Canadian company can solve man made climate change, no carbon taxes or useless wind and solar required

[Anonymous]

A viable electricity plan that requires no tax dollars, produces low C02 emissions(all energy produces some C02 emissions, including wind and solar), and utilizes the conditions brought about by Western Canada's oil and gas sector.



Geothermal project heating up

Company operating in Swan Hills hopes to use method to create electricity



A Calgary-based oil and gas company operating in Swan Hills could be among the first in Canada to use geothermal heat as a source of power.



Razor Energy is working to capture heat from hot water reservoirs on its site to turn into electricity. The company has teamed up with the University of Alberta's department of earth and atmospheric sciences to research this new method.



Oilfield activity



Jonathan Banks, project lead with the university, said oilfield activity produces a lot of hot water by bringing geothermal energy to the surface through day-to-day operations.



"This has never been done anywhere at this scale," Banks said. "This is a first of its kind in Canada for sure. Whether it will be the first geothermal installed power in Canada remains to be seen."



Razor president Doug Bailey said if the company succeeds, the project will be economically viable and worthy of commercial investment.



"We're very happy to see others getting into this industry, which we believe has a very strong and significant future but for us, we're going to do right by our stakeholders," he said. "If we don't win the race, so to speak, so be it. It would be great if we were first but we're not going to force that issue."



Historically, geothermal energy has been limited to volcanic landscapes, where there is a lot of heat and hot water right below the surface, but Banks said the geothermal community is looking to expand into new areas that previously weren't seen as economically viable.



He said the university plans to use the research to see if the same thing can be applied to other companies across the province.



'Provincial opportunities'



"We're looking at what works and what doesn't work in their field, and then trying to extrapolate that across the entire province to see what the provincial opportunities are with this type of technology," he said. "Hydrocarbon producers are starting to take their carbon footprint seriously. They (are starting) to look for very local solutions and I think we have one here in Alberta."



The project is currently being constructed and is in the middle of final engineering. The project is designed to generate 21 megawatts of power from two sources. Around five megawatts will be produced from hot water heat and heat recovered from the battery site and an additional 15 will be from natural gas-fired generation.



Razor has received $7 million from the federal and provincial governments to fund the approximately $15 to $20 million project.



The timeline for the project includes a heat pilot in the summer, possible civil construction in the third quarter and potentially connecting to Alberta's grid in the first quarter of 2020.

[Anonymous]

Renewable natural gas project plans expansion

Wood waste is converted into energy



An energy technology project that converts wood waste into renewable natural gas has been providing energy to edmonton homes and businesses for six months in a demonstration project, and now its ready to scale up.



"It's a great relief (from) all this hard work and the close cooperation and support of all of our partners — it's tremendous to have this out and running at this stage," edson Ng, principal of G4 Insights Inc., the Vancouverbased company developing and commercializing the process to produce renewable natural gas.



The project has been 11 years in the making. "We've been chipping away for quite a while," said Ng.



during the six-month demonstration project, G4



Insights converted forest residues into renewable natural gas and injected that gas directly into the natural gas distribution system operated by atco.



The company aims to expand it into a small commercial plant in three to five years, he said.



To be economically viable, the plant would need to process about 36 tonnes of wood waste per day, but to match the waste produced by a sawmill, that would need to ramp up to about 750 tonnes a day, Ng said.

[Anonymous]

Renewable natural gas project plans expansion

Wood waste is converted into energy



An energy technology project that converts wood waste into renewable natural gas has been providing energy to edmonton homes and businesses for six months in a demonstration project, and now its ready to scale up.



"It's a great relief (from) all this hard work and the close cooperation and support of all of our partners — it's tremendous to have this out and running at this stage," edson Ng, principal of G4 Insights Inc., the Vancouverbased company developing and commercializing the process to produce renewable natural gas.



The project has been 11 years in the making. "We've been chipping away for quite a while," said Ng.



during the six-month demonstration project, G4



Insights converted forest residues into renewable natural gas and injected that gas directly into the natural gas distribution system operated by atco.



The company aims to expand it into a small commercial plant in three to five years, he said.



To be economically viable, the plant would need to process about 36 tonnes of wood waste per day, but to match the waste produced by a sawmill, that would need to ramp up to about 750 tonnes a day, Ng said.

Clever idea. But, progs won't like it if don't turn wood waste into solar panels and unicorn farts.

