Something is finally being done and it looks like it is a cost effective solution as well.
Wayne Gerdes -
CleanMPG - Sept. 16, 2012
A little Ra Ra to begin with a good goal of CO2 sequestration at the end of the day.
Shell is going ahead with the Quest project, the first Tar Sands Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) project in Canada. The project is being co developed on behalf of the Athabasca Oil Sands Project joint venture owners Shell, Chevron and Marathon Oil with support from the Governments of Canada and Alberta.
CCS is a critical step to meet the projected increase in global energy demand while reducing CO2 emissions.
Alberta’s oil sands are a secure, reliable source of energy and an economic engine which drives employment and business development across Canada.
The Athabasca Oil Sands project produces bitumen, which is piped to Shell’s Scotford Upgrader near Edmonton, Alberta. Beginning in late 2015, Quest will capture and store deep underground more than 1.1 million tons of CO2/year produced from bitumen processing. Quest will reduce direct emissions from the Scotford Upgrader by up to 35 percent and according to the company, the equivalent of taking 175,000 cars off the road annually. It’s the other 500,000 cars they are producing the equivalent we should be worried about however.
The Quest project because it solves a number of problems at an affordable cost. Not only will it capture and sequester CO2 going forward, it may also improve future oil recovery cost-effectively in the future.
Both the Canadian federal and Albertan provincial governments have identified CCS as an important technology in their strategies to reduce CO2 emissions. The Alberta government will invest $745 million in Quest while the Government of Canada will invest $120 million through its Clean Energy Fund.
The International Energy Agency (IEA) calls CCS “a crucial part of worldwide efforts to limit global warming” and estimates that it could deliver about one-fifth of necessary worldwide reductions in greenhouse gases by 2050. Shell is also working with governments and experts to help the development of CCS in other countries, including projects in Norway and Australia.
Quest is the world’s first commercial-scale CCS project to tackle carbon emissions in the oil sands, and the first CCS project in which Shell will hold majority ownership and act as designer, builder and operator. It will also form the core of Shell’s CCS research program and help develop Shell’s CO2 capture technology.
Construction has begun and will employ an average of about 400 skilled trade workers over roughly 30 months, peaking at about 700.
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