Alberta carbon capture plan fizzles

Apr.27, 2012, Calgary, AB – It appears that all three companies involved in a carbon capture plan in
Alberta have dropped out, leaving the plan with little hope of
recovering.

According to an article in The Globe and Mail, TransAlta Corp, Enbridge Inc. and Capital Power Corp. have cancelled their $1.4-billion carbon capture and storage effort, choosing to pay emission penalties ($15 a tonne of carbon that is emitted above a certain value) instead of reducing them bya significant amount.

The project was backed by almost $780 million in provincial and federal funding, but TransAtlanta said it could not justify the spending, as well as the fact that Canada's weak carbon pricing regulations made it not feasible.

The article states that "Pioneer’s
failure highlights the ineffectiveness of carbon pricing in Alberta, as
well as problems with regulations tied to power plants. It also comes
as a hit to the province’s public relations campaign, which leans
heavily on its $2-billion CCS technology fund and provincial carbon tax
as evidence it is committed to cleaning up the environment."

For more information, please see The Globe and Mail.