Canada Invests Big in Carbon Capture

Blame Canada for making the U.S. look like a nation of complainers who wring their hands about global warming while doing little to address the problem.

In Alberta, they are moving forward with "plans to capture and store carbon dioxide emissions, partnering with Ottawa to fund projects that propose to make the technology commercial," according to an article by Lisa Schmidt in the Calgary Herald.

The government of Alberta "earmarked its first payout from its $2-billion carbon capture fund on Thursday, teaming up with Ottawa to commit $865 million to a proposal at Shell Canada’s Scotford upgrader," according to Schmidt. "The province signed a letter of intent to fund up to $745 million ... with the federal government putting in another $120 million."

"We will not drive the cost of CCS [carbon capture and sequestration] — or any other carbon mitigation down without pursuing some of this technology," Provincial Energy Minister Mel Knight said at a news conference.

The project "is expected to collect 1.1 megatonnes of greenhouse gas emissions annually and store them underground," according to the article.

Despite the many hurdles involved in making the project a technical as well as financial success, Graham Boje, Shell Canada’s vice-president overseeing the project, said, “We believe we can definitely meet the government of Alberta requirement to have the project operating by the end of 2015."

Dubbed the Quest project, the scheme is just one of three parts to Canada's "$2-billion plan to develop carbon capture and storage" as a for-profit enterprise.

"There are very few CCS projects of this scale in the world and Canada is a leader in this path," Lisa Riatt, Energy Minister, said at a press conference. According to the article, Riatt said "the public funding is necessary to help companies prove the technology that will be required to meet the government’s reduction target." And that target? By 2020, 20 percent below 2006 emission levels.

Photo courtesy of Polifemus, via Flickr