Innovative methods of carbon capture

Enbridge Inc., Canada's largest pipeline company, says it will join TransAlta Corp. and Capital Power Corp. in the nation's pilot project to capture and store carbon dioxide emissions from power plants.

Enbridge will contribute its experience with pipelines and sequestration to the proposed carbon-capture development at a coal-fired power plant being built in Alberta. TransAlta, co-owner of the facility with Capital Power, is leading the project.

Project Pioneer, planned for operation by as early as 2015, is intended to reduce pollution that scientists have linked to global warming. The companies are studying ways to retrofit the Keephills 3 plant west of Edmonton to employ Alstom SA's technology that would use chilled ammonia to remove 1 million metric tons of CO2 from the plant's flue gases each year.

Storage vault

Most of the captured CO2 would be purified and transferred for use by oil companies in pumping operations, Enbridge says. The remaining CO2 would be injected 2,600 metres to 2,800 metres (8,530 feet to 9,186 feet) below ground for storage, according to disclosures from the developers.

The carbon capture and storage project, known as CCS, is in a study phase that is expected to be completed in mid-2011, says MaryAnn Kenney, a spokeswoman for Calgary-based Enbridge. The companies at that time will make a "go or no go decision" on whether to proceed with development, she says.

The project would meet at least 20 per cent of the Alberta governor's annual emissions reduction goal by 2015, Enbridge says. The companies have said that if the project moves forward, CO2 injection could begin by 2015.

Tanis Fiss, a spokeswoman for Edmonton, Alberta-based TransAlta, says the companies are completing engineering and design work and could not provide an updated timeline or cost estimate for the project.

Big on numbers

The project was awarded about C$778 million (about Dh2.7 billion) in October 2009, including C$343 million in federal funding as well as C$431 million through Alberta province's C$2 billion CCS Fund and C$5 million from its EcoTrust grant programme.

The developers have estimated the total cost of the project to be C$988 million, according to data compiled by Bloomberg New Energy Finance.