Central Alberta carbon capture hub on track to be largest in Canada

A village in central Alberta is on track to house the country’s largest carbon capture project.

Enhance Energy Inc., a carbon management company, says it has broken ground on its Origins project in Clive, Alta., about 140 kilometres south of Edmonton.

Operations are slated to begin in January.

The Origins carbon capture and storage hub, located east of Lacombe, is to initially have capacity to permanently store up to 1.5 million tonnes of carbon dioxide a year.

Enhance Energy already operates Alberta’s largest carbon capture site in Clive, which the company says has permanently stored more than nine million tonnes of carbon dioxide since 2020.

Carbon capture is a technology that traps the carbon dioxide produced by burning fossil fuels before it is released into the atmosphere.

Enhance Energy says Origins will initially store carbon emissions from the Northwest Redwater Sturgeon Refinery and the Nutrien Redwater fertilizer facility in Alberta’s industrial heartland.

The company said it could support a range of sectors, including oil and gas and power generation.

Enhance Energy is a founding partner of Alberta Carbon Trunk Line, a carbon capture system that includes a pipeline running from the Edmonton region to Clive.

The Origins hub will connect to the trunk line and Enhance Energy’s existing facility in Clive.

Tim Hodgson, federal minister of energy and natural resources, said the project will help Canada became an environmentally responsible energy superpower.

“The federal and provincial governments and industry are working together as one Team Canada to build big things in this country again,” Hodgson said in a statement Wednesday.

Brian Jean, Alberta’s energy minister, said in the statement that the project would help the province produce “the most responsible oil and gas in the world” and create jobs in rural Alberta.