Paul Martin's Business Update - October 3rd, 2014

A decade from now yesterday will be seen as a major event in the evolution of the provincial economy and the environment with the launch of the first commercial scale carbon capture system in the country.

Carbon Capture and Storage or CCS – get used to that acronym because it’s going to grow in importance – is the next stage of greenhouse emission management. After the Kyoto Accord failed and then Copenhagen cratered when cap-and-trade proved unworkable, Saskatchewan embraced the next concept….CCS.

We’ve been using carbon dioxide as a catalyst for enhanced oil recovery for years now, pioneering a system that has energy producers pulling carbon out of the ground in the form of oil and putting it back in the ground as CO2.

Big oil and governments, including the US, have funded the research and development in this province but we learned the problem was…ironically, a shortage of carbon dioxide. Now Canada has its first CO2 source – Boundary Dam – and, just as we pioneered grain breeding, air seeders and uranium mines, we are now at the leading edge of making environmental improvement a commercial endeavor.