[Anonymous]

Technology trumps taxation in the battle to do deal with climate change.



Mangrove Water Technologies uses carbon technology to turn waste products from oil and gas operations into valuable chemicals and by doing so, reduce greenhouse gas emissions.



Carboncure, injects carbon dioxide into concrete to improve the process and performance of manufacturing.



The aim is to scale up across the concrete and construction industry and target 180 plants in Alberta and more than 1,100 plants across North America for commercial rollout by 2025. It's applications can be transferred to oilsands operations.

[Anonymous]

Colin Craig is the president of Secondstreet. org, a new Canadian think tank

Technology will address climate issues



In 1898, government bureaucrats gathered at the first urban planning conference in New York to discuss a very serious problem — the "Great Horse Manure Crisis."



At the time, city streets around the world were full of horse and buggies transporting people and products all over the place. But those same streets also had a growing problem with horse manure, and in some cases, horse carcasses laying on the roads for days at a time. All this culminated in an influx of flies that spread typhoid fever and other diseases.



Urban planners at the New York conference never did solve this problem though. The issue was eventually addressed by technological change as cars replaced the horse and buggy.



Over 100 years later, governments around the world are once again sounding alarm bells, this time about a "climate emergency." Greenhouse gas emissions are now in the cross-hairs of politicians across the political spectrum.



But just as we saw with the "Great Horse Manure Crisis," it likely won't be preachy politicians and bureaucrats that address the planet's emissions, but rather technological change.



Note that society is currently addicted to oil and that doesn't appear to be changing. The United States government just released analysis that estimates global oil and gas usage will increase at least until 2050. Other forecasts show similar growth patterns.



Oil demand is expected to grow not only for transportation purposes, but also for making products that are made with oil: plastics for our cell phones, children's toys, aspirin, lipstick and bicycle tires to name a few.



Electric cars are one option to help reduce emissions (provided they don't receive their power from coal power plants), and they're starting to put a very small dent in vehicle sales, but mass adoption is likely quite far off.



What we have seen, however, are several companies coming forward with new technology to reduce emissions. Here are a few great Canadian examples:



Ontario-based Pond Technologies has created a system that diverts carbon dioxide from smokestacks into large tanks that have algae inside. The algae then consume the carbon dioxide that's pumped into the tanks and multiply. Ultimately, the algae can be processed and used to produce everything from animal feed and nutraceuticals to bioplastics and fertilizer.



Ontario-based Berg Chilling Systems has also developed technology that's quite innovative. Their equipment reduces the amount of volatile organic compounds (VOCS) that are burned at sites where oil and gas is extracted. Instead of oil companies burning methane and other gases when they extract oil and gas from the ground, Berg Chilling System's equipment allows the companies to captures these gases and reduce their greenhouse gas emissions.



According to Berg's site, just one of their units can reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 11,500 tons in a single year.



In the trucking world, companies such as Drivewyze have developed apps to help trucks with good safety track records bypass weigh stations. By skipping these stops, the trucks don't have to sit and waste fuel while staff weigh their vehicle and review their records.



To be sure, these tools won't address Canada's emissions on their own, but Canadians should know that lots of local companies are busy working on technological solutions. Dire predictions about the end of the world are more horse manure than anything.

[Anonymous]

Ontario-based Pond Technologies has created a system that diverts carbon dioxide from smokestacks into large tanks that have algae inside. The algae then consume the carbon dioxide that's pumped into the tanks and multiply. Ultimately, the algae can be processed and used to produce everything from animal feed and nutraceuticals to bioplastics and fertilizer.

I like this. A commercial use for C02. Works a lot better than another frickin tax.

[Anonymous]

Technology is reducing the land footprint of each oil and gas well drilled.



https://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/canada/oil-pumpjacks-and-the-changing-alberta-landscape/ar-BBY6PPo?ocid=mailsignout">https://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/canada/o ... ailsignout">https://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/canada/oil-pumpjacks-and-the-changing-alberta-landscape/ar-BBY6PPo?ocid=mailsignout

For decades, the pumpjack has served as part of Alberta's identity, a symbol of its wealth and prosperity.



Still, the landscape in the province is beginning to change as fewer are needed to do the work they once did.



The oil producing equipment is not going extinct like the traditional grain elevator, but just as technology changed how agriculture companies built their terminals, innovation is altering the number, size and placement of pumpjacks.



