The "L-Foam" technology, which has been developed with
Laval University, can reduce the use of fossil fuels for heating
greenhouses by up to 60%, says John Dinsmore, an engineer, and
Sunarc's Chief Operating Officer. The technology is not used
anywhere else in the world at this time.
North American greenhouses are typically covered with two layers of
polyethylene with poor insulating properties, explains Dinsmore.
The Sunarc system inserts liquid foam between the layers using a
specially formulated surfactant, boosting its insulating qualities
at least 10-fold or more to R15-20. Using a gravity-feed mechanism,
the foam is injected at the roof peaks (roofs account for 80% of a
large-scale greenhouse farm surface area). As the foam breaks down
naturally, the liquid that composed it is recovered and re-used to
make replacement foam. The product will be market-ready in late
2006. Other possible applications are atriums, swimming pools and
waste treatment plants.
SAIC's solar and underground thermal energy storage
In Alberta, SAIC Canada (Science Applications International
Corporation) is developing two projects that are among the first of
their kind in North America. The concept is to use the earth as a
thermal energy storage medium for heating and cooling, integrated
with a solar energy resource.
In Okotoks, SAIC has partnered with the municipality on a
demonstration project to develop underground borehole thermal
energy storage that will provide heating to 52 homes in a new
subdivision.
The solar energy is harnessed from collectors mounted on the garages
and converted to hot water, which is then piped to 144 vertical
bore holes that are 37 metres deep. The energy is stored
underground in summer and used in the winter to heat the homes.
The technology is also being used in an acquifer thermal energy
storage project under development in Medicine Hat. The project
incorporates two wells, approximately 100 metres apart, that access
a deep aquifer. Cold water is pumped from one well to the other to
power air conditioning in the summer. That water warms up during
the cooling process and accumulates in the second well during the
summer for use in the winter, when the flow is reversed. The system
will be used in a new condominium development of approximately 140
homes.
"We are ... learning from earlier research in Canada and from the
Europeans. But we are pushing it further, adapting it to the
Canadian climate," says Bill Wong, Program Manager for SAIC.
SAIC's partners are Town of Okotoks, Sterling Homes, United
Communities, ATCO GAS, City of Medicine Hat, Enerworks and IF
Technology.
