Carbon capture and storage (CCS) demonstration projects in Canada

Abstract

Abstract Energy sources such as oil, natural gas, and coal currently account for around 80% of the world’s primary energy consumption. Despite significant investments in renewable energy and energy efficiency, that Canada and others are making, the International Energy Agency (IEA) has forecast that as the global economy continues to grow, fossil fuels will continue to dominate the world’s energy supply for decades. Reconciling the world’s ongoing reliance on fossil fuels with the need to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions is then one of our greatest challenges. Canada is taking this challenge seriously with climate change policies that include enhancing our global leadership in advancing one of the most promising technologies for reducing GHG emissions from fossil fuel use: Carbon capture and storage (CCS). CCS is only one of several technologies that must be deployed and is not a ‘silver-bullet’ for meeting Canada’s target of reducing its GHG emissions by 17% from 2005 levels by 2020. Yet, CCS is one of the only technologies currently available for making emissions reductions from large-scale fossil fuel usage–and, thus, will be a critical component of the technology puzzle for Canada to meet its emissions reduction objectives. Canada has a number of key sectors where the deployment of CCS is needed and there are opportunities to advance the technology. These include coal-fired electricity plants, the oil sands, and natural gas processing (e.g. from the new development of shale gas) -though the opportunity and demand for advancing CCS technology also exists in other sectors such as chemicals, fertilizer, steel making, and cement. Federal and provincial governments in Canada are making substantial investments in CCS, committing upwards of $3 billion in public funding towards seven large-scale fully-integrated CCS demonstration projects. The federal ecoENERGY Technology Initiative announced $151 million for the initial engineering and/or pilot stages of seven potential demonstration projects in 2008. The 2009 federal budget created Clean Energy Fund, which included $610 million for CCS demonstrations. The Provinces of Alberta, Saskatchewan, and British Columbia have also committed funding for demonstrations, in particular $2 billion by Alberta. This public funding will leverage additional investment from industry, for projects that will each capture and store on the order of 1 million tonnes of CO 2 per year, coming on-line starting in 2015 or sooner. This paper will provide an overview of Canada’s actions on advancing CCS deployment, with a focus on the CCS demonstration program and current R&D activities in Canada.