For much of the last century, oil wells were similar to drilling a water well — they were vertical. That changed in the mid-2000s when companies discovered how to turn the drill bit and produce directional wells.



Technology continues to improve and as a result, oil wells are getting longer and longer. The average oil well drilled is now about three kilometres in length.



"The ability to steer a drill bit with the accuracy to hit the target the size of a bathtub that is seven thousand metres below the surface of the earth, I mean that's what we did," said Mark Salkeld, the past president of the Petroleum Services Association of Canada.



"We're drilling less but the wells are far more complex. They're longer, deeper and significantly more productive than the wells that we used to drill," he said.

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[Anonymous]

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The number of new wells drilled has declined for several years because of innovation in the sector and also, in part, by the downturn in the sector over the last five years.



As a result, since 2015, more oil and gas wells in the province have been decommissioned, compared to new wells drilled. That means natural gas wells and oil pumpjacks are currently disappearing at a faster rate than new ones are created.



"Not only are we going to see the landscape start to clean up with respect to wells decommissioned and pumpjacks being taken away and land reclaimed, but the wells we will drill are fewer," said Salkeld.



"Driving down the highway to Lethbridge or Medicine Hat and seeing pumpjacks on the side of the highway — you can see that change."



In addition, instead of a few dozen pumpjacks spread across an area, in some newer developments they are placed side-by-side to reduce the number of pipelines needed.



Dan Hoffarth notices the evolution as he travels through parts of Texas. He's the chief executive of Calgary-based Citadel Drilling, which moved all of its rigs to the southern U.S. two years ago.



"You see pumpjacks everywhere on the horizon, but in the new areas, you just don't see that anymore," he said.



A new oil well can access more oil, Hoffarth said, than 20 wells could have reached previously.



"The technology has just advanced to such a degree," he said. "Your footprint is so small compared to what it used to be."



In addition, instead of a few dozen pumpjacks spread across an area, in some newer developments they are placed side-by-side to reduce the number of pipelines needed.



Dan Hoffarth notices the evolution as he travels through parts of Texas. He's the chief executive of Calgary-based Citadel Drilling, which moved all of its rigs to the southern U.S. two years ago.



"You see pumpjacks everywhere on the horizon, but in the new areas, you just don't see that anymore," he said.



A new oil well can access more oil, Hoffarth said, than 20 wells could have reached previously.



"The technology has just advanced to such a degree," he said. "Your footprint is so small compared to what it used to be."

[Anonymous]

"The technology has just advanced to such a degree," he said. "Your footprint is so small compared to what it used to be."

That's what my husband has told me too Herman..



North Dakota's oil and gas is very busy, but with fewer and deeper wells drilled.

[Anonymous]

Forget wind and solar. They are old technologies that cannot meet the world's electricity and heating/cooling needs. There is also not enough land and rare earth metals for them.



We can take C02 out of the atmosphere right now without re-engineering our entire electrical and transportation systems.



New industry to suck carbon dioxide from atmosphere



Somewhere in west Texas, amid one of the most productive oilfields in the continent, a Canadian company is building a plant that it hopes will eventually suck from the air a million tonnes of carbon being pumped out of the ground all around it.



Carbon Engineering's groundbreaking plant is one of many projects hoping to help in the fight against climate change by turning its main driver — carbon dioxide — into a useful product that can be profitably removed from the atmosphere.



"We're pulling the CO2 back down," CEO Steve Oldham said in a recent interview.



People in labs and boardrooms around the world are beginning to confront the realization that more needs to be done than cut emissions if the world is to remain livable. Vast amounts of carbon already in the atmosphere will have to be removed.



And that, says energy economist Mark Jaccard, is why companies such as Carbon Engineering are so important. Using CO2 to make marketable products will help pay for the massive scale-up of technology to remove CO2 and inject it permanently underground.



"You're going to have to figure out some product you can make until humanity's ready to use this for the real reason, which is to capture and bury carbon," said Jaccard of the University of British Columbia.



Carbon Engineering is already pulling CO2 from the air and turning it into fuel at its pilot plant in Squamish, B.C. In Halifax, Carboncure Technologies is injecting CO2 into concrete.



Many companies already inject CO2 underground to force more oil to the surface -which, if done right, can result in carbon-negative oil. Other companies are using the gas to create useful chemicals, carbon nanotubes or plastics.



