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The Need
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The Alberta government sees CO2 sequestration as a key technology for enhancing recovery of oil and gas reserves while helping to reduce the province's greenhouse gas emissions.
The federal government also sees CO2 sequestration as crucial in helping Canada achieve its target under the international Kyoto accord to reduce the country's greenhouse gas emissions by 240 million tonnes by 2008-2012 (six per cent below 1990 levels).
Carbon dioxide is already being used to enhance recovery of oil in many oilfields in North America. The CO2 is produced – as a relatively pure stream of waste gas – as a byproduct from an existing operation, such as a coal-gasification or chemical fertilizer plant. This waste gas stream is captured and the CO2 is transported by pipeline to the oilfield. The CO2 is then injected underground or pumped under high pressure into the oil reservoir, where it sweeps more oil from the rock formations toward pumps that bring it to the surface.
The volume of CO2 that could be potentially sequestered in the Western Canadian Sedimentary Basin is 15,000 million tonnes. But research is required to lower the currently high costs of CO2 separation, transport and injection, to make sequestration a practical, affordable option.