ecoENERGY Technology Initiative

The ecoENERGY Technology Initiative is a component of ecoACTION, the government's actions towards clean air and greenhouse gas emission reductions.

Please note that the ecoENERGY Technology Initiative funding is fully allocated.

Projects

Heartland Area Redwater Project (HARP)

Lead proponent: ARC Resources

This project is designed to demonstrate the feasibility of safe CO₂ storage in the Redwater Leduc Reef, situated north east of Edmonton. This site is located close to the Alberta Industrial Heartland (AIH) region where there are a number of large industrial sources of greenhouse gas emissions, including chemical and fertilizer plants, as well as several oil sands upgraders operating, being built, or in the planning stages.

The Redwater reef is also strategically located along a straight-line path between Fort McMurray and Edmonton, a potential route for a CO₂ pipeline from Fort McMurray. Preliminary work estimates the total storage capacity of the saline aquifer portion of the Reef to be one gigatonne of CO₂.

Over the long term, this project will demonstrate carbon capture and storage on a commercial scale (several million tonnes per year), contributing to a significant reduction in GHG emissions from the Fort Saskatchewan – Heartland – Redwater area in central Alberta.

Integrated Carbon Capture and Enhanced Oil Recovery

Lead proponent: Enhance Energy

This project involves the capture of CO₂ emissions from industrial sites in the Alberta Industrial Heartland located in Sturgeon County, northeast of the city of Edmonton. The captured CO₂ will be transported to mature oil reservoirs in central Alberta, where it will be injected for Enhanced Oil Recovery purposes and permanent sequestration. The project will capture CO₂ from two sources: a large fertilizer plant, and an oil sands upgrading operation (awaiting construction) in order to demonstrate the feasibility of a single network to collect CO₂ from a large number of industrial emitters. This technology could be applied to many similar geological reservoirs throughout Alberta that are each capable of sequestering millions of tonnes of CO₂.

Within five years, this project could capture and sequester up to 1.9 megatonnes of CO₂ annually which is the equivalent of taking 358,000 cars off the road each year. There is a long-term potential for capture and storage of up to 15 megatonnes of CO₂ annually. The project could also lead to the recovery of significant amounts of oil that cannot be reached by conventional methods.

Fort Nelson Exploratory Project

Lead proponent: Spectra Energy Transmission

This project represents the first phase of research toward a world-scale carbon capture and storage project associated with Spectra Energy’s existing gas processing plant in Fort Nelson, B.C.. Raw (unprocessed) natural gas, naturally contains high levels of CO₂, and the processing of natural gas involves the stripping of CO₂.  If proven feasible, the CO₂ would be compressed, dehydrated and cooled into a concentrated stream and then injected into deep saline formations more than 2 kilometres underground for permanent sequestration.

This project is designed to demonstrate the technical feasibility of injecting large volumes of sour CO₂ into deep saline formations for permanent storage. In the long-term, this project could lead to a reduction of 1.3 to 1.6 megatonnes of CO₂ per year.

Pioneer Project

Lead proponent: TransAlta

Pioneer is a large-scale carbon capture and storage project proposed for the Keephills Thermal Electric Power Generation Plant, located approximately 70 km west of Edmonton, Alberta.

The proponent is proposing to construct one of the world’s first large-scale CCS facilities that will integrate leading edge post-combustion chilled ammonia capture technology with a power plant to capture one megatonne per year of CO₂; transport the CO₂ to a permanent geological storage site and for use in Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR); demonstrate safe, secure, large scale permanent storage in saline aquifers; and deliver significant reductions in CO₂ emissions by 2012.

CO₂ Injection in Heavy Oil Reservoirs

Lead Proponent: Husky Energy Inc.

This project will focus on targeted R&D activities to develop new knowledge and methods for Enhanced Oil Recover in heavy oil reservoirs, using injected CO₂ that could be permanently stored in the reservoirs, which is a new approach in heavy oil extraction. It will capture CO₂ from Husky's Lloydminster upgrader and ethanol plant and transport and inject the CO₂ into heavy oil reservoirs located adjacent to the upgrader to enhance oil recovery.

This project could collect 300,000 tonnes of CO₂ per year from the Husky Upgrader and ethanol plant by purifying, dehydrating, compressing and transporting the CO₂ to a heavy oil reservoir in the Lloydminster area.