Carbon Capture

An important step in reducing emissions into the atmosphere, carbon capture typically involves extracting CO₂ from gas streams emitted during electricity production, fuel processing and other industrial processes. Once captured, the CO₂ can be injected underground for long-term storage, or converted into other useful products.

Finding cost-effective capture technologies

CO₂ capture represents the most costly component of a CO₂ capture, transport and storage project.  We can reduce the cost by investigating new capture technologies and improving the integration of these technologies within the industrial process.

Incorporating capture in the production process

In many cases, we can integrate CO₂ capture into the overall design of the production process, resulting in lower cost options for CO₂ capture.

We work with a variety of industrial facilities, including:

• oil sands production facilities (e.g. Steam Assisted Gravity Drainage - SAGD)
• oil sands upgrading facilities
• gas processing plants
• fertilizer manufacturing facilities
• thermal power plants
• any other sites that produce large amounts of CO₂

Alberta is an ideal location for CO₂ capture and storage, and many of the largest emitters of CO₂ are next to ideal geological formations for storing the CO₂. 

Advice for industry and government

We help industry and governments plan new facilities and optimize the mix of technologies for the best environmental and economic outcomes 

For industry, we forecast future technologies and potential costs, and work to find the most economical and efficient system for a particular project. We offer:

• assessment of carbon capture technologies
• proof of concept
• laboratory studies
• field demonstrations
• commercial projects (amine capture at gas plants, emerging gasification projects)
• developing surface facilities (e.g. CO₂ capture and recycling systems needed for CO₂-EOR)

For provincial and federal governments, we often act as an advisor by:

• helping them understand the impacts of their decisions when developing policy (e.g. financial, on industry)
• recommending developing technologies as investment options
• providing a global review of what other parts of the world are doing that can be used here (considering climate, economy, scale)
• evaluating the quantity and quality of CO₂ being emitted
• identifying CO₂ sources amenable to CO₂ capture technologies and estimating the costs of deploying these technologies