Venture Update |
CCS Projects Identified
by Stephanie Sparks
In “The Upside of Underground” (April 2009), University of Calgary scientist David Keith was doubtful the government was taking climate change seriously, despite releasing its Climate Change Strategy in January 2008. Then in June 2009, the province announced it would be pursuing a letter of intent with Enhance Energy Inc. as part of its $2-billion carbon capture and storage (CCS) fund. Enhance has been developing the Alberta Carbon Pipeline to capture, transport and use CO2 for enhanced oil recovery and to store it.
“We’re in the regulatory phase right now,” says Enhance’s president and CEO, Susan Cole, “which means we’ve put in an application for the pipeline to the regulatory bodies, Alberta Environment and the [Energy Resources Conservation Board]…. We’re hopeful we’ll have approvals shortly after Christmas.”
The carbon capture systems will be located throughout Alberta’s Industrial Heartland. “What’s going to happen in that area is there will be a lot more refining and upgrading of oilsands, and so we can take the CO2 from that process and reduce its CO2 footprint,” Cole says, “which means that we’re helping in terms of countering some of the negative press around Alberta’s ‘dirty’ oilsands.”
The pipeline system will capture 40,000 tonnes of CO2 per day (14.6 million tonnes per year), from the North West Upgrader and the Agrium Inc. fertilizer plant in central Alberta.
Though the province hasn’t announced a letter of intent with Enhance, in October the federal and provincial governments announced a letter of intent of $865 million for Shell Canada’s Quest project at the Scotford upgrader, though Quest will not be injecting CO2 for another five years. The following week, both governments announced that $779 million would be directed to TransAlta Corporation and Capital Power to retrofit their Keephills 3 plant west of Edmonton for CCS operations.
