The Government of Canada is committed to investing in green technology improvements and will be funding about $30 million for the Alberta Carbon Trunk Line project through the Clean Energy Fund, a program created in Canada’s Economic Action Plan, in addition to $33 million from the ecoENERGY Technology Initiative.

The project will include a fully integrated carbon capture and storage (CCS) system incorporating gasification, capture of CO₂ emissions, transportation, storage and enhanced oil recovery (EOR). Enhance Energy will partner with North West Upgrading for the project and provide CO₂ gathering and distribution infrastructure for the cost-effective management of CO₂ emissions from facilities in Alberta’s Industrial Heartland and throughout central Alberta. The captured CO₂ from these sites will be transported via a 240-km pipeline to mature oil reservoirs in central and southern Alberta, where it will be injected for enhanced oil recovery purposes.

At full capacity, the project will transport and store 14.6 megatonnes of CO₂ annually. The oil and gas reservoirs accessed by the project could have the capacity to store up to two billion tonnes of CO₂, providing a much needed solution for Alberta’s large emitters, including power plants, petrochemical industries and refining facilities.

As a major component in Canada’s Economic Action Plan, the $1-billion Clean Energy Fund is advancing Canada’s leadership in clean energy technologies and the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions from energy production. The ecoENERGY Technology Initiative was launched in 2007 to help Canada strengthen its position as a world leader in clean energy technologies through an innovative partnership with the private sector.

According to the Canada–Alberta ecoENERGY CCS Task Force report released in 2008, 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.

For more information on the Clean Energy Fund, visit http://cef-fep.nrcan.gc.ca.

For more information on the ecoENERGY Technology Initiative, visit http://ecoaction.gc.ca/ecoenergy-ecoenergie/index-eng.cfm.