Canada funds bonanza: $15m for wind, $15 for carbon cutters

Greenbang just stumbled across an interesting (imagine that word in italics and you’ll see the type of interesting she means) site, top 10 myths about Canada and Canadians. Top myth number one? We live in igloos. Number two? Canadians do not have the same technology as Americans. (answer: Canadians have access to the same technology as Americans and the rest of the civilized world.)

Top ten myths? Among who? People who don’t have access to books, the internet, the TV, solid food, education or human conversation?

Greenbang is all too well aware that Canadians have access to technology, and seemingly most of it clean tech related.

Today’s first Canadian clean tech news maker, energy efficiency and emission reduction company, Thermal Energy International, which has closed a $15 million private placement financing deal.

The funds raised enable Thermal Energy to complete its acquisition of Gardner Energy Management Ltd. in the UK with the base payment of £2.7 million(approximately $5.4 million CAD). The funding also provides Thermal Energy:

• A funding base for investment in FLU-ACE® and DRY-REX™ assets under
THERMAL-AUD™ green energy supply contracts such as the $20 million, eight-year
agreement recently announced with a U.S. pulp and paper mill;
• Strong financial base to support expanded sales and marketing activities in key industrial and geographic markets;
• Capacity for additional project development and engineering resources to meet the unprecedented customer demand for the Company’s solutions.

Newsmaker number two, Western Wind (you can probably guess what they do):

Western Wind Energy Corp is pleased to announce that it has closed an oversubscribed private placement of $15 million announced on May 27, 2008. The Private Placement was led by Loewen, Ondaatje, McCutcheon Limited and included Clarus Securities Inc. […]

Western Wind intends to use the net proceeds from the offering to repay approximately $12.5 million of acquisition loan owed to Pacific Hydro and the balance will be used for working capital purposes.

Newsmaker number three, the University of Guelph:

The University of Guelph’s Ridgetown Campus is receiving $938,260 from the federal government to develop a functional, farm-scale oilseed processing and biodiesel plant on campus, […] The funding is being provided through Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada’s Advancing Canadian Agriculture and Agri-Food program, which is delivered in Ontario by the Agricultural Adaptation Council.