Earlier this month, the Alberta government announced that it plans to spend $31.3 million on 9 private sector projects they claim will “reduce global emissions, create value-added bitumen products, and drive the province’s economy forward”.
The spending is part of Alberta’s Emissions Reduction and Energy Development Plan and will be funded through Emissions Reduction Alberta’s Partnership Intake Program and Alberta Innovates’ Carbon Fibre Grand Challenge.
According to the media release, the government estimates that these projects will “reduce emissions by 280,000 tonnes each year, create more than 780 jobs, and inject $272 million into Alberta’s gross domestic product by 2025”.
Seems pretty impressive, right? Well, let’s put them in perspective.
In 2021, 256.1 megatonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent was released into the atmosphere from within Alberta.
When we convert the provincial government projected amount of reduced emissions into megatonnes, we’re left with 0.28 megatonnes, which certainly seems less impressive than 280,000.
Assuming emissions are still at the same level as they were in 2021, this amounts to a reduction in emissions of just 0.11% per year.
Now, let’s look at jobs.
Earlier this month, Statistics Canada reported that 2,495,900 were working in Alberta during November 2023. An increase of 780 jobs is just a jump of 0.03%. Okay, maybe “jump” isn’t the most accurate word choice.
Finally, GDP.
Last year, Alberta claimed a GDP of $331.49 billion, the highest we’ve seen since at least 1997. Alberta’s prediction of a $272 million increase, is $0.272 billion. That’ll raise Alberta’s GDP by 0.08%. And that’s over a 2-year period.
So, to review, Alberta plans to spend over $31 million to theoretically reduce greenhouse gas emission by 0.11%, while leading to a 0.03% increase in jobs and a 0.08% increase in GDP. That’s less than one-tenth of one percent.
I’m not a mathematician, but that doesn’t seem like a good deal.
Here are the projects the province intends to spend the money on:
- Thermal energy storage at PIP Lethbridge’s food processing facility
- New battery system installed by TransAlta near Cochrane
- Trial solar array for agricultural use (Solartility)
- On-site oil extraction and upgrading process (NanosTech)
- Process bitumen into carbon fibre (5 projects)
4 replies on “UCP govt to spend $31M to reduce emissions by 0.11%”
While I get and support the point of your article, there is a second point or extension story. Fighting climate change is going to be expensive. Very expensive. It would be nice if the funds were spent effectively.
Thanks for highlighting that, Chris!
The Bitumen to Carbon Fibre projects have modest direct impacts on emissions and jobs because they are still in the development stage; these projects’ completion will enable commercial deployment which have transformational potential. I suggest checking out https://albertainnovates.ca/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/AI-BBC-WHITE-PAPER-Nov-2023.pdf
Thanks, Bryan!