There is plenty of skepticism surrounding the carbon capture sector and questions about how many of the proposed facilities will actually be constructed to help companies and the country reduce emissions.Since opening in late 2015, the Quest project has captured and stored CO2 underground about two kilometres below the surface. The Alberta government kicked off a flurry of activity three years ago when it began awarding the rights to underground caverns for storing carbon emissions.
On Monday, Shell Canada and ATCO EnPower formally signed the paperwork to advance the Atlas carbon capture hub, located east of Edmonton. The companies will now apply for permits before looking for industrial players who will want to use the facility to inject their carbon emissions underground. "It really depends on the project itself. I think it also would depend on the comfort level that you have with CCS," she said, pointing to Shell's experience building the Quest CCS facility in Alberta nearly a decade ago.
"But if we step way back and we look at this from a broader perspective, we have the most operating CCS projects in one jurisdiction compared to anywhere in the world," he said. "That would be enormous," said McCoy. "That would be huge because these projects cost in the billions of dollars. That would be a lot of spending that would happen."Some experts have pointed to how CCS makes more sense for certain facilities than others because of the concentration of the emissions out of the smokestack. Others have pointed to the need to reduce costs, improve the technology and improve government policy to ensure more CCS facilities are actually built.