Atlantic Hydrogen request for funding rejected by province

The Liberal government turned down a funding request from Fredericton-based Atlantic Hydrogen and the company subsequently filed for bankruptcy.

"Over the past 13 years, the Province of New Brunswick has invested $4.7 million in Atlantic Hydrogen Inc.," said Bruce Macfarlane, spokesperson for the Regional Development Corporation.

"As you can appreciate, when it comes to evaluating funding requests like these we do our due diligence. Where the recent request from Atlantic Hydrogen is concerned, it was decided the risk was too high for the taxpayers of New Brunswick."

New Brunswick governments have been sensitive about giving companies large amounts of taxpayer funding since the Atcon scandal in 2010 saw losses of $70-million after a succession of failed provincial loans to the company.

In March, New Brunswick Auditor-General Kim MacPherson delivered a scathing report on the Atcon fiasco.

The company has now filed for voluntary bankruptcy and appointed Deloitte as a trustee to begin trying to find a buyer for the company's assets.

Atlantic Hydrogen has been working for years to develop a technology to separate carbon from natural gas.

A corporate statement said its board of directors believe the bankruptcy is in the best interest of the company and its shareholders.

The directors have resigned and the management team and employees have had their jobs terminated.

Bill Stanley, the chairman of Atlantic Hydrogen, said the bankruptcy decision was "disappointing."

"In 2004, AHI was born out of a bold idea to create a revolutionary clean energy technology. While we were not able to take the idea all the way to commercialization, many people did tremendous work along this journey," Stanley said in the statement.

Stanley said the company still believes in its CarbonSaver technology.

The company's technology has not reached the point of it being commercially viable and that has caused funding sources to dry up.

"That's why we feel this was the right thing to do," Stanley said.

Trouble started more than a year ago, when Emera, the Nova Scotia-based energy company, wrote off an $8.8-million investment in the company.

The company had received provincial investments, including $950,000 in October 2013 and $2 million in 2008.

The company also received federal funding, including $1.1 million from the National Research Council in 2011. The Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency had also funded Atlantic Hydrogen.

Deloitte will now initiate a process to find a buyer for Atlantic Hydrogen's assets.