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FINANCIAL POST COLUMN: Lots To Do With CO2

Many entrepreneurs consider greenhouse gases resources that can be used to make useful products.

Consider the dire environmental emergency the world faced in 1898. Government bureaucrats from far and wide gathered in New York to discuss the “great horse manure crisis.” At the time, city streets across the globe were full of horse-drawn buggies transporting people and products from place to place. With the large and growing number of horses on the streets came the large and growing problem of horse manure and horse carcasses, which brought flies that spread typhoid fever and other diseases. In the end, bureaucrats didn’t solve the manure problem, entrepreneurs did, as automobiles replaced horses.

I thought of all this recently after receiving a bottle of vodka in the mail (though before cracking it open!) for this was no ordinary bottle of vodka. It was made with just two ingredients: carbon dioxide and water, no potatoes, grain or corn.

It’s just one of the amazing examples of how entrepreneurs are creating all kinds of useful products with carbon dioxide instead of letting it rise into the atmosphere and contribute to climate change. More than a century after the automobile helped solve the horse waste problem, entrepreneurs are addressing the environmental challenge created in part by the automobile.

Though politicians continue to refer to greenhouse gases as “pollution,” many entrepreneurs consider them resources that can be used to make useful products.

For example, New York-based Air Company created the aforementioned vodka with captured carbon dioxide (CO2) and water (H2O). If you write out the formula for ethanol (C2H6O), the main ingredient for vodka, you can see it’s made of carbon, hydrogen and oxygen — the same elements that make up water and carbon dioxide. Air Company uses CO2 taken directly from the air or captured at industrial sources and hydrogen derived through electrolysis. It has also used carbon dioxide to make hand sanitizer and even perfume. The company has applied to sell its product through the LCBO, so with any luck, Ontarians will be able purchase the unique vodka in 2022.

Calgary-based Carbon Upcycling is using CO2 to help make and improve the strength of concrete and plastics. Although the start-up is still relatively small, it is working with cement giant LaFarge to explore opportunities to scale its operations and jointly reduce emissions. According to a press release, Carbon Upcycling’s additive has the potential to reduce the emissions from cement production by up to 25 per cent on a lifecycle basis. Your next new home may have a foundation made in part with CO2.

Carbon Upcycling’s online sister company, Expedition Air , sells all kinds of products made at least in part with carbon dioxide: including crayons, planters and soap, to name a few.

Start-up Carbonova , also based in Calgary, is building a facility to make carbon nanofibers using carbon dioxide. Carbon nanofibers are used in everything from lightweight badminton rackets and bicycle frames to the sensors embedded below traffic intersections. According to the firm’s CEO, the company can produce the material for less than conventional methods .

In New York, Aether Diamonds is even making diamonds from captured CO2. Pedlars of blood diamonds will not be fans of this development.

Canada’s oil and gas industries are also directly involved in carbon dioxide reductions. Members of the Canadian Gas Association have provided start-up funding to help establish carbon-tech companies and assist them with testing.

In Alberta’s oil sands, companies belonging to the Canadian Oil Sands Innovation Alliance (COSIA) have been putting aside their competitive differences and sharing technology to reduce emissions. From 2000 to 2017, the emissions per barrel of oil from the region have decreased by 28 per cent . COSIA was also co-sponsor of a recent $20 million “XPRIZE” for firms repurposing CO2 into useful products.

Governments could help Canada’s carbon-tech sector grow by first acknowledging that humans will be using oil and gas products for decades to come, if not longer. Rather than put a lid on the sector, governments could welcome the oil and gas industry’s ingenuity, creativity and long-standing support for carbon tech. With a more positive approach, Canada could incubate an even larger carbon-tech industry that would help reduce emissions not only here at home but around the world.

Colin Craig is president of SecondStreet.org.

Article originally posted in the Financial Post. Image copyright YouMatter.World

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Prevention – reduce demand in the first place

If Canadians lived healthier lives, we could reduce demand for emergency services, orthopaedic surgeries, primary care and more. 

