A shovel-ready, $400-million facility proposed for Edmonton that would convert landfill waste into electricity could be cancelled after a recent carbon tax agreement between the Alberta and federal governments.

The national industrial carbon price was supposed to rise to $170 a tonne by 2030, but a revised deal last month by Prime Minister Mark Carney and Alberta Premier Danielle Smith means the price would instead reach $130 a tonne by 2040.

For Varme Energy, the policy change is putting its proposed waste-to-energy project on life support. The facility would capture greenhouse gases and store them underground. The project would also generate carbon credits that could be sold. However, a lower carbon price means those credits would be worth less.

Without further government policy changes over the next few months, Varme Energy chief executive Sean Collins warns the company may have to pull the plug on the project.

“Unfortunately, nobody has runway forever,” said Collins. He now describes the company as facing a “very challenging” financial situation.

Carney and Smith signed the deal as part of a broader agreement between the governments to reduce methane emissions, expedite the regulatory process for major projects in the province and pursue a new oil export pipeline to the West Coast.

Some large industrial companies had pushed for a lower carbon price to avoid higher costs and remain competitive compared with counterparts in the United States, which do not have to pay a carbon tax.

In Alberta, a carbon price that rises more slowly and does not climb as high will result in less investment in emissions reductions, said Ross Linden-Fraser, a researcher with the Canadian Climate Institute.

“It’s just the reality of what happens when you set a lower value on one of the main sources of revenue for emissions-reducing projects,” he said.

Lower target price

Varme Energy already has agreements in place with the City of Edmonton’s landfill, as well as provincial permits to produce electricity. The proposed project has received funding from the Alberta government and support from the federal government’s Canada Growth Fund to ensure the carbon credits are sold for at least $85 a tonne. 

Still, the project has an expected operating cost of about $118 a tonne, said Collins. That would have made financial sense under the federal government’s previous plan to raise the price to $170 a tonne by 2030.

“We’re calling a mayday to Ottawa and we hope they listen,” said Collins. He said the federal government’s message should be: “Ottawa: We have a revenue problem. And the solution to a revenue problem is revenue.”

Varme Energy is a subsidiary of a Norwegian-based clean energy company that has developed similar projects to divert waste from landfills. Instead, the garbage is…

Leaders in Canada’s oil and gas sector say the industrial carbon levy would erode the country’s competitive edge at a time when the world is clamouring for a reliable energy supply.

“We’re still talking about an industrial carbon tax when no other producing and exporting nation does that to their producers,” Lisa Baiton, head of the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, said in an interview as the 2026 BMO CAPP Energy Symposium kicked off in Toronto on Tuesday.

Baiton said the war embroiling much of the Middle East has “put an exclamation point” on an argument CAPP has been making since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022: Canada is blessed with one of the biggest oil and gas reserves on the planet and has not only the opportunity, but the responsibility, to develop them and bolster global energy security.

“And yet we seem to be sometimes focusing on the wrong things,” Baiton said.

“Instead of seizing the moment and taking the mantle of that responsibility, we are focusing on things that add cost and make us less competitive.”

The conference is being held amid a push in Canada to more quickly build oil and gas export infrastructure to serve markets beyond what has traditionally been this country’s biggest customer, the United States.

The pipeline push

The Alberta government plans to file an application for a new West Coast crude oil pipeline this summer to the federal major projects office, which aims to speed along infrastructure deemed in the national interest.

The Alberta and federal governments signed a sweeping memorandum of understanding late last year on a host of energy matters, including a path toward building a new B.C. pipeline in tandem with an industrial carbon price that would support the economics of the massive Pathways carbon capture proposal.

Agreements on the nitty gritty of the carbon price and Pathways pieces remain unresolved two weeks past the April 1 deadline set out in the energy accord.

Under the MOU, Alberta’s industrial carbon price is to eventually reach $130 per tonne from $95. Premier Danielle Smith said late last month that talks were still ongoing around how quickly that price will rise.

A recent analysis from Clean Prosperity, a climate policy non-profit, suggested oilsands producers should be able to easily recoup the added carbon costs because their product would be able to sell for far more if a new pipeline enabled more exports to Asia.

