Canadian Energy Centre
Hubs are the future of carbon capture and storage: Why Alberta is an ideal place to make it happen

From the Canadian Energy Centre
Alberta Carbon Trunk Line a ‘perfect example’ of a successful carbon capture and storage hub in action
Call it a CCS highway – a shared transportation and storage network that enables multiple industrial users to reduce emissions faster.
So-called “hubs” or networks are becoming the leading development strategy for carbon capture and storage (CCS) as the world moves faster to fight climate change, according to the Global CCS Institute.
Alberta, with its large industrial operations and more CO2 storage capacity than Norway, Korea, India, and double the entire Middle East, is an early leader in CCS hub development.
“For Alberta, the concept of CCS hubs makes a lot of sense because you have many industry players that are trying to reduce their emissions, paired with beautiful geological opportunities beneath,” says Beth (Hardy) Valiaho, vice-president with the International CCS Knowledge Centre in Regina, Saskatchewan.
Jarad Daniels, CEO of the Melbourne, Australia-based Global CCS Institute, says that historically, CCS would be a single project integrating a CO2 capture plant with dedicated CO2 compression, pipeline and storage systems.
“Networks, where each entity typically operates only part of the full CCS value chain provide several benefits,” he says.
“They reduce costs and commercial risk by allowing each company to remain focused on their core business.”
The institute, which released its annual global status of CCS report in November, is now tracking more than 100 CCS hubs in development around the world.
Alberta already has one, and Valiaho says it is a “perfect example” of what she likens to on and off-ramps on a CO2 highway.
The Alberta Carbon Trunk Line (ACTL) went into service in 2020 as a shared pipeline taking CO2 captured at two facilities in the Edmonton region to permanent underground storage in a depleted oil field.
So far ACTL has transported more than four million tonnes of CO2 to storage that would have otherwise been emitted to the atmosphere – the equivalent emissions of approximately 900,000 cars.
ACTL was constructed with a “build it and they will come” mentality, Valiaho says. It has enough capacity to transport 14.6 million tonnes of CO2 per year but only uses 1.6 million tonnes of space per year today.
The future-in-mind plan is working. A $1.6 billion net zero hydrogen complex being built by Air Products near Edmonton will have an on-ramp to ACTL when it is up and running later this year.
Air Products will supply hydrogen to a new renewable diesel production plant being built by Imperial Oil. Three million tonnes of CO2 per year are to be captured at the complex and transported for storage by the ACTL Edmonton Connector.
Hub projects like this are important globally, Daniels says, as CCS operations need to dramatically increase from 50 million tonnes of storage per year today to one billion tonnes by 2030 and 10 billion tonnes by 2050.
“It’s clear the development of CCS networks and hubs is critical for achieving the multiple gigatonne levels of deployment all the climate math says is required by mid-century,” he says.
Valiaho says Alberta is an encouraging jurisdiction to develop CCS hubs in part because the government owns the geological pore space where the CO2 is stored, rather than developers having to navigate dealing with multiple resource owners.
“Alberta is a model for the world, and the fact that the government has declared crown ownership of the pore space is very interesting to a lot of international jurisdictions,” she says.
There are 26 CCS storage project proposals under evaluation in Alberta that could be used as shared storage hubs in the future, including the project proposed by the Pathways Alliance of oil sands producers.
If just six of these projects proceed, the Global CCS Institute says they could store a combined 50 million tonnes of CO2 per year, or the equivalent emissions of more than 11 million cars.
2025 Federal Election
Canada’s pipeline builders ready to get to work

From the Canadian Energy Centre
“We’re focusing on the opportunity that Canada has, perhaps even the obligation”
It was not a call he wanted to make.
In October 2017, Kevin O’Donnell, then chief financial officer of Nisku, Alta.-based Banister Pipelines, got final word that the $16-billion Energy East pipeline was cancelled.
It was his job to pass the news down the line to reach workers who were already in the field.
“We had a crew that was working along the current TC Energy line that was ready for conversion up in Thunder Bay,” said O’Donnell, who is now executive director of the Mississauga, Ont.-based Pipe Line Contractors Association of Canada (PLCAC).
“I took the call, and they said abandon right now. Button up and abandon right now.
“It was truly surreal. It’s tough to tell your foreman, who then tells their lead hands and then you inform the unions that those three or four or five million man-hours that you expected are not going to come to fruition,” he said.

Workers guide a piece of pipe along the Trans Mountain expansion route. Photograph courtesy Trans Mountain Corporation
“They’ve got to find lesser-paying jobs where they’re not honing their craft in the pipeline sector. You’re not making the money; you’re not getting the health and dental coverage that you were getting before.”
O’Donnell estimates that PLCAC represents about 500,000 workers across Canada through the unions it works with.
With the recent completion of the Trans Mountain expansion and Coastal GasLink pipelines – and no big projects like them coming on the books – many are once again out of a job, he said.
It’s frustrating given that this could be what he called a “golden age” for building major energy infrastructure in Canada.
Together, more than 62,000 people were hired to build the Trans Mountain expansion and Coastal GasLink projects, according to company reports.
O’Donnell is particularly interested in a project like Energy East, which would link oil produced in Alberta to consumers in Eastern and Atlantic Canada, then international markets in the offshore beyond.
“I think Energy East or something similar has to happen for millions of reasons,” he said.
“The world’s demanding it. We’ve got the craft [workers], we’ve got the iron ore and we’ve got the steel. We’re talking about a nation where the workers in every province could benefit. They’re ready to build it.”