For instance, if you visit the Canadian Cancer Society’s website, you’ll read that “about four in ten” cancer cases are preventable. The Heart and Stroke Foundation notes that “almost 80 percent of premature heart disease and stroke can be prevented through healthy behaviours.” A similar number of Diabetes cases are also preventable. 

Many joint replacements and visits to ERs and walk-in clinics could also be avoided through healthy living. 

To be sure, not all health problems can be avoided through healthy living – everyday the system treats Canadians with genetic conditions, helps those injured in unavoidable accidents and more.  

But there is an opportunity to reduce pressure on the health care system through Canadians shifting to healthier lifestyles – better diets, more exercise, etc. 

To learn more, watch our Health Reform Now documentary (scroll up) or see this column. 

Partner with non-profits and for-profit clinics

European countries will partner with anyone who can help patients. 

It doesn’t matter if it’s a non-profit, a government entity or a private clinic. What matters is that patients receive quality treatment, in a timely manner and for a competitive price.  

In Canada, governments often delivery services using government-run hospitals instead of seeing if non-profit or private clinics could deliver the services more effectively. 

When governments have partnered with non-profit and private clinics, the results have often been quite good – Saskatchewan, Ontario and British Columbia are just a few examples of where partnerships have worked well. 

Canada should pursue more of these partnerships to reduce wait times and increase the volume of services provided to patients.  

To learn more, watch our Health Reform Now documentary (scroll up) or see the links above. 

Make cross border care more accessible

In Canada, citizens pay high taxes each year and we’re promised universal health care services in return. The problem is, wait times are often extremely long in our health system – sometimes patients have to wait years to see a specialist or receive surgery. 

If patients don’t want to wait long periods, they often have to reach into their own pocket and pay for treatment outside the province or country. 

Throughout the European Union, we also find universal health care systems. But a key difference is that EU patients have the right to go to other EU countries, pay for surgery and then be reimbursed by their home government. Reimbursements cover up to what the patient’s home government would have spent to provide the treatment locally. 

If Canada copied this approach, a patient waiting a year to get their hip operation could instead receive treatment next week in one of thousands of surgical clinics throughout the developed world. 

Governments benefit too as the patient is now back on their feet and avoiding complications that sometimes come with long wait times – meaning the government doesn’t have to treat those complications on top of the initial health problem. 

To learn more, watch our Health Reform Now documentary (scroll up) or this shorter video. 

Legalize access to non-government providers

Canada is the only country in the world that puts up barriers, or outright bans patients from paying for health services locally. 

For instance, a patient in Toronto cannot pay for a hip operation at a private clinic in Toronto. Their only option is to wait for the government to eventually provide treatment or leave the province and pay elsewhere. 

Countries with better-performing universal health care systems do not have such bans. They allow patients a choice – use the public system or pay privately for treatment. Sweden, France, Australia and more – they all allow choice. 

Why? One reason is that allowing choice means some patients will decide to pay privately. This takes pressure off the public system. For instance, in Sweden, 87% of patients use the public system, but 13% purchase private health insurance. 

Ultimately, more choice improves access for patients. 

To learn more, watch our Health Reform Now documentary (scroll up) or watch this short clip on this topic. 

Shift to funding services for patients, not bureaucracies

In Canada, most hospitals receive a cheque from the government each year and are then asked to do their best to help patients. This approach is known as “block funding”. 

Under this model, a patient walking in the door represents a drain on the hospital’s budget. Over the course of a year, hospital administrators have to make sure the budget stretches out so services are rationed. This is why you might have to wait until next year or the year after for a hip operation, knee operation, etc. 

In better-performing universal health systems, they take the opposite approach – hospitals receive money from the government each time they help a patient. If a hospital completes a knee operation, it might receive, say, $10,000. If it completes a knee operation on another patient, it receives another $10,000. 

This model incentivizes hospitals to help more patients – to help more patients with knee operations, cataract surgery, etc. This approach also incentivizes hospitals to spend money on expenses that help patients (e.g. more doctors, nurses, equipment, etc.) rather than using the money on expenses that don’t help patients (e.g. more admin staff). 

To learn more about this policy option, please watch our Health Reform Now documentary (scroll up) or see this post by MEI.