As home to two of the world’s first operating large-scale carbon capture and storage demonstration projects, Canada has earned a pat on the back, but the country should not rest on its laurels, the International Energy Agency said in its 2015 review of Canada’s energy policy. The agency recommended that Canada “maintain and expand the country’s leadership in global efforts to demonstrate and deploy large-scale CCS technology in Canada for clean coal technologies and industrial applications.”
Canada launched SaskPower’s Boundary Dam Unit 3 CCS project, a retrofit on a coal-fired power plant, in 2014, and Shell’s Quest CCS project, the world’s first large-scale CCS project that will reduce emissions from oil sands processing, in 2015. “These CCS projects are expected to contribute directly to reducing emissions, as well as building confidence in the future use of CCS technology in the oil and gas sector … and electricity generation … while reducing the cost of this technology,” the review says.
Now that the country has brought a few first-generation CCS projects to fruition, it is time to learn from those initiatives and apply the knowledge gained to progressing the technology further, the IEA said. “Canada has an opportunity to lead global efforts and should build on these initiatives for the future,” the report says.