"There's a number of technologies we're trying to advance," said Wes Jickling of the Canadian Oilsands Innovation



Alliance. The group is helping run the Carbon Xprize, a $20-million award for the best conversion of CO2 into a saleable product.



The market for such products has been estimated at $1 trillion a year.

[Anonymous]

I always wondered why we couldn't scrub or remove C02.

[Anonymous]

The Conservatives have the best plan to reduce emissions in Canada and abroad. But, the msm ignores it.



https://edmontonjournal.com/news/politics/david-staples-man-bites-dog-yes-conservatives-have-now-come-up-with-boldest-plan-to-fight-climate-change?fbclid=IwAR1WVed8nQK2XzzjWDqTYEpo2mUOEdd3Ypi2keDrOWCZKKWh1cIlVRLYONw">https://edmontonjournal.com/news/politi ... cIlVRLYONw">https://edmontonjournal.com/news/politics/david-staples-man-bites-dog-yes-conservatives-have-now-come-up-with-boldest-plan-to-fight-climate-change?fbclid=IwAR1WVed8nQK2XzzjWDqTYEpo2mUOEdd3Ypi2keDrOWCZKKWh1cIlVRLYONw

Conservatives have now come up with boldest plan to fight climate change



The most important development of 2019 that got the least amount of attention from the Canadian news media? The "dog bites man" story of Canadian conservative leaders coming up with the best, boldest and most visionary plan to combat climate change this country has ever seen.



The plan is pushed by a group of Canada's most hard-headed and powerful conservative leaders, Premiers Scott Moe of Saskatchewan, Doug Ford of Ontario and Blaine Higgs of New Brunswick.



Their goal is to help wipe out carbon emissions without wiping out the Canadian economy.



Moe, Ford and Higgs made public Canada's Green Nuclear deal on Dec. 1,  announcing their three provinces had signed an agreement to work together to create the next wave of safe, reliable Canadian nuclear power plants, known as small modular reactors (SMRs).



"Today we are joining as premiers and provinces to look at the coming decade and beyond, to advance the development of zero emission small modular nuclear reactor technology," Moe said. "Implementing small modular reactors will provide meaningful action in reducing our carbon emissions in electricity production while providing affordable, base-load power to our communities and industries."



Andrew Scheer during the campaign, it became clear he meant to mainly push the export of Canada's excellent Candu nuclear technology, not find a way to help build a new wave of emissions-killing, prosperity-building reactors across Canada.



Scheer's stance made some amount of sense. We're a small country with minuscule emissions. Even if we reduce them, it will make little difference. We can, however, make a huge difference by exporting carbon-busting Candu tech to huge emitters like China and India.



But what works in China and India will also work here to keep our own emissions low, just as Canada has done for decades now. In 2017, for example, nuclear energy supplied 50 per cent of Ontario's electricity and 15 per cent of Canada's electricity.

[Anonymous]

This is smart greening. It finds a commercial use for C02.



THE GREEN DILEMMA

Alberta's hydrogen strategy must focus on emissions to be competitive, experts say



Some experts say the Alberta government's hydrogen strategy needs to focus on emissions in order to be competitive amid the global transition to sustainable energy.



Alberta is aiming to export blue hydrogen globally by 2040, but international markets are looking more to green hydrogen to meet their climate targets by 2030, when its price could be competitive with its blue counterpart.



While hydrogen is poised to have energy applications across industries that are otherwise difficult to get off carbon — from transportation to heating — not all hydrogen is produced the same way. Cheaper- to- produce blue hydrogen is made from natural gas using carbon capture and storage, which has some carbon emissions, whereas green hydrogen is made from water using renewable power and creates zero emissions.



The European Union Commission, Australia, Japan, South Korea, and the UK have green hydrogen plans, and have dedicated billions in post- pandemic recovery funds to roll out infrastructure and spur production. Germany has announced nine billion euros, or just under $14 billion.



Tim Nash, founder of Good Investing, a financial planning company that focuses on sustainable investment, said capital markets are moving toward a low- carbon economy with clean- fuel standards and vehicle electrification.



"If the reason why people are switching to hydrogen is to lower the carbon footprint and to lower greenhouse gas emissions, there's definitely going to be a market preference for green hydrogen," said Nash.



With federal reserve banks increasing their carbon price projections, Nash said blue hydrogen likely won't be as competitive.



"If the government of Alberta is making decisions looking at the economy over the next 10, 20, 30 years, they need to have climate risk and carbon pricing front and centre in those plans," said Nash.



