The CF Industries plant in north Medicine Hat seen from the west in November 2021.--NEWS FILE PHOTO
cgallant@medicinehatnews.com@CollinGallant
The City of Medicine Hat’s foray into carbon capture and storage has a name – Project Clear Horizon – and the initial scope could knock sizable CO2 emissions from local industrial plants, plus municipal power production, down to zero.
Some details emerged Thursday in the House of Commons about the potential project, briefly outlined this summer in an economic development report to city council.
Following that, the issue took up substantial time at Thursday’s utility and infrastructure committee meeting, where administrators said more details of the plan would be coming in months ahead.
MP Glen Motz used a member statement ahead of Question Period to tell parliament the federal government should throw all the support it can behind the project.
“It is the single largest business retention and expansion opportunity in southeastern Alberta,” said the Member for Medicine Hat-Cardston-Warner, adding it had “strong corporate support” from Methanex and CF Industries.
“Escalating carbon taxes will make current operations uneconomical. Carbon capture is a developing industry that requires substantial government support. Clear Horizon represents the future of Canada’s low-carbon energy industry.”
He called on the ministers of Natural Resources Canada and Environment and Climate Change Canada, to expedite support for the project.
City officials told the News they are in discussions with Natural Resources Canada about funding to advance study of the project, and council members elected this fall are being brought up to speed on the project.
“It is a very interesting project,” Mayor Linnsie Clark said Thursday.
She said during the election campaign that developing an industrial strategy would be important, but said both hydrogen and carbon capture should be evaluated thoroughly.
“I’ll support any effort to help this city through the energy transition,” she said this week. “We still have some road ahead of us, but we feel we’re in a good position and we’re trying to get ahead of the game.”
Energy division and Invest Medicine Hat administrators are jointly working on the project they say could shield utility users and local industrial from carbon compliance costs, which are set to rise steeply until at least 2030.
“We expect the carbon capture process to move quite quickly,” utilities head administrator Brad Maynes told the committee. “We’ll apply for (that geologic) space in conjunction with our partners … We expect to present (a project plan) to committee in early 2022.”
He said the province will likely ask for formal proposals early next year to issue rights to deep geology where CO2 would be stored. Drilling work could take two years, during which design, construction and operations plan would be developed. A plant could be operational in 2027, Maynes said.
At 3 million tonnes annually, it would be the same size as an effort being discussed by Capital Power and Enbridge pipelines to handle and store emissions from the 1,200-megawatt Genesee power plant complex west of Edmonton.
That size would also account for about 90% of the current emissions from the three largest emitters in the City of Medicine Hat.
Federal reporting for specific facilities in 2018 and 2019 said CO2 equivalent released was 1.8 million tonnes from CF Industries fertilizer plant, 570,000 tonnes from the city’s power plant and 460,000 from Methanex.
The total represents about 0.4% of Canada’s total greenhouse gas emissions of about 730 million tonnes, or 730 “megatonnes”, in 2019.
About one-third of the total came from Alberta.
Both CF Industries and Methanex have publicly stated they are studying ways to operate in a more environmentally stable way. CF stated it would aggressively pursue opportunities in the hydrogen sector, and seek carbon sequestration opportunities.
Methanex vice-president Mark Allard said in a statement to the News last month, the company that makes methanol is well-positioned to benefit from increased hydrogen use and supports the local effort.
“We are pleased to be involved in the Southeast Alberta Hydrogen Task Force to more fully evaluate the hydrogen opportunity and the associated prospects for carbon capture, utilization and storage as part of the transition to a low-carbon economy,”he wrote.
