$779M allocated for Alberta carbon capture project
EDMONTON - The Alberta and federal governments said Wednesday they plan to spend $779 million over 15 years to help TransAlta Corporation kick-start its carbon dioxide capture project for its still-under construction Keephills 3 coal-fired electricity generation plant near Wabamun Lake west of Edmonton.
Called Project Pioneer, it will capture and store up to one million tonnes of CO2 per year.
Last week, the two governments laid down their first big bet in the fight to limit CO2 by promising Shell Energy a total of $865 million for its Quest project near Fort Saskatchewan.
“Perfecting technology to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from coal-fired electricity generation will not only have a significant impact in Alberta, but it could help throughout North America and in developing nations like China,” Premier Ed Stelmach said Wednesday.
“This project provides an opportunity for Alberta to be a leader in developing game-changing carbon capture technology that could be used around the globe.”
The Pioneer Project will utilize leading-edge technology to capture CO2.
The CO2 will be used for enhanced oil recovery in nearby conventional fields, or stored almost three kilometres underground. Alberta’s investment, through its $2-billion Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) Fund, will total $431 million over the next 15 years. An additional $5 million will be provided to the project to support front end engineering and design. The private partners are TransAlta, Capital Power and Alstom.
The federal government is also contributing $343 million toward this project through the Clean Energy Fund and the federal ecoENERGY Technology Initiative.
Keephills 3 is a critical coal-fired plant jointly owned by Capital Power and TransAlta.
The two firms also share the identical Genesee 3 plant which opened several years ago.
“Carbon capture and storage provides Alberta and Canada a global leadership opportunity to develop new technologies to reduce CO2 emissions,” said Steve Snyder, president and CEO of TransAlta.
“Government and industry partnerships such as this are a critical catalyst required to accelerate implementation of these new technologies that will make Canada a global leader in CO2 reductions through CCS.”
With this announcement and signing of a Letter of Intent, Alberta’s committed funding toward commercial-scale greenhouse gas reductions is almost $1.2 billion leading to emission cuts of about 2.2-million tonnes per year.
The Alberta government is continuing to pursue Letters of Intent with project proponents for the remaining available funding.
