Bruce Johnstone; Regina Leader-Post (Nov 11 2009)

BELLE PLAINE — Ottawa is pumping $77.75 million over seven years into the Terra Grain Fuels ethanol plant here, as part of the Conservative government’s $1.5-billion ecoENERGY for Biofuels program.

“We need to… champion a long-term vision for clean energy in Canada,’’ said Palliser MP Ray Boughen, standing in for Natural Resources Minister Lisa Raitt.

While conceding $77.75 million is a “lot of change,’’ Boughen said “it’s an investment that brings results today and will deliver even greater dividends in the future.’’

Tim LaFrance, president of Terra Grain Fuels, said the $150-million, 150-million-litre-a-year ethanol plant is exactly the kind of project envisioned by the ecoENERGY program.

“In three short years, we’ve transformed a field into the single-largest ethanol producing facility in Western Canada,’’ LaFrance said, adding the plant was financed with private equity and debt and had no government support in the form of grants or equity investment.

LaFrance said the Terra Grain Fuels facility will produce 3.75 billion litres of fuel-grade ethanol and over its expected 25 year life-span. Terra Grains will also consume about 10 million tonne of feed-grade wheat worth about $1.7 billion during the same period.

“We’ll reduce our GHG gas emissions by approximately 5.6 million tonnes, leaving greener planet for our future generations.”

The federal government’s nine-year, $1.5-billion biofuels program is designed to “increase the supply and availability of cleaner, renewable fuels, such as ethanol and biodiesel,’’ according to a Natural Resources Canada backgrounder.

Proposed regulations call for five-per-cent renewable fuels content in the national gasoline pool by 2010 and two-per-cent biodiesel content in diesel fuel and heating oil by 2012. To meet the federal renewable fuels mandate, three billion litres of renewable fuels annually will be required by 2012.

According to NRCan, grain-based ethanol can reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 40 per cent on a life-cycle basis, while biodiesel can reduce GHG emissions by up to 60 per cent. The renewable fuels mandate is projected to reduce Canada’s GHG emissions by four million tones annually, NRCan says.