The truth about carbon capture

In July 2020, Shell Oil’s Alberta-based Quest project announced that, in under five years since it had started operating, it had captured and safely stored five million tonnes of carbon dioxide — an amount equal to the annual emissions from 1.25 million cars. Not only that, but the cost to do so was about a third less than anticipated. With combined federal and Alberta government grants to launch the project totalling $865 million, bean-counters somewhere surely cheered this efficiency.

The Quest facility captures CO2 from retrofitted hydrogen manufacturing units within Shell’s Scotford upgrader, about 45 kilometres northeast of Edmonton, where the hydrogen is put to work transforming oilsands bitumen into usable crude. The CO2 is then transported 65 kilometres through a pipeline and injected into a geological reservoir two kilometres below the surface.

Although the announced capture of roughly one megatonne per year represented just a tiny fraction of the 35 to 40 billion tonnes (or gigatonnes) of CO2 emitted globally each year, for Canadians scanning the horizon for some sort of clinquant saviour to help achieve national climate goals, this announcement fit the bill.

But wait a minute, said environmentalists.

It plunged five million people into the dark and cold — the recovery would take years

The first day of 1998 dawned sunny and unseasonably warm in Montreal, a welcome reprieve from the more than 30 centimetres of snow that had fallen over the holidays. But forecasters already had their eye on the next weather system — and it was unprecedented.

An area of high pressure was locked over northern Quebec, pushing cold air south. At the same time, a series of moisture-laden lows was set to track over the Great Lakes and down the St. Lawrence River: perfect conditions for multiple days of freezing rain. Veteran Weather Network presenter Chris St. Clair remembers the talk he had with his MétéoMédia colleague Patrick de Bellefeuille on Sunday, Jan. 4. “This is going to last all week,” St. Clair recalls de Bellefeuille saying. “It’s bad, really bad.”

Come on over, the water’s fine! At least it is in Sackville, N.B., which recently received international recognition for its efforts to protect and restore wetlands.

The town is the first in North America to be accredited as a United Nations Ramsar City Wetland Site, an honour Ron Kelly Spurles, manager of tourism and business development in Sackville, describes as the “Academy Awards for Wetlands.” Wetland City Accreditations are given every three years under the UN convention that recognizes the conservation of wetlands of national and international significance.

The scheme “encourages cities to highlight and strengthen their positive relationship with wetlands as valuable ecosystems that provide multiple benefits to its citizens,” said Jay Aldous, Deputy Secretary-General of the Convention on Wetlands. It also gives cities international recognition and publicity — and possibly a boost in tourism — for protecting their wetlands.

Canadian Geographic Ambassador, Scott Forsyth. Receive invaluable photography instruction during these 3-day, small-group travel experiences. Learn how to capture the grandeur of nature through a lens. This is a one-of-a-kind classroom.
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- Saskatchewan Whooping Cranes with Carol Patterson
- Haida Gwaii with David Gray
- High Arctic Explorer with Joseph Frey