How it Works

Project Pioneer will be one of the world’s first and largest fully-integrated carbon capture and storage (CCS) facilities for a coal-fired power plant. Many elements of CCS have already been studied and proven to work.

With Project Pioneer, we will test the full lifecycle of CCS – capture, transport and storage – at industrial scale by integrating it with one of the world’s newest and most efficient coal-fired power plants – the 450 MW Keephills 3 facility, which is jointly owned by TransAlta and Capital Power.

Transport

CO₂ has been safely transported by pipeline for years. Project Pioneer will incorporate two pipelines: one to an oil field injection site and the other to a permanent sequestration area. Each pipeline will be approximately 20 – 40 km in length. Neither will require additional compression.

Storage

There are two elements to CO₂ storage: permanent sequestration and enhanced oil recovery.

Permanent sequestration
Most of the CO₂ captured by Project Pioneer will be permanently sequestered in deep, saline aquifers, and mature oil and gas reservoirs near the facility where there is the potential for one gigatonne of storage (view map). That's enough room for 1,000 years based on Project Pioneer's initial annual output.

Enhanced oil recovery
A significant amount of CO₂ will also be used to enhance oil recovery in the region around the facility creating local jobs as well as royalty revenue for the province of Alberta. Read more about the ecomonic benefits of CCS.