Environment minister says carbon capture already a proven technology

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CALGARY — With UN talks on climate change scheduled for Copenhagen this December, work on a new clean-energy strategy and how to reduce greenhouse gas emissions will begin immediately with the U.S. administration, federal Environment Minister Jim Prentice said Friday.

Prentice told reporters that 2009 will be pivotal in terms of controlling greenhouse gas emissions, culminating with the December meeting that has the end goal of a new global agreement on reducing emissions.

“This is a pivotal year in terms of how we will deal internationally with climate change. It is a pivotal year in development of a Canadian domestic policy and it’s a critical year in terms of the development of policy in the United States as they work toward a domestic approach in dealing with greenhouse gases,” said Prentice.

“All of this happens on a parallel path with Copenhagen, where the world will turn the page on Kyoto and replace it hopefully with a new international protocol.”

Prime Minister Stephen Harper and U.S. President Barack Obama announced plans for a “clean-energy dialogue” to fight climate change when they met in Ottawa Thursday.

That includes senior officials from both countries collaborating on the development of clean-energy science and technologies to reduce greenhouse gases and combat climate change.

“The next steps will involve close work together with President Obama’s administration,” said Prentice. “I will commence that with my colleagues almost immediately in discussions with the American administration and we will be looking at all the current areas of collaboration and look at the future possibilities.”

The leaders have indicated the new clean energy dialogue will focus on carbon capture and storage technology, which they say holds enormous potential to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

To spur rapid progress, the two nations will coordinate research and demonstrations of carbon capture and sequestration technology at coal-fired plants.

Prentice said the science behind carbon capture is already proven.

“Carbon capture is feasible presently. Carbon capture is employed in the Weyburn project which again is a Canada-U.S. project. It involves carbon which is basically taken from the United States and then sequestered or stored in Canada. It’s applied there on a commercial basis,” he said.

“Its commercial application to coalburning thermal electricity plants and also facilities such as oilsands facilities still requires work and that is why the prime minister and the president announced they would be collaborating on this.”

EnCana Corp. (TSX:ECA) already runs the world’s largest greenhouse-gas sequestration project at its oilfield near Weyburn, Sask.

The company purchases carbon dioxide that is captured and purified at a coal gasification plant in North Dakota, transports the colourless and odourless gas by pipeline and pumps it into an underground reservoir to enhance the oilfield’s productivity.

“It is applied commercially in enhanced oil recovery kinds of operations and it will be commercial in the future,” said Prentice.

“Canada and the United States will lead the world in the coming year in terms of demonstration projects. These projects are important and will be economical.”