Feasibility Analysis of Investing in the Eastern Ontario Low Carbon Economy

From MoxyWiki

Assess the affordability and effectiveness of low carbon projects in Eastern Ontario. The following looks at the risk versus return of an investment by the Eastern Ontario into energy production from biomass.

The scale of the aggregated investment to be made over the outlook period to 2030 (let us say) is substantial. Each of the Counties within the region presents opportunities for investments in projects which contribute to a low carbon economy. Some sense can be made of the scale of investment required by conducting a ‘First Cut’ or Preliminary Feasibility Analysis of two cases at, or close to, the extremes of the scale of investments which can be made in the regions.

Two types of project that will be considered:

• Small Scale Low Carbon Project represents a sub-region containing nominally 50,000 people, in which coproduction of energy commodities, in the form of stationary power, heat and cooling, and gaseous, liquid and solid fuels, is undertaken. The co-production of chemical commodities and products within a sub-region, in addition to energy commodities, is beyond the scope of the ‘first cut’ analysis.
• Large Scale Low Carbon Project represents a sub-region supplying a low carbon synthetic crude oil (LCSCO) as a 10% feedstock blend to a 100,000 barrels per day (bpd) petroleum refinery in Eastern Canada.

In the context of a movement to a low carbon economy, measures of effectiveness are the quantum of CO2 emissions avoided, and the unit cost of avoiding those emissions.

The analysis considers 7 small low carbon and 1 large project.

It is helpful to position strategic options under consideration against current and previous investments (in-kind and not-in-kind) in the Affordability versus Effectiveness plane.