The “Golden Weld” marked mechanical completion of construction of the Trans Mountain Expansion Project on April 11, 2024. Photo courtesy Trans Mountain Corporation
That eagerness is shared by the Progressive Contractors Association of Canada (PCA), which represents about 170 construction and maintenance employers across the country.
The PCA’s newly launched “Let’s Get Building” advocacy campaign urges all parties in the Canadian federal election run to focus on getting major projects built.
“We’re focusing on the opportunity that Canada has, perhaps even the obligation,” said PCA chief executive Paul de Jong.
“Most of the companies are quite busy irrespective of the pipeline issue right now. But looking at the long term, there’s predictability and long-term strategy that they see missing.”
Top of mind is Ottawa’s Impact Assessment Act (IAA), he said, the federal law that assesses major national projects like pipelines and highways.
In 2023, the Supreme Court of Canada found that the IAA broke the rules of the Canadian constitution.
The court found unconstitutional components including federal overreach into the decision of whether a project requires an impact assessment and whether a project gets final approval to proceed.
Ottawa amended the act in the spring of 2024, but Alberta’s government found the changes didn’t fix the issues and in November launched a new legal challenge against it.
“We’d like to see the next federal administration substantially revisit the Impact Assessment Act,” de Jong said.
“The sooner these nation-building projects get underway, the sooner Canadians reap the rewards through new trading partnerships, good jobs and a more stable economy.”
Canadian Energy Centre
First Nations in Manitoba pushing for LNG exports from Hudson’s Bay

From the Canadian Energy Centre
By Will Gibson
NeeStaNan project would use port location selected by Canadian government more than 100 years ago
Building a port on Hudson’s Bay to ship natural resources harvested across Western Canada to the world has been a long-held dream of Canadian politicians, starting with Sir Wilfred Laurier.
Since 1931, a small deepwater port has operated at Churchill, Manitoba, primarily shipping grain but more recently expanding handling of critical minerals and fertilizers.
A group of 11 First Nations in Manitoba plans to build an additional industrial terminal nearby at Port Nelson to ship liquefied natural gas (LNG) to Europe and potash to Brazil.
Robyn Lore, a director with project backer NeeStaNan, which is Cree for “all of us,” said it makes more sense to ship Canadian LNG to Europe from an Arctic port than it does to send Canadian natural gas all the way to the U.S. Gulf Coast to be exported as LNG to the same place – which is happening today.
“There is absolutely a business case for sending our LNG directly to European markets rather than sending our natural gas down to the Gulf Coast and having them liquefy it and ship it over,” Lore said. “It’s in Canada’s interest to do this.”
Over 100 years ago, the Port Nelson location at the south end of Hudson’s Bay on the Nelson River was the first to be considered for a Canadian Arctic port.
In 1912, a Port Nelson project was selected to proceed rather than a port at Churchill, about 280 kilometres north.
The Port Nelson site was earmarked by federal government engineers as the most cost-effective location for a terminal to ship Canadian resources overseas.
Construction started but was marred by building challenges due to violent winter storms that beached supply ships and badly damaged the dredge used to deepen the waters around the port.
By 1918, the project was abandoned.
In the 1920s, Prime Minister William Lyon MacKenzie King chose Churchill as the new location for a port on Hudson’s Bay, where it was built and continues to operate today between late July and early November when it is not iced in.
Lore sees using modern technology at Port Nelson including dredging or extending a floating wharf to overcome the challenges that stopped the project from proceeding more than a century ago.
He said natural gas could travel to the terminal through a 1,000-kilometre spur line off TC Energy’s Canadian Mainline by using Manitoba Hydro’s existing right of way.
A second option proposes shipping natural gas through Pembina Pipeline’s Alliance system to Regina, where it could be liquefied and shipped by rail to Port Nelson.
The original rail bed to Port Nelson still exists, and about 150 kilometers of track would have to be laid to reach the proposed site, Lore said.
“Our vision is for a rail line that can handle 150-car trains with loads of 120 tonnes per car running at 80 kilometers per hour. That’s doable on the line from Amery to Port Nelson. It makes the economics work for shippers,” said Lore.
Port Nelson could be used around the year because saltwater ice is easier to break through using modern icebreakers than freshwater ice that impacts Churchill between November and May.
Lore, however, is quick to quell the notion NeeStaNan is competing against the existing port.
“We want our project to proceed on its merits and collaborate with other ports for greater efficiency,” he said.
“It makes sense for Manitoba, and it makes sense for Canada, even more than it did for Laurier more than 100 years ago.”
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