DIDSBURY - If given provincial government approval, a proposed carbon dioxide sequestration hub in central Alberta would have local economic benefits, company officials recently told town councillors .
Enhance Energy Inc. spokespersons Chris Kupchenko and Candice Paton appeared before council as a virtual delegation to outline the company’s Origins project, which the company says would include hundreds of million of dollars of investment in central Alberta.
Enhance Energy Inc. is a privately-owned, Alberta-based energy development company specializing in carbon capture and sequestration in central Alberta.
Carbon sequestration involves storing CO2 emissions in geological formations kilometres below the surface.
The Origins project would connect to the existing Alberta Carbon Trunk Line, and would capture CO2 emissions from industrial facilities such as gas plants along the Highway 2 corridor.
“The project that we are proposing to the government in this competitive process that closed on February 1 is really something we think will grow in central Alberta and put central Alberta very squarely on the map as having global impacts in our ability to meet our climate change goals,” said Paton.
“Carbon sequestration and helping all of our industries, whether it’s steel or cement or petrochemicals or new industries that want to locate somewhere in the world that has a CO2 solution, they would be eyeing up central Alberta as the right place to be to make sure that happens. This is something that is safe and secure.”
The company’s Origins project will be a carbon sequestration hub that, “could serve emissions sources in the whole Highway 2 corridor, all the way from Edmonton to Calgary,” said Kupchenko.
“It’s a multi-decade project and it’s going to be developed alongside our existing operations with enhanced oil recovery. It puts central Alberta on the map as a high-priority place to locate industry.”
Benefits of the project would include local employment, he said.
Councillors passed a motion authorizing Town of Didsbury Mayor Rhonda Hunter to send a letter of support for the company’s Origins proposal to the Alberta government.
“We wish you luck with your initiative going forward,” said Hunter.
Other municipalities in the area have also given letters of support to the proposal.
