Alberta
Oil sands technology competition to generate low emissions carbon fibre moves into final phase
Bryan Helfenbaum, associate vice-president of clean energy with Alberta Innovates, holds a hockey stick made with carbon fibre derived from oil sands bitumen. Photo by Dave Chidley for the Canadian Energy Centre
From the Canadian Energy Centre
By Will Gibson and Deborah Jaremko
Study found carbon fibre made from oil sands bitumen has 69 per cent lower emissions than conventional sources
Having spent most of a long and distinguished academic career working with metals, Weixing Chen became fascinated by the potential of repurposing a heavy hydrocarbon from Alberta’s oil sands into a high-value product for a low-carbon economy.
The product is carbon fibre – thin as human hair but four times stronger than steel – and research has shown producing it from oil sands bitumen generates lower greenhouse gas emissions than today’s sources.
“This is a great opportunity for me to challenge myself moving forward to develop this technology that will benefit society,” says Chen, a chemical and material engineering professor at the University of Alberta.
His team at Edmonton-based Thread Innovations is one of five receiving a total $15 million in funding in the final round of the Carbon Fibre Grand Challenge, announced in December.
Great potential for carbon fibre
With its light weight and high strength, today carbon fibre is used in products like aircraft and spacecraft parts, racing car bodies, bicycles, hockey sticks and golf clubs.
It has great potential, but its use is limited by cost. Carbon fibre averages $10 to $12 per pound, compared to less than $1 per pound for steel.
Part of the Alberta competition is that the carbon fibre derived from oil sands bitumen must cost 50 per cent less than current carbon fibre products.
This would unlock new markets for carbon fibre, says Byran Helfenbaum, associate vice-president of clean energy for Alberta Innovates, which is funding the challenge along with Emissions Reduction Alberta.
“At the end of this phase, the intention is the technology is at a point where a company could make a funding decision for if not a commercial project, then at least a commercial demonstration project,” he says.
“It’s really to get it out of the lab and start hitting the key specifications, identifying the existing and new markets, and pumping out prototypes that can be tested. We have already generated our first two prototypes, a truck side mirror and a hockey stick, but we need to go bigger and faster and test a wide range of market opportunities.”
Long-term need for carbon-based products
The future is likely to be full of carbon fibre products, Helfenbaum says.
“This ‘low-carbon future’ is a misnomer. When we say low-carbon future, what we mean is let’s keep carbon out of the atmosphere. Carbon is still going to be around us in solid form, and probably in increasingly higher amounts,” he says.
“We’re going to have 10 billion people on the planet by mid-century. They need energy, but they also need stuff. They need housing, infrastructure, and consumer goods. And most of that stuff is or can be made of pure carbon.”
Lower emissions from oil sands carbon fibre
Most carbon fibre today is generated from a chemical compound called polyacrylonitrile (PAN), which is derived from a component of natural gas.
A recent study by researchers at the University of Alberta found that life cycle emissions from carbon fibre derived from oil sands bitumen are 69 per cent lower than PAN-based product.
It’s the high carbon content of oil sands bitumen that provides the benefit, Helfenbaum says.
“The heaviest fraction of bitumen takes more energy to break down to be turned into fuels. But that same fraction can be used to produce carbon fibre with fewer greenhouse gas emissions than the current PAN process,” he says.
“If we are successful in reducing its cost, then it can be deployed into new markets that will further reduce carbon emissions, such as lightening passenger vehicles and improving the longevity of concrete infrastructure.”
Adding value while reducing emissions
The Carbon Fibre Grand Challenge is part of Alberta Innovates’ broader Bitumen Beyond Combustion research program. The work considers opportunities to use bitumen to create value-added products other than fuels like gasoline and diesel.
“From an economic perspective, the Bitumen Beyond Combustion program could triple the value of a barrel of bitumen,” Helfenbaum says.
“Carbon fibre is among the most valuable of those products, but it’s not the only one. This is potentially in the tens of billions of dollars a year of gross revenue opportunity, so this is transformational.”
It also presents environmental benefits.
“Eighty per cent of the emissions associated with petroleum happen at combustion of gasoline, diesel, and jet fuel so by diverting into these products, that becomes carbon that is sequestered forever and doesn’t get into the atmosphere,” he says.
Pathway to commercial production
Winners of the grand challenge will have a credible pathway to manufacturing 2,000 tonnes or more of carbon fibre per year. The challenge is scheduled to end in summer 2026.
Thread Innovations is building a new facility to produce samples for potential buyers and demonstrate the ability to scale up production. This phase will also focus on improving characteristics of the carbon fibre produced by their technology to build commercial demand.
“Our target is to complete the current project and then establish a commercialization plan in 2025,” says Chen.
From LifeSiteNews
Alberta Conservative Premier Danielle Smith followed through on a promised bill banning so-called ‘top and bottom’ surgeries for minors.
Alberta Conservative Premier Danielle Smith made good on her promise to protect kids from extreme transgender ideology after introducing a bill banning so-called “top and bottom” surgeries for minors.
