Federal Government Aims to Help Alberta Carbon Capture Technology Using Clean Energy Fund
The Federal Government is dipping into the Clean Energy Fund (CEF) and assisting the Alberta Government with the funding of two major projects (totalling over $1.6 Billion). Both of the projects make use of carbon-capture technology and stand to reduce Canada’s greenhouse gas emissions, in a manner which doesn’t simply transfer them to another country, thereby helping to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions.
Carbon capture essentially results in waste CO¬2 being pumped into the depleted aquifers and stored there, rather than emitting them into the environment. Many of the comments that I have heard are quite negative, and relate to the fact that this is a lot of money going into an unproven technology, making it important to note that carbon capture and storage is used in Egypt by BP.
While this is not the ideal solution to emission reduction, it is a step in the right direction. The real solution to emission reduction would be to simply not produce the emissions in the first place – so for everybody who says that this is a huge waste of money and the the oil companies should be paying for it themselves just remember that they make the oil for you. Everybody claims that oil companies are in it for the money, sure it is a business, but if there was no demand then there would be no production. So instead of harping on the oil companies for not spending their own money (BP alone spent $188 Billion in 2008 on what they call Low Carbon Investments: wind, solar, biofuels, and carbon capture) why don’t you cut off the natural gas to your house, park your car, stop using all rubber and plastic products, and just off the grid. Oh and I will point out here that burning wood for fires to keep your place warm still gives you a carbon footprint… so spend your own thousands of dollars and put in some solar panels (which are terrible for the environment once they are to be disposed of).
I know that I am not willing to make these changes to my life, I love my upper middle class existence, most of which I spend in oil rich Alberta, working on oil sands development. Am I evil? Maybe some people would think so, but at least I am not a hypocrite – a fact that I pride myself on. I don’t wake up every morning thinking about how many ducks I could kill that day, or about how many trees I am responsible for cutting down. I think that being environmentally conscious is important, however I also feel that if want to maintain the lifestyles that we have become accustomed to then there are sacrifices that must be made. And I will be the first person to admit that I don’t have a global solution, for me it is all about the small stuff. I make an effort not to let my car run when I am not in it, I turn the heat down in my house during the day when nobody is home, I turn off the lights and electronics in rooms that I am not using, and I plant trees in my backyard.
So yeah, taking the CO2 and simply sticking it back into the ground may not be the best solution, but it is the government doing something small (it might be costing $1.2 Billion, but in the grand scheme of things it is small).
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Tags: Carbon Capture, energy, greenhouse gas
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