A Shell employee walks past the company's Quest Carbon Capture and Storage facility in Fort Saskatchewan, Alta., 2021. Ottawa is contributing $21.5-million for similar projects in Alta.TODD KOROL/Reuters
The federal government is spending $21.5-million for the development of five Alberta carbon-capture projects, technology it says will help bolster Canada’s position as a major energy producer.
The money will go to a variety of technologies for capturing carbon dioxide, such as mapping underground formations for storage as well as modifying diesel engines, as Ottawa and the Alberta government discuss their “grand bargain” – developing projects to lower carbon emissions as a way to win public support for expanding oil and gas export capacity.
Prime Minister Mark Carney has emphasized increasing Canada’s stature as an energy superpower and reducing its reliance on the U.S. market for exports. His government’s recently passed Bill C-5 is aimed at accelerating the development of major projects across the country.
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Carbon capture, utilization and storage developments are key to making that a reality, says Energy and Natural Resources Minister Tim Hodgson.
“The real challenge is not whether we produce, but whether we can get the best products to market before someone else does,” Mr. Hodgson said Friday at the site of a project being developed near Cochrane, Alta., west of Calgary.
“That means working with our energy sector to make investments that fight climate change, so we can reduce carbon emissions and bring the lowest-cost, lowest-risk, and lowest-carbon products to domestic and international markets – like we have just seen this week, with the momentous opening of the LNG Canada Phase 1 facility,” he said.
That liquefied natural gas development, located in Kitimat, B.C., exported its first shipment to Asia after seven years of construction. The country’s natural gas industry sees the project as a boon and a future driver of higher prices for the fuel.
Among the carbon-capture projects Ottawa is supporting, Bow Valley Carbon Cochrane Ltd., a partnership of Inter Pipeline Ltd. and Entropy Inc., is receiving $10-million for a CO2 compression, pipeline and sequestration well. The project is designed to capture 40,000 tonnes of carbon a year from Inter Pipeline’s Cochrane gas extraction plant – the equivalent of taking 12,255 cars off the road annually, the partners said.
Enbridge Inc. is receiving $4-million to map out deep saline reservoirs to support its Wabamun open-access hub north and west of Edmonton, designed to provide utility-scale CO2 transport and storage. Enhance Energy Inc. is also developing a storage hub, and the government is giving it $5-million to study a pressure-depleted saline aquifer.
OptiSeis Solutions Ltd. is working to improve the cost-effectiveness of subsurface analysis technologies for measurement, monitoring and verification of geological CO2 storage. It is getting $538,000.
OCCAM’s Technologies Inc., based in Nisku, Alta., is receiving more than $2-million to study modifications to diesel engines in rail transport, marine shipping and heavy-duty trucking to facilitate small-scale carbon capture using exhaust gas recirculation.