Canada and Israel launch new fund focused on making energy extraction sustainable

The oldest of Canada's bilateral industrial R&D programs has launched the Canada-Israel Energy Science and Technology Fund (CIESTF) to tackle technological challenges facing the sustainable development of unconventional oil and gas resources as well as renewable energy sources. The Canada-Israel Industrial R&D Foundation (CIIRDF) will utilize $5 million over three years from Natural Resources Canada's ecoENERGY Innovation Initiative (ecoEII), matched by Israel's Office of the Chief Scientist, on a project-by-project basis and augmented by funding from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council.

Overall, the fund is expected to generate $40 million in collaborative R&D. CIIRDF officials have been consulting with key industry players and contacting hundreds of potential collaborators in the areas of nanomaterials, sensors, water management/ remediation and others to gauge interest and line up potential partners which will then be matched with Israeli technological expertise.

About 75% of the fund will be devoted to oil and gas (heavy oil and gas shale) with the remainder used for projects aimed at energy efficiency in buildings, communities, industry and transportation; bioenergy and clean electricity generation; and, the electrification of transportation.

"That's $40 million worth of research funded from the $5-million NRCan commitment. We hope to create new consortia for tailings ponds management and other areas," says CIIRDF president Dr Henri Rothschild. "We've never done a single sectoral fund before … There are great opportunities to connect with Israeli technologists."

The Canadian academic portion of the projects will be funded by NSERC through its university Collaborative R&D (CRD) and college Applied R&D (ARD) grants programs. CRD grants require matching contributions from industry while ARD grants require industry cash or in-kind contributions.

Israel boasts of hundreds of high-tech firms with the kinds of expertise that could significantly enhance the extraction of unconventional oil and gas with a smaller environmental footprint. Canada has the world's third largest reserves of crude oil (97% in Alberta oil sands) and is projected to become the fourth largest oil producer globally by 2035.

"We want to do this systematically, plan first and get good traction. That's why we waited four months to issue the first call for proposals," says Rothschild. "If we demonstrate successfully with CIESTF, we could do a Canada-China S&T fund. I fully expect it."

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