Suncor Drops Photo voltaic and Wind Belongings to Concentrate on Hydrogen, Biofuels, CCS
On the exