2 weeks Ago By Michele Jarvie
In business, you know an industry is growing rapidly when the total sales chart features a vertical line. This is the territory we find ourselves in with carbon removal. And if that’s not a term Albertans are familiar with yet, the smart money is on that changing quickly.
Alberta has a prime opportunity to attract global capital from companies that want to decarbonize. In the last two years, total global carbon removal sales have risen from US$380 million to US$5.8 billion.
Not bad for an industry that has attracted little public attention. But it should. And especially in Alberta, where it’s a natural fit.
Carbon dioxide removal, commonly called CDR, is a suite of methods that pull carbon dioxide out of the air to reduce the damage being caused by climate change. This emerging industry could create 95,000 to 130,000 jobs per year, jobs that look a lot like oil and gas sector jobs, if we removed the equivalent of just 15 per cent of Canada’s annual emissions, according to a recent Rhodium Group report. Alberta should be attractive to this industry.
A critical factor in a successful CDR operation is secure, long-term storage of the carbon dioxide that’s pulled out of the atmosphere. The provincial government says Alberta has one of the best and abundant geological formations to safely store emissions. And it got ahead of the game a decade ago, when it established its legislative and regulatory frameworks around developing carbon capture, utilization and storage (CCUS).
This close cousin of CDR involves capturing carbon dioxide at large industrial facilities, such as petrochemical facilities, fertilizer plants and coal-power plants. Similar to CCUS, several popular types of CDR store the carbon dioxide in deep underground rock formations. Alberta’s work on CCUS means the province comes ready-made with a skilled workforce that knows how to handle carbon dioxide storage.
The provincial government sees this as a way to diversify the energy sector. At the Pembina Institute, we agree. And we know that the jobs and revenues from these projects can benefit local communities, too.
On April 30, our CDR Centre is hosting a near-sold-out event in Calgary, called Carbon Catalyst. The Innisfail mayor will share how the town embraced the economic opportunity and welcomed a Canadian CDR industry leader, Deep Sky, to their community. Deep Sky is completing work on a carbon removal innovation and commercialization centre there.
With U.S. President Donald Trump continually roiling the market with tariffs, there’s pressure to diversify and strengthen our economy.
Trump also froze funding for CDR projects in the U.S, so suddenly there’s an opportunity to attract that industry to our country instead..
