(Cochrane) The Minister of Natural Resources, Tim Hodgson, announced federal funding of 21.5 million for five Albertan projects aimed at reducing the cost of capturing and storing carbon dioxide emissions.
These projects are funded as part of the energy innovation program, which has called a call for proposals for capturing, use and carbon storage technologies.
Bow Valley Carbon Cochrane, a partnership between Inter Pipeline and Entropy, will receive 10 million to add equipment to a gas extraction plant northwest of Calgary, which aims to capture emissions equivalent to the withdrawal of more than 12,000 traffic cars per year.
Enbridge will receive 4 million and Enhance Energy 5 million for separate storage centers in the center of Alberta.
The rest of the funds will be devoted to a project aimed at improving analysis technologies and another aimed at testing carbon carbon on small scale from diesel engines.
This announcement comes as uncertainty continues to hover on a 16.5 billion carbon capture proposed by Alliance Nouvelles routes, a consortium bringing together six large producers of bituminous sands.
Companies have not yet made a final investment decision for this project, which would be one of the most important in the world if it was carried out, and federal and provincial support remains uncertain.
Alliance Nouvelles routes would capture carbon dioxide emissions from more than 20 exploitation of bituminous sands from northern Alberta and transport them by pipeline over 400 kilometers to a terminal in the region of Cold Lake, in eastern Alberta, where they would be stored in an underground center to prevent them from finding themselves in the atmosphere.
The Prime Minister of Alberta, Danielle Smith, proposed a “great compromise” according to which this carbon capture project would be implemented in parallel with a new pipeline to the west coast, which no company has yet proposed to build.
Ottawa assesses the projects deemed of national interest which will be subject to an accelerated regulatory examination under the new federal law.
