Carbon-capture policy a key focus of conference

As industry and government leaders gather in Edmonton this week for the Carbon Capture Canada convention, ground has been broken on a project in central Alberta meant to store 1.5 million tonnes of carbon dioxide per year from industrial developments, including many in the Edmonton region. The Origins CCS Hub near Clive, about 140 kilometres south of Edmonton, is an expansion of Enhance Energy's facility, which is said to have stored more than nine million tonnes of CO2 since 2020. The new facility will be connected to Wolf Midstream's Alberta Carbon Trunk Line, which currently carries emissions from the Nutrien fertilizer plant in Redwater and the Sturgeon Refinery, which refines bitumen.

The groundbreaking comes at a time when many carbon-capture projects are facing challenges. Heidelberg Materials recently paused the carbon-capture project at its northwest Edmonton cement plant after reduced carbon pricing at both the federal and provincial level undermined the economics of the $2-billion project. David Perkins, vice-president of sustainability and public affairs for Heidelberg Materials, told Taproot that the price of carbon emissions is "not an insignificant" element when determining the viability of a full-scale CCS project. Meanwhile, Varme Energy's Sean Collins wrote earlier this year that his company's project to capture carbon in waste-to-energy facilities is at risk because of the broken math of the carbon credit market.

Varme's Rory Wheat is among the speakers at the Carbon Capture Canada convention, joining a Sept. 15 panel on the importance of policy stability to convert global capital into final investment decisions. "CEOs, investors, and project owners need confidence that policy stability will hold, that regulatory timelines are predictable, and that the commercial frameworks exist to make projects bankable," reads the session description. Another panel will examine where CCUS sits in the data centre discussion. As demand for electricity grows at a pace that grids were not designed to absorb, natural gas is filling the gap, the website says. "Lower-carbon gas-fired power, paired with carbon capture, can deliver the reliability and emissions performance that hyperscalers, regulators, and investors increasingly require," says the description. The conference concludes on Sept. 17 with a tour of the Deep Sky Alpha site, a carbon removal centre in Innisfail.