Canada offers $200 million dollars, for Emerging Renewable Energy projects, in a plan, to build a clean energy economy.

Canada gets behind Emerging Renewable Power Program

The funding for the Emerging Renewable Power Program is part of the Government's investment of $21.9 billion over 11 years to support green infrastructure under the Pan-Canadian Framework on Clean Growth and Climate Change. The program is designed to help drive Canada's efforts to build a clean economy by expanding commercial and utility-scale viable, investment-ready, renewable power technologies, such as tidal, geothermal and offshore wind.

From article, (In order to expand innovative renewable energy resources, Canada's Natural Resources Minister, Jim Carr, announced the government was now accepting “expressions of interest” for its $200-million Emerging Renewable Power Program.

The funding for the Emerging Renewable Power Program is part of the Government’s investment of $21.9 billion over 11 years to support green infrastructure under the Pan-Canadian Framework on Clean Growth and Climate Change.

The program is designed to help drive Canada’s efforts to build a clean economy by expanding commercial and utility-scale viable, investment-ready, renewable power technologies, such as tidal, geothermal and offshore wind. Interested parties can submit applications by February 11, 2018.

The program wants to know about projects that are either not in Canada but already established commercially in other countries, or in Canada, but haven’t been scaled up. The government will even think about funding environmental assessments associated with any energy plans submitted.

 Canada has been blessed with plenty of natural resources, especially for hydropower. And according to a 2017 National Energy Board report, close to two-thirds of Canada's power generating capacity already comes from renewable energy, with 58.8 percent of all nationwide electricity generation in 2016 coming from hydropower.

But Natural Resources Canada is also looking at emerging renewable resources, like geothermal, tidal power, offshore wind, smaller hydropower plants and solar-combined plants. These emerging renewable projects “face higher risks, costs and more regulatory issues than projects using established renewable energy sources," Natural Resources Canada says.)

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Vice President Pence, head of the National Space Council, is watching the upcoming Falcon Heavy Launch with intense interest.

The White House seems interested in the Falcon Heavy launch

As the head of the recently established National Space Council, Vice President Mike Pence is the most important person in the United States when it comes to determining space policy. In this role, Pence oversees the development of US military, civil, and commercial space efforts.

From article, (As the head of the recently established National Space Council, Vice President Mike Pence is the most important person in the United States when it comes to determining space policy. In this role, Pence oversees the development of US military, civil, and commercial space efforts.

The Trump administration has come into office at a time when new space companies such as SpaceX and Blue Origin are challenging dominant aerospace industry companies, such as Boeing and Lockheed Martin. A key difference between the new competitors is that they're willing to invest more of their own funds into developing launch vehicles—both SpaceX's Falcon Heavy and Blue Origin's New Glenn rockets have been substantially funded by private money. Successful flights by these vehicles may raise questions about why the federal government should spend billions of taxpayer dollars on traditional contractors for other heavy lift vehicles.

Early next month, the first of these privately funded rockets, SpaceX's Falcon Heavy, should finally make a test flight from Kennedy Space Center in Florida. If successful, the Falcon Heavy, with a lifting capacity of 54 tons to low-Earth orbit, will become twice as powerful as any rocket in operation today.

So far, the Trump administration has played it both ways—acknowledging the importance of the newly emerging private space sector but also offering praise for NASA's large and costly Space Launch System. However, sources have indicated that Pence's office is closely watching the private companies and success here could have policy implications.

That appeared to be confirmed Saturday in a tweet by Nick Ayers, chief of staff for Pence. Referring directly to the upcoming Falcon Heavy launch, Ayers tweeted, "Major (positive) ramifications for US space industry if this goes according to plan." Here, a key Pence confidant seems to be saying that the Falcon Heavy could prove a game changer by offering the United States a new launch capability at low cost to taxpayers.)

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