Deep Sky’s carbon removal initiative in Alberta is just the start of province’s potential

CALGARY — JORDEN DYE, director of the Business Renewables Centre-Canada (BRC-Canada) and the CDR Centre, made the following statement in response to Deep Sky’s announcement that it is building a carbon removal innovation centre in Alberta.

“Alberta is just starting to show its potential in developing the carbon dioxide removal (CDR) industry, which is still in its infancy. This province has so many advantages — it has an established subsurface regulatory framework and carbon storage infrastructure, plenty of low cost, renewable energy to ensure maximum carbon dioxide reduction, and a skilled workforce.

“Deep Sky is doing the critical work of testing to optimize and validate the best technologies available. We need to support this method of learning-by-doing to identify the best options that will help us bring down the costs and accelerate the uptake of CDR.

“Deep, immediate and sustained emissions reductions are necessary to achieve climate goals but insufficient on their own. Carbon dioxide removal (CDR) is a critical complementary tool to address carbon dioxide already in the atmosphere, which will continue to impact the planet for centuries. We need to invest in technology innovation today to ensure they can scale affordably and quickly in the future.

“This work will increase confidence in the industry’s ability to remove and durably store carbon dioxide to help us reach net-zero and limit the impacts of climate change.

“For our part, we have started work on engaging and educating the corporations who would eventually purchase CDR credits to achieve their sustainability targets. We have recently published a buyer scan, establishing the level of knowledge among corporations on CDR, and a case study of one of the first credit pre-purchases done in Canada, in this case by MaRS Discovery District.”

Jorden Dye, director of the Business Renewables Centre-Canada and the CDR Centre, is available for comment.

Background

Both the Carbon Dioxide Removal Centre (CDR Centre) and the Business Renewables Centre-Canada (BRC-Canada) are initiatives of the Pembina Institute. The CDR Centre aims to build CDR awareness for decision-makers, spur CDR market activity in Canada and encourage public procurement of CDR.

BRC-Canada exists to enable businesses and institutions to access renewable energy for their emissions reduction needs across Canada. This means working closely with buyers and developers of renewables and assisting them in shortening their learning curves as they figure out the best path to power purchase agreements. Our growing organization currently has about 60 participants from across all sectors of the Canadian economy.

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