A flare stack lights the sky from the Imperial Oil refinery in Edmonton on December 28, 2018. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jason Franson
CALGARY – A new report from the International Energy Agency warns that oil and gas companies shouldn’t bank on carbon capture and storage to help them maintain their status quo on a warming planet.
Carbon capture and storage refers to the use of technology to sequester harmful greenhouse gas emissions from industrial processes and store them safely underground.
In Canada, carbon capture and storage is a key piece of the oil and gas sector’s decarbonization goals.
Oilsands companies, for example, have banded together to propose a $16.5-billion carbon capture and storage project in northern Alberta that they say will help them reach net-zero emissions from production by 2050.
But the latest report from the IEA says deploying carbon capture won’t give the oil and gas industry the ability to continue increasing fossil fuel production in the future.
The IEA says limiting global temperature increases to 1.5 degrees Celsius would require 32 billion tonnes of emissions to be sequestered by carbon capture by 2050, an amount the report calls “entirely inconceivable.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 23, 2023.
