The federal government likes to tell us we can’t adopt a national action plan on climate change until we know what the United States plans. Given the dysfunction so strongly on display in Washington, it appears the U.S. cannot be counted on to do anything.
There is a counter argument: that Canada should be moving ahead on projects for a low carbon economy without waiting for our American neighbours, and in the process gain an advantage in technology and its application.
In fact, that is happening to some extent.
But more could and should be done to build a Canadian advantage while Americans dither.
Carbon capture and storage is one example where Canada, led by Saskatchewan and Alberta, is not waiting for the U.S.
Carbon capture and storage is a technology designed to capture greenhouse gas emissions in coal-burning electric power plants and high-carbon projects such as oil sands plants.
The idea is to capture carbon dioxide produced in burning coal or oil and store it underground rather than sending it into the atmosphere.
The Pembina Institute, a leading watchdog on climate change, supports this approach, saying that it is “one of a number of potentially effective technologies for reducing GHG emissions on the scale required to combat dangerous climate change.”
SaskPower is building its $1.24-billion Boundary Dam Integrated Carbon Capture and Storage Demonstration Project in southeast Saskatchewan that should begin operations in 2014.
It is one of the first such projects in the world and when completed will have a 110 MW capacity. It will capture 90 per cent of carbon dioxide emissions amounting to one million tonnes a year, and this carbon dioxide will be injected deep into nearby oil wells for enhanced oil recovery.
SNC Lavalin is directing the detailed engineering, procurement and construction of the project, which is getting a $240-million grant from the federal government. Cansolv, a Shell subsidiary, is supplying the carbon capture process technology.
Hitachi Canada is designing and building the steam turbine technology. And Babcock & Wilcox Canada will design, engineer and manufacture key components.
In 2008, Alberta committed $2 billion to fund large-scale carbon capture and storage projects. One of these is the $1.9-billion retrofit of the Keephills 3 power plant west of Edmonton, a TransAlta-led Pioneer Project for a 450 MW coal-burning power plant that will receive $343 million from the federal government and $431 million from Alberta.
It too is designed to capture about one million tonnes of carbon dioxide each year and, like SaskPower will reinject carbon dioxide deep into existing oil fields to recover more of the oil. The Pioneer Project includes Capital Power, Enbridge Inc. and Alstom Canada.
In the meantime, American Electric Power, one of the largest U.S. coal-burning power utilities, is terminating its agreement with the U.S. Department of Energy, which had pledged US$334 million to retrofit a US$668 million commercial-scale carbon capture and storage coal-burning plant in West Virginia. The company blamed “economic and policy conditions,” including a lack of a federal climate change action plan because of strong right-wing Republican opposition.
Likewise, the one-time highly ambitious FutureGen plan to build a massive carbon capture and storage power plant in Illinois has been scaled back and is far behind schedule. Once a great goal of U.S. President George W. Bush, it was launched as a non-profit corporation linking power and fuel interests to build a major plant with close to zero emissions and which would generate hydrogen fuel as a byproduct.
It was to have been in operation by 2012 but in 2008 the Bush administration withdrew its promised support. The Obama administration has revived a scaled-down project, costing US41.3 billion, with the U.S. Department of Energy contributing more than US$1 billion. Construction is not slated to begin until late next year and the project is expected to be completed in late 2015 or early 2016.
So Canada is getting a bit of a head start.
But we should be pursuing other areas as well. One would be an intensive program to build compressed natural gas fuelling stations along our major trucking routes and to supply bus and delivery van systems within cities.
This would make a serious impact on carbon dioxide emissions. At the same time, Canada should be doing much more to build up its capacity for hydrogen fuel cell technology.
We don’t have to wait for Americans to act. Instead, we should focus on getting out in front.
Economist David Crane is a syndicated Toronto Star columnist. He can be reached at crane@interlog.com.