Alberta’s energy industry has solved carbon dioxide. That’s what you need to know as Prime Minister Justin Trudeau drives the final stake into the heart of our province’s innovative oil and gas sector with his obnoxious bills C-48 and C-69.

Alberta’s energy industry is on the cusp of saving the planet. I believe this after sitting through three days and nearly 50 presentations from CEOs, scientists, financiers and other energy experts at the Global Petroleum Show this week. It was like being in a parallel universe.

Distroscale

In 2016, a group of industry leaders created the Natural Gas Innovation Fund and began funding projects to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The projects they seeded are too numerous to mention, but energy industry CEO Sue Riddell Rose said we are close to being able to achieve zero-emissions natural gas.

You have to pause for a minute to appreciate the breathtaking implications of what that would mean.

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Zero-emissions natural gas would have a smaller environmental footprint than every other energy source, including wind, solar and hydro.

Consider this: The amount of land needed for a drilling pad is a fraction of what is needed for wind, solar or hydro installations, particularly with horizontal fracking able to reach multiple sites and depths from a single pad. Unlike wind turbines, natural gas wells don’t kill migratory birds and bats. Unlike solar, natural gas does not require massive mining operations of rare earth metals in regimes that employ child labour. Unlike hydro, it doesn’t destroy fish habitat or permanently flood vast areas. After a well is depleted, we have proven methods to reclaim the land and restore it to its natural condition. We still have no effective solution to recycle batteries, wind turbines and solar panels. Natural gas is also reliable and available whenever it is needed, not just when the wind blows or the sun shines.

In the process of figuring out how to capture carbon dioxide, researchers have discovered it is also extremely valuable.

Scientists at the University of Calgary’s Schulich School of Engineering developed a technique to turn natural gas and carbon dioxide into solid carbon nanofibers that can be used in innumerable applications, including construction, car parts, airplanes, batteries — virtually anything that uses steel could be replaced with carbon nanofibres that are up to 20 times stronger. Another researcher, Antonio Anselmo, CEO of ChemBioPower, has developed a process to use methane and carbon dioxide to produce dimethyl ether as a replacement for diesel, with up to 47 per cent savings in carbon dioxide emissions. Carbon XPrize finalists have proposals for other uses of carbon dioxide, including concrete and alternative fuels.

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If Alberta’s oilsands producers used zero-emissions natural gas, they would have a lower greenhouse gas profile than their competitors. Apply this to any energy-intensive industry. If aluminum, concrete or steel producers used zero-emissions energy, they would have bragging rights as low emitters over their competitors, such as coal-burning China.

We could help with that too. Canada could become a leading liquid natural gas exporter, displacing the use of coal internationally and further reduce global greenhouse gas emissions. As the world grows to nine billion people by 2050, zero-emissions natural gas offers the best hope that everyone on the planet could achieve the same standard of living we already enjoy, without increasing emissions.

That is the best possible future.

But just when our energy industry has figured out the solution to the greatest problem of our time, Trudeau’s tanker ban and no-more-pipelines bills will be the death blow. Capital has already fled. These bills will put our industry in the financial deep freeze.

Trudeau could have a triple win: restore national unity, re-energize the Canadian economy and watch our industry lead the world in developing zero-carbon energy.

Instead, it will be a triple loss. Canada will be fractured, the energy industry will be decimated, and the planet will be no further toward weaning itself off high-carbon fuels.

Danielle Smith is a radio host with 770 CHQR. She can be reached at danielle@770chqr.com.

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