Minister of Environment and Protected Areas Rebecca Schulz. Photo courtesy Alberta government.

By Erika Rolling

Energy

Province funding two pilots to reduce emissions and industrial waste

Oct 16, 2024 | 3:05 PM

The Alberta government is launching two new pilot programs looking to help industry cut back on emissions, find new ways to reuse waste, and decrease costs.

Lafarge Canada will be working in partnership with the province to use old tires and turn them into fuel to power their Low-Carbon Fuel Facility in Exshaw. Also, $10 million is being spent to help industrial companies upgrade facilities to decrease energy bills.

Tire-Derived Fuel Pilot Program

This new pilot program will be carried out at the Lafarge facility in the Rocky Mountains where over 1.5 million old tires that would otherwise be waste, turned into up to 15,750 tonnes of chips to become fuel. The chips will be burned, reducing the use of natural gas for power.

The project will be handled by the Alberta Recycling Management Authority.

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Results from this pilot will be used to determine whether this type of tire-derived fuel should be permanently added to the province’s already existing Tire Recycling Program through ARMA. Over 149.5 million tires have been recycled by Albertans since 1992 through the existing program.

Industry Energy Savings Program

Applications will open on Thursday, October 17, for the new Strategic Energy Management for Industry program.

This will be for industries such as; agriculture, forestry, fishing, hunting, mining, oil and gas, and cement companies, to cover the cost of energy assessments and capital retrofits to lower energy costs.

$10 million dollars from the TIER fund is being used to launch this new program, with additional funding through the province and federal governments to be announced in the near future. The province says the program will also provide energy management training, knowledge sharing, and technical support.

This will be delivered through Emissions Reduction Alberta.

Lafarge Low-Carbon Fuel Facility

Lafarge Canada has opened a cutting-edge facility in Exshaw to replace up to 50 per cent of natural gas it uses with low-carbon fuel from industrial waste.

This is thanks to the $10 million in TIER funding through Emissions Reduction Alberta.

The province says this facility will keep up to 120,000 tonnes of construction and demolition materials out of landfills, and instead use it to produce up to 30,000 fewer tonnes of emissions per year.