The challenge is to come up with the best, most cost-effective and safest way to scrub out megatonnes of carbon dioxide emitted into the atmosphere by Alberta’s energy industry and coal-fired power plants. The prize for success is all or part of $2 billion in government funding designed to stimulate research and kick-start what the government calls a vital part of its climate change strategy. The need to develop the technology is, to environmentalists, painfully obvious.

The deposits of oil, gas and coal locked away in Alberta’s basement for eons are being extracted as quickly as possible to feed an insatiable world demand for energy. The extraction process, refining and upgrading, plus the coal-burning power plants making electricity to drive the province, all produce carbon dioxide – and lots of it.

This release of carbon dioxide (CO₂) from the combustion of fossil fuels has led to a buildup of this gas in the atmosphere. Environmental researchers insist there can be no doubt that this long-range change is bound to affect Earth’s bio-systems, causing the oceans to acidify and creating heat traps in the planet’s atmosphere that will, or are, sparking cataclysmic climate change.

From an industry and government standpoint, the additional pressure of popular opinion makes environmental cleanup more politic as well. The Alberta government has announced a Climate Change Plan that calls for a 14 per cent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions from 2005 levels by 2050. Carbon capture and storage, known as CCS for short, emerged as the centerpiece of the strategy. The technology is supposed to achieve about three-quarters of the emissions reduction target.

Earlier statements by the Alberta CCS Development Council said three to five trial projects would be selected to cut annual carbon dioxide emissions by five to 10 million tonnes between 2016 and 2028. An initial timetable indicated the projects would be selected in March of 2009, but now the industry is talking June.

In an Alberta Oil interview, Advanced Education and Technology Minister Doug Horner said his department is “still going through the due diligence on a lot of the applications that came in, and I think we were pleasantly surprised with the number of project applications that did come in.” He wouldn’t say how many proposals are under review.

And while marketing and environmental concerns are important in developing CCS technology, the government also sees it as a long-term investment that will provide returns. “As you develop this technology into better, more economical technology, we can then sell that technology to the globe,” Horner says.

“It tails into the premier’s vision of an innovation, knowledge-based economy for Alberta in the future. In order to do that, you’ve got to think big.”

The $2 billion is not a giveaway to the energy industry, he notes. “It’s an investment in the future, so that over time, as you generate an increased tax base and you generate enhanced oil recovery by use of the carbon sequestration, I think it’s a good investment for us and we probably will see that money back,” he predicts.

“Seventy per cent of Alberta’s conventional oil is still in the ground, so if you can use carbon sequestration to help you deliver that – there’s a royalty to the people of Alberta that’s going to be a good return.”

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