Prime Minister Stephen Harper has dipped into his Conservative government's new eco fund for the second time in three days, announcing $155.9 million to help Alberta on the climate change front.
Harper joined Alberta Premier Ed Stelmach in Edmonton on Thursday to announce funding from the new Canada ecoTrust for Clean Air and Climate Change, which will be included in the March 19 federal budget.
Both men were careful to reassure industry that the initiative to look for ways to reduce emissions could be done without harming the bottom line.
The Conservative government "is committed to a cleaner, healthier environment for all Canadians, and to a sustainable economy that will provide optimal balance between quality of life and standard of living for future generations," said Harper.
"All Canadians are looking for a balance between economic growth and environmental protection. Finding that balance is the fundamental challenge of our time."
Carbon capture technology
Some of the new money will be spent on studying the feasibility of capturing carbon dioxide from big emitters in the oilsands and other parts of Alberta and storing it underground.
Called carbon capture and sequestration, the process would "depressurize depleted oil formations, thereby squeezing the remaining black gold out of the western sedimentary basin," explained the prime minister.
Stelmach called the effort to figure out ways to capture and store CO2 emissions a "tremendous opportunity" not just for Alberta, but for Canadians.
"If we can perfect this technology, we can use it not only to curb Canada's contribution to greenhouse gas production, but we could also export it around the world,'' said Harper.
The money will also support efforts to design a coal-fired electricity generation facility, capable of near-zero emissions and a waste-to-energy project in Edmonton to convert municipal waste into electricity.
Stelmach said two million tonnes of carbon dioxide has been pumped into the ground in a small-scale program in central Alberta. It has also been used to loosen more oil from the ground.
The joint federal-provincial task force is expected to report on the issue by November.
The Alberta government is considering a $1.5-billion carbon dioxide pipeline from the oilsands, but critics say such a project would be several years away.
Environmentalists, meanwhile, are denouncing it as an unnecessary subsidy for the energy industry.
The Sierra Club said governments should be acting to cut carbon dioxide emissions rather than funding projects that encourage dependence on oil and gas.
Marlo Reynolds, executive director of the Pembina Institute, considered to be one of Canada's more moderate environmental groups, said while developing captured technology is a good first step, it doesn't mean Canadians should be paying for it.
"If shareholders invest in dirty companies, the shareholders need to bare the cost of the pollution. So we don't support a lot of public money going into carbon capture and sequestration," Reynolds told CTV Calgary.
Industry experts also warn that projects such as capturing carbon dioxide and enhanced oil recovery are very complex and will take a long time to become integrated into the system.
"There are questions about transportation, there are questions of collection, there are real issues associated with some of the economic" aspects, Pierre Alvaraz, president of the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, told CTV Calgary.
On Thursday, Stelmach's new government introduced legislation that would require about 100 facilities to reduce their "emissions intensity" by 12 per cent by July 1.
That means emissions in the province will not be able to grow as much as they have in the past -- although that doesn't mean total levels of emissions will decrease.
Actual greenhouse gas emissions in Alberta have increased by 40 per cent since 1990, largely due to oilsands development.
With reports from CTV Calgary's Kirk Heuser and the Canadian Press
