New Technology Magazine

Carbon Crunch

Can technology enable Alberta to reach its climate-change targets?

Unless the technology to produce Alberta’s oilsands goes through a transformative change, and quickly, the carbon-intensive sector is on a direct collision course with provincial and national greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions reductions goals. With oilsands production set to double in a decade and triple a decade after that, the nation can expect the sector’s CO2 emissions to follow a similar trajectory if current extraction technologies continue to be put in the ground, all but guaranteeing emissions will exceed Alberta’s target to peak in 2020 and begin a steady decline thereafter, and Canada’s international commitment to trim them 17 per cent from 2005 levels by the same year.