It found net profits at four oilsands facilities it studied would increase by more than $3 billion in the 15 years following the opening of a new pipeline.

A separate analysis from the Canadian Climate Institute pegged the per-barrel hit from the increased carbon price at an average of 50 cents — about the cost of a Timbit.

A question of competition

But…

Ferro-Alloy Resources Limited (LSE:FAR), the vanadium producer and developer of the large Balasausqandiq vanadium deposit in Southern Kazakhstan, is pleased to announce that it has entered into a non-binding, non-exclusive, memorandum of understanding (“MOU”) for the supply of up to 360,000 tonnes of carbon black substitute (“CBS”) per year, to Qingdao Master Tyre Co., Ltd (“Master Tyre”).

The MOU will be for the supply of the new CBS product (“New CBS”) which will be produced from high-carbon / low vanadium waste rock (as announced on 27 June 2025).

Testing and development of the New CBS product is considered to be a priority project for Master Tyre over the next three years, as part of its 2036 strategy.

Commenting, Nick Bridgen, CEO of Ferro-Alloy Resources, said:

“Master Tyre’s innovative approach to tyre manufacturing and R&D capability will maximise the environmental and cost benefits of using our latest CBS product and will develop significant technical knowledge in optimising its use in rubber manufacturing.

This New CBS product was not included in our recently announced feasibility study, which only envisaged our original CBS product made from the tailings of the vanadium production process. The net cash flows from this New CBS product are additional to the already strong financial characteristics of the Balasausqandiq project.”

MOU summary

• The Company has entered into a non-binding, non-exclusive, MOU for the supply of New CBS to Master Tyre.
• Master Tyre plans to use the New CBS for its own production and for sale to other tyre and rubber manufacturers in the People’s Republic of China (“China”).
• Key terms of the MOU as follows:
  • Supply of up to 360,000 tonnes of New CBS per year
  • Pricing to be agreed in future commercial negotiations
  • Close technical cooperation between the Company and Master Tyre in the optimisation of product specification for the substitution of New CBS into rubber production
  • Development of the relevant agreements and legal documents necessary to achieve a binding sale and purchase contract
  • Termination upon the earlier of the conclusion of a binding sale and purchase contract between the parties or three years

About Master Tyre

• Master Tyre (www.mastertyre.net) is a leading Chinese tyre manufacturer established in 2016 focused on the production of car and truck tyres that are sold throughout China and over 150 overseas regions.
• Master Tyre is also a distributor of carbon black across major tyre manufacturers in China and as a result the New CBS is being tested by its own carbon black customers as well as the Qingdao University of Science and Technology.
• As part of these test programmes the New CBS, in addition to carbon black substitution, is being tested as a substitute for silicon dioxide (another key component of tyre rubber manufacturing) given the background silica content of the New CBS product.
• At the end of 2025 Master Tyre formulated its 2036 strategy and has included the Company’s New CBS product as a priority project for…

Read on to learn about the top US and Chinese EV stocks, and the batteries and battery suppliers they’re using for their current and upcoming models.

2. BYD Company (OTC Pink:BYDDF,HKEX:1211)

Market cap: US$143.78 billion

Leading Chinese EV maker BYD Company was founded in 1995 and is a top producer of several kinds of rechargeable batteries, including nickel-metal hydride batteries and NCM batteries.

BYD has a vertically integrated supply chain, from mineral battery cells to battery packs.

In the fourth quarter of 2023, BYD passed Tesla in terms of global EV sales, selling 526,409 EVs compared to Tesla’s 484,507 units sold during that quarter.

Backed by Warren Buffett, in 2020 BYD officially launched its Blade battery, a less bulky LFP battery. The following year, the company announced that it would use the Blade LFP batteries for all of its pure electric models.

The company is working on using sodium-ion batteries — this battery type is expected to be seen in 9 percent of global EV sales by 2033, according to a 2023 forecast from Fastmarkets.

In April 2025, BYD released two new EV models, the Han L sedan and Tang L SUV, based on its new Super e-platform, which allows users to add 400 kilometers (248 miles) of range in five minutes of charging, and charge to 100 percent in 20 minutes.

3. Li Auto…