Canada claims leadership role at carbon sequestration meeting in London
Tuesday, October 13, 2009 at 04:55PM The Canadian government is presenting itself as a world leader in carbon sequestration with a statement issued at the Carbon Sequestration Leadership Forum in London today. "Canada is a world leader in developing this technology, and we want to continue building this knowledge base and sharing this expertise with our global partners," said Natural Resources Minister Lisa Raitt in London.
This declaration comes just days after a letter of intent was signed with the government of Alberta on October 8, and a joint announcement of funding agreements for the Quest Carbon Capture & Storage (CCS) project. The government of Alberta would contribute $745 million from its $2 billion CCS fund while the government of Canada would provide Quest $120 million from its $650 million CCS fund. A private consortium is to be headed by Shell, with the "aim" to start construction in 2015 after securing government funding, regulatory approval and a "properly engineered plan."
The governments will spend the money on Royal Dutch Shell PLC’s $1.35-billion Quest project at its Scotford upgrader near Fort Saskatchewan, Alberta. The money will be doled out over 15 years. But it will be years Shell makes its final investment decision on its CCS ambitions.
The plan now is to capture "up to" 1.1 million tonnes of carbon dioxide a year from the Scotford upgrader near Edmonton, liquefy the carbon dioxide under pressure, and inject it more than two kilometres underground into a rock formation filled with salt water.
The issue is particularly important because of the United States' well-known disapproval of the "dirty" oil produced in the Alberta oil sands. Canada must be seen to be taking the lead in reducing CO2 emissions if the United States is to continue to buy the oil.
However, measured against conventional methods of extracting crude oil, tar sands remain the dirtiest source, even after the levels of sequestration being talked about by the governments and by Shell.
According to Peter Voser, Shell's chief executive in Canada, 1.1 million tons of CO2 is “roughly 20 percent of the CO2 we generate," and removing that much CO2 from the environment "actually bring oil sands back to normal, average conventional crude oil from a CO2 perspective.” In other words, it will take massive investments of money and time just to get the tar sands to where the conventional crude producers are now.
To date, no plant has been shown to be able to trap and bury the emissions from a power station on a commercial scale.
Canada's efforts must be seen in the context of the global problem of climate change and the responses of other developed countries. Norway, for example, the world's sixth largest exporter of oil, said it will raise annual investment in CCS to a record $621 million in 2010. Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg said his country wanted to lead international efforts to develop CCS, and has compared the challenge to the Apollo space programme of the 1960s.
Stephen Chu, the US Energy Secretary, called for carbon capture and storage technology to be ready for widespread use within ten years and said that eventually it should be applied to other sources of carbon emissions. "In the end we’re going to have to capture carbon from coal and from high-carbon industries like cement production.”
The International Energy Agency (IEA) released a report saying that at least 850 full-scale carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) plants need to be built by 2030—100 of them by 2020—if the world is to cut global carbon emissions in half by 2050, thus avoiding dangerous climate change. The IEA's road map requires global investment of about $56 billion per year for CCS in the next decade in developed countries, with up to a further $2.5 billion in developing countries. In total, the IEA has estimated that the world needs to invest $45 trillion in low-carbon technologies by 2050 to make the required cuts.
And earlier this year, the G8 leaders reaffirmed the importance of the commitment to launch 20 large-scale demonstration projects globally by 2010. As the host nation for the G8 in 2010, Canada is committed to advancing global initiatives on CCS and developing four to six large-scale CCS demonstration projects in support of this G8 objective. According to the Canada-Alberta ecoENERGY CCS Task Force report, CCS technology could allow Canada to cut its greenhouse gas emissions by as much as 600 million tonnes a year by 2050, an amount equal to almost three-quarters of Canada's current annual emissions.
Canada’s oilsands hold the world’s second-biggest crude reserves after Saudi Arabia. The reserves are located about 750 kilometres north of Calgary. Output from the oilsands may almost double to 2.2 million barrels a day by 2015, the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers estimates.
NOTICE - This article is the opinion of the author or reports the news and opinions of others and is NOT INTENDED TO OFFER ADVICE. This story/article/feature may be an opinion piece — and should be treated accordingly — or reporting on the opinions of others, and should never be considered as a sole source of information or as a suggestion, instruction or prescription. For crime stories, always read the word "allegedly" in any story mentioning "suspects" or "persons of interest". For money/trade and exchange stories, this magazine and its writers accept no responsibility for accuracy — always check with other sources for important decisions. In the case of food/health stories, these facts have not been evaluated by the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Information stated here should be NOT be considered as medical, health, psychological or behavior advice. All information in this story and on this site is provided for educational or entertainment purposes ONLY. Always seek the advice of experts, including doctors for medical opinions. Only a licensed medical doctor can offer medical advice. Legal advice or other expert advice is best referred to experts in their respective fields. The publishers and editors, authors, researchers, employees, heirs and assigns accept no responsibility whatsoever for any advice, facts, opinions in this story, nor for resulting actions of readers of this information. ALL READERS ACCEPT THAT THIS INFORMATION IS PRESENTED ONLY AS EDUCATION, ENTERTAINMENT OR OPINION/INFORMATION AND AGREE IN READING THIS STORY OR THIS SITE THAT USE OF THIS INFORMATION IS SOLELY THE RESPONSIBILITY OF THE READER. Copyright by the author unless otherwise indicated. EXCERPTS from other magazines or media sources are posted under fair use doctrine, on the basis of no more than 5-10% of content with links and credit to source for the complete story. These are posted in the interest of providing interesting links (description as excerpt) with navigation to the source. Likewise, we encourage our many subscribers to excerpt with credit and links to our e-zines, up to 10% of content. To use more content than 10%, please contact the e-zine for permission. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED except as stipulated herein.
Persona Corp. and Blogertize publishes several e-zines for entertainment and information, but cautions readers to read the NOTICE above:
• Advance Magazine
* Secure Network News
Sponsored Advertisers
Jameson Bank – Canada's "It's Taken Care Of" Bank
Amer.com – Technology for Life
Reader Comments