“It is so important that all youth can enter adulthood equipped to make adult decisions. In order to do that, we need to preserve their ability to make those decisions, and that’s what we’re doing,” Smith said in a press release.
“The changes we’re introducing are founded on compassion and science, both of which are vital for the development of youth throughout a time that can be difficult and confusing.”
Bill 26, the Health Statutes Amendment Act, 2024 “reflects the government’s commitment to build a health care system that responds to the changing needs of Albertans,” the government says.
The bill will amend the Health Act to “prohibit regulated health professionals from performing sex reassignment surgeries on minors.”
It will also ban the “use of puberty blockers and hormone therapies for the treatment of gender dysphoria or gender incongruence” to kids 15 and under “except for those who have already commenced treatment and would allow for minors aged 16 and 17 to choose to commence puberty blockers and hormone therapies for gender reassignment and affirmation purposes with parental, physician and psychologist approval.”
Alberta Minister of Health Adriana LaGrange, the bill’s sponsor, said the province’s legislative priorities include “implementing policy changes to continue our refocusing work, position our health care system to respond to pressures and public health emergencies, and to preserve choice for minors. These amendments reflect our dedication to ensuring our health care system meets the needs of every Albertan.”
Earlier this year, the United Conservative Party (UCP) provincial government under Smith announced she would introduce the strong pro-family legislation that strengthens parental rights, protecting kids from life-altering, so-called “top and bottom” surgeries as well as other extreme forms of transgender ideology.
With Smith’s UCP holding a majority in the provincial legislature, the passage of Bill 26 is almost certain.
About the proposed law, Smith said that her government believes it is “vitally important to preserve the time” kids have as a “youth.” She added that she believes this is so kids can “gain sufficient amount of knowledge, experience, and perspective so that you can fully understand who you are, who you want to be and what opportunities you may want to have as an adult before making permanent life-altering decisions related to your body.”
While Smith has done far more than predecessor Jason Kenney to satisfy social conservatives, she has been mostly soft on social issues such as abortion and has publicly expressed pro-LGBT views, telling Jordan Peterson that conservatives must embrace homosexual “couples” as “nuclear families.”
This weekend, thousands of UCP members will gather for the party’s annual general meeting, where Smith’s leadership will be voted on along with many other pro-freedom and family policy proposals from members. Smith is expected to pass her leadership review vote with a large majority.
Alberta
Alberta court upholds conviction of Pastor Artur Pawlowski for preaching at Freedom Convoy protest
From LifeSiteNews
Lawyers argued that Pastor Artur Pawlowski’s sermon was intended to encourage protesters to find a peaceful solution to the blockade, but the statement was characterized as a call for mischief.
An Alberta Court of Appeal ruled that Calgary Pastor Artur Pawlowski is guilty of mischief for his sermon at the Freedom Convoy-related border protest blockade in February 2022 in Coutts, Alberta.
On October 29, Alberta Court of Appeal Justice Gordon Krinke sentenced the pro-freedom pastor to 60 days in jail for “counselling mischief” by encouraging protesters to continue blocking Highway 4 to protest COVID mandates.
“A reasonable person would understand the appellant’s speech to be an active inducement of the illegal activity that was ongoing and that the appellant intended for his speech to be so understood,” the decision reads.
Pawlowski addressed a group of truckers and protesters blocking entrance into the U.S. state of Montana on February 3, the fifth day of the Freedom Convoy-styled protest. He encouraged the protesters to “hold the line” after they had reportedly made a deal with Royal Canadian Mounted Police to leave the border crossing and travel to Edmonton.
“The eyes of the world are fixed right here on you guys. You are the heroes,” Pawlowski said. “Don’t you dare go breaking the line.”
After Pawlowski’s sermon, the protesters remained at the border crossing for two additional weeks. While his lawyers argued that his speech was made to encourage protesters to find a peaceful solution to the blockade, the statement is being characterized as a call for mischief.
Days later, on February 8, Pawlowski was arrested – for the fifth time – by an undercover SWAT team just before he was slated to speak again to the Coutts protesters.
He was subsequently jailed for nearly three months for what he said was for speaking out against COVID mandates, the subject of all the Freedom Convoy-related protests.
In Krinke’s decision, he argued that Pawlowski’s sermon incited the continuation of the protest, saying, “The Charter does not provide justification to anybody who incites a third party to commit such crimes.”
However, defence lawyer Sarah Miller pointed out that that Pawlowski’s sermon was protected under freedom of speech, an argument that Krinke quickly dismissed.
“While the appellant is correct that peaceful, lawful and nonviolent communication is entitled to protection, blockading a highway is an inherently aggressive and potentially violent form of conduct, designed to intimidate and impede the movement of third parties,” he wrote.
Pawlowski was released after the verdict. He has already spent 78 days in jail before the trial.
Pawlowski is the first Albertan to be charged for violating the province’s Critical Infrastructure Defence Act (CIDA), which was put in place in 2020 under then-Premier Jason Kenney.
The CIDA, however, was not put in place due to COVID mandates but rather after anti-pipeline protesters blockaded key infrastructure points such as railway lines in Alberta a few years ago.
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