Canada is not short of clean technology ideas. The harder challenge is turning those ideas into businesses and projects that can operate at commercial scale.
That was the message from Justin Riemer, CEO of Emissions Reduction Alberta, during a fireside discussion with EY Managing Partner Dr. Lance Mortlock at Energy Disruptors: UNITE 2026 in Calgary.
ERA has spent 18 years trying to bridge that gap.
Created by the Alberta government when the province became the first jurisdiction in North America to put a price on carbon, the organization redirects emissions-related funding into technologies designed to reduce emissions while creating economic opportunities.
Since its creation, ERA has invested more than $1 billion in more than 300 projects, with a particular focus on late-stage technology commercialization. Its grants typically range from $1 million to $10 million and must be matched by industry. Riemer said every dollar ERA invests typically attracts about six dollars in overall project investment.
Crossing the Commercialization Valley
Riemer described a familiar problem facing Canadian innovators: promising technologies can advance through laboratories and pilots, only to stall when they need to demonstrate themselves at industrial scale.
“There is a commercialization valley of death,” he told the audience.
Part of the problem is risk. Large industrial companies are often reluctant to be the first customer for an unproven technology, while startups can struggle to raise enough private capital to finance commercial demonstrations.
ERA attempts to reduce that risk by providing non-dilutive funding that can make an industrial partner more willing to test a new technology.
But Riemer stressed that money alone is not enough.
Companies also need strong management teams, market knowledge, regulatory certainty and a clear answer to a basic question: does anybody actually want to buy what they are building?
That market discipline has become more important as clean-tech investment has tightened in recent years.
From Satellites to Methane Reduction
ERA’s portfolio provides several examples of technologies that have moved beyond demonstration.
The organization helped support CPKC’s development of hydrogen-powered freight locomotives and backed GHGSat as it launched satellite technology to monitor methane emissions around the world. ERA has also supported Edmonton-based satellite company Wyvern.
Riemer pointed to methane detection and mitigation as another area where Canadian companies are finding international markets.
He highlighted Calgary-area companies including Kathairos that have developed technologies to measure and reduce methane emissions — solutions increasingly sought by oil and gas producers in Canada and internationally. Kathairos was recently named Canada’s top growing company in 2026 by The Globe and Mail.
For Riemer, those successes illustrate the broader opportunity for Canada: use domestic energy expertise to develop technologies that can reduce emissions at home and then sell those solutions globally.
ERA’s approach is increasingly built around both environmental and economic outcomes.
“It’s not the environment or the economy,” Riemer said. “It’s both.”
Projects seeking ERA support are expected to reduce emissions, but also generate investment, employment and a viable economic return.
That combination may ultimately determine which Canadian clean technologies make it across the commercialization gap — and which remain promising ideas.