Energy minister defends carbon capture as Alberta project gets cancelled over cost

Canada's energy minister is defending carbon capture and storage technology as both effective and affordable, after an Alberta power company walked away from a planned project and a study found that another project got public subsidies to cover more than three-quarters of its costs.

«Carbon capture and sequestration technologies are getting better and, over time, they actually get less expensive just like every other technology that goes through the cycle,» Jonathan Wilkinson said Tuesday.

«For those that say that the technology itself is not proven, I'd just say to them that's not true. The technology, the basic technology, has been around for a long time. It's a matter of scale and it's a matter of cost and those are both things that are actually happening.»

Carbon capture, utilization and storage, also known as CCUS, are systems that trap carbon emissions at their source and then funnel them back underground. They are expected to play a key role in Canada's climate plan, which cannot meet its targets and continue to produce the oil and gas that underlie a significant portion of Canada's economy.

The climate plan estimates carbon capture will account for up to 16 million tonnes of emissions reductions by 2030, or about five per cent of the additional emissions reductions needed to meet the next target in 2030.

CCUS needed to reach net-zero

The International Energy Agency expects CCUS will need to account for 15 per cent of global emissions reductions by 2050 to achieve net-zero, where all emissions are eliminated or captured.

«Increased use of CCUS features in the mix of every credible path to achieving net zero by 2050, including all 1.5 C pathways developed by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and