The province announced Alberta's natural gas strategy, with hydrogen as one of its five initiatives, last month, and is expected to release the details of the hydrogen strategy in the spring. Environment and Parks Minister Jason Nixon told reporters in the legislature Nov. 19 that Alberta would "strongly" be against emissions targets set by the federal government.



"We're going to continue to do it Alberta's way, which is focused on technology innovation, ( and) making sure there's a future for hydrocarbons," said Nixon.



The federal government is also set to launch its own hydrogen strategy this fall as part of its plan to meet its goal of net-zero emissions by 2050.



Alberta has competitive advantages. Its blue hydrogen production is ranked the second cheapest after Russia, has ample carbon storage capacity, the ability to piggyback on existing petroleum infrastructure and the potential to ship hydrogen directly to Asia.



But as the cost of renewables like wind and solar drops, green hydrogen could become cost- competitive with natural- gas- derived hydrogen as early as 2023 in some places, according to forecasts from investment bank Morgan Stanley, or by 2030, according to BloombergNEF.



Simon Dyer, deputy executive director of the Pembina Institute, said he's supportive of Alberta's hydrogen strategy, but the province should consider incentivizing both if it's going to get serious about climate goals.



"Neither Canada, nor Alberta, should put all its eggs in the blue hydrogen basket," said Dyer.



Dyer said the jury is still out on whether blue hydrogen will be price- competitive long term.



In an early November interview, Alberta's associate minister of natural gas Dale Nally said the development of a hydrogen economy is going to happen slowly and incrementally, and the market will decide whether blue hydrogen remains competitive.



"Our position is that it would be it would be a mistake to not advance that when we have such strong competitive advantages," said Nally.



Nally said encouraging blue hydrogen production is about reducing emissions and exploiting renewable markets — but ultimately about jobs and the economy.



"We are not going to apologize for our oil and gas industry, and oil and gas is what's going to get us out of recovery."



According to think- tank Clean Energy Canada, the industry could be a lifeline for the oil and gas sector, but policy director Sarah Petrevan said hydrogen strategies need to be focused on reducing emissions — however it's produced — to be competitive.



Without that focus, she said, Alberta might be out of step with what the jurisdictions it hopes to export to.



"With the global drive toward decreasing emissions, and for many jurisdictions (achieving) net zero by 2050, those jurisdictions are going to want zero emissions or the cleanest hydrogen they can possibly get," said Petrevan.



"Innovation could create a new market because then you could fully utilize the natural gas resources without emissions," he said.

[Anonymous]

SCIENTISTS TURN CO2 INTO ROCK!

This could be a big breakthrough for carbon capture and fighting climate change.

[Anonymous]

This seems a hell of a lot more practical than shutting down everything and importing solar panels from China.



Government Approves Routes for Wyoming CO2 Pipelinesps://pgjonline.com/news/2021/january/government-approves-routes-for-wyoming-co2-pipelines#:~:text=CASPER%2C%20Wyo.,America%2C%20if%20it%20is%20developed.

CASPER, Wyo. — The U.S. government has approved routes for a system of pipelines that would move carbon dioxide across Wyoming in what could be by far the largest such network in North America, if it is developed.



The greenhouse gas would be captured from coal-fired power plants, keeping it out of the atmosphere where it causes global warming. The captured gas would instead be pumped underground to add pressure to and boost production from oil fields.



n all, the U.S. Bureau of Land Management designated 1,100 miles (1,770 kilometers) of federal land for pipeline development through the Wyoming Pipeline Corridor Initiative, the Casper Star-Tribune reported.



Interior Secretary David Bernhardt signed the plans last Friday, days before leaving office with the rest of President Donald Trump's administration. The approval allows companies to begin submitting pipeline construction proposals.



Wyoming officials including Republican Gov. Mark Gordon have promoted carbon capture as a way to boost the state's struggling coal mining industry.



Utilities nationwide have been turning away from coal-fired electricity in favor of cheaper and cleaner natural gas.



"The ability to have a CO2 delivery system, as made possible by the pipeline corridor initiative, helps make CO2 commercially viable," Gordon said in a statement Wednesday.



Whether a large system of carbon capture for oil production is technically and economically feasible remains to be seen. One of two such systems in North America, the Petra Nova facility in Texas, has been offline since global oil prices plummeted last year.