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Explore the Edmonton Region's role in solving the global climate crisis.
Well, my name's Candace Patton.
I'm a vice president for corporate affairs at enhance, and I
work with a company that operates large scale carbon
capture utilization and storage projects in Central Albert.ta.
It I probably makes sense to tell you a little bit about enhance.
We've got our start in 2007 in Alberta,
and we've been developing a stacked to geology, carbon
capture, utilization and storage system that connects large
emitters in the Edmonton region, Alberta Industrial Heland to
our storage facility down in Central Alberta end.
And so we can help those large emitters ensure
that their CO2 emissions are captured, transported,
and then stored in Alberta's geology permanently and safely
and generate carbon credits..
You mentioned a stack to geology system,
so enhance energy's current CCUS project in
Central Alberta, which is a part of a stack to geology
system, which is a leading edge project in CCUS.
So my question is, how has the provincial
government industrial and regulatory
ecosystem impacted this project?
Yeah, the regulatory system and what the province
has set up for enhance and any CCS project in this province has been really important.
As I mentioned, we got our start in 2007, which is
the same year that the Alberta government brought in the very first
carbon pricing system in the country.
It's called the tier program now and it sets a
a price on carbon emissions that applies to large industrial facilities.
And that gives them the incentive to actually reduce emissions by
taking action like carbon capture and storage.
And so our project really got its inception
when those types of programs and those regulations started to incentivize
emissions reductions technologies.
Yeah, incentives from the government and
others really helps drive that approach to adopting new technology.
So uh to my second question, so um collaboration.
between industry, government, and other stakeholders
are really essential for any projects, including
CCUS, uh, to not just succeed but to tribe.
What insights can you share about uh building
these partnerships and how crucial are they for
achieving a long-term environmental and economic goals?
This is a really important part of any CCS
project, because of course it involves multiple players.
You'll have your large emitter partner or the source of the CO2.
And without that partner taking action,
uh there is no CO22 store in the geology.
Of course, you might need to transport those emissions and having a transportation partner is really important.
And then, of course, how to unlock the value in
these projects really comes from when you can demonstrate that
you have captured and stored permanently that CO2 emission.
So it enhance, we operate in Central Alberta.
We can permanently store emissions deep in
Alberta's geology, and then we have a rigorous process that
verifies that those emissions have in fact been properly contained.
When we do that, we're able to create a
carbon credit, which backstops the value in the whole system.
That's really what unlocked the investments in the industrial heartland
area near Edmonton with our large emitter partners.
The Northwest Redwater sturgeon refinery has a
carbon capture system built into it right from its first design.
And then a nutrient fertilizer facility
at Redwater is one of our other upstream emitter partners.
and they are actually an example of a brownfield facility
that's been operating for many decades in Alberta and was able to retrofit
their project to capture carbon emissions.
Right.
Yeah, a lot of stakeholders are involved in this.
It's not a one person job.
um we have you have transportation, what you store.
And you mentioned a good point about uh how suitable this location
is for uh sequestrating that carbon.
So what do you say are some of the misconceptions about CCU
uh as an industry that strives for broader adoption of technology?
Yeah, it's an important question because it enhance
one of the things that we value most is being a trusted partner
um that can do this safely and with public confidence.
It's a really important part.
One of the things I hear a lot about CCS is that it's new and,
you know, we need to study it a lot more before it'll be a viable technology.
But I always like to say that we've been injecting CO2
into the ground in various geology or geologies
for many, many decades around the world.
And so there is actually a significant amount of experience.
When I think about Alberta, um the Edmonton region, Central
Alberta, even down into Calgary, we have such a wealth of
expertise in this area that we've built from our oil and gas sector.
We use the same skills, the same regulations,
the same requirements all go into a CCS project, just like an oil and gas project would use.
And so I think about a lot of our operation staff.
They've had careers in the oil and gas industry that they're now
able to bring into a new industry in CCS use
those same skills and expertise and actually point in a in a slightly different way.
So the the idea that this is something new, I
do like to challenge because it's been built on the expertise
we've had in this province for a long, long time.
The other thing that I hear a lot is that CCS
is a technology.
And what I also like to explain to people is that it's not just one technology.
It's a suite of technologies.
It represents the capture side and there's many different ways of doing that.
There's many different types of emissions that we can start thinking
about, whether it's hydrogen or petrochemicals or the agriculture
sector or the oil and gas sector, there's different
types of technologies that will be used to integrate with those systems.
And then there's also transportation opportunities.
There's different ways of storing and permanently sequestering emissions from the atmosphere.
And so it is actually a suite of techniques and
methods used to make the whole system come together.
Right.
Our region seems to have more literacy
in terms of energy and CCUS.
So uh still a lot of uh awareness
needs to be happened and I'm sure enhanced is playing a big role in that as well.
So how do you see technologies like CCUS
balancing economic growth with the need for substantial emission reductions?
what lessons can other regions learn from our
from our reasons model or Alberta's model?
Sure, the Alberta carbon trunkline project, which includes
the large emitters, the pipeline itself, which is owned and operated
by wolf carbon solutions, and then enhances Clive sequestration facility that does the storage.
All of those pieces need to work together to make this project happen.
And so the trunk line's a neat piece of infrastructure that's quite foundational in the province.
And it was the whole project really
benefited from some of those early incentive programs in the government,
both at the provincial and federal levels, to help get CCS off the ground.
And so, again, early in Alberta's
CCS journey, this project was able to receive federal
and provincial funding that enabled the trunk line
to be built much larger than would be necessary than just for our project.
And now that represents a real foundational piece of infrastructure
in the province that has additional capacity.
And so what's exciting for storage operators like
enhance or large emitters that want to capture their emissions in
the future, new entrance will have a lower
barrier entry in this space than we would have experienced, you know, a decade ago.
An enhance has had a positive
impact on every industry and with more than five million tons
of CO2 emissions permanently stored at their project,
So looking ahead, what excites you the most about
the future of CCUS and and its potential
to contribute to both sustainable economic
growth and immediately that global climate targets.
What excites me most about CCS and Alberta is
that we have the right skills, the right expertise and the right geology
to do this safely and and with public confidence, communities,
stakeholders and right holders all will need to be involved in this.
And it's an important technology that serves a real industrial need.
We want Alberta to continue to be at
the leading edge of industries, whether that's in in
different clean tech sectors, where that's traditional oil and gas,
whether that's agriculture, and being competitive globally means
also being competitive on emissions reductions, and we can continue to do
that because of the strengths we've built and we continue to build in CCS.
I think it's a real way forward for the province.
Right.
What should industry, government, uh and regions
around the world uh prioritize as they their
own carbon management strategies?
I think it's important to prioritize some of the policy certainty around CCS.
Of course, emissions reductions are only
going to happen when we're incentivized to do so, when there's a public will to do so.
And we need that to be in place.
And that comes with things like
um partnerships, you know, between large emitters and sequestration hubs.
It comes to government programs thinking about how
CO2 emissions can be quantified and then turned into carbon
credits to unlock value for these projects to be investable.
It's thinking about carbon credit markets and how they can
be healthy to support a thriving ecosystem.
And then lastly, really around sort of the safety and security.
Our regulatory and system in Alberta is is very, very strong.
They work hard to to build that public confidence and
show us that this can be done very safely and confidently.
So I think, you know, prioritizing those types of things are really going to allow the sector to take off.
Yeah, and and you lost few words on this
conference today and what you have seen so far.
It's always such a pleasure to gather in Edmonton and and
bring some of the brightest minds around CCS together to have these conversations.
Thank you so much for having me.
Absolutely.
Thank you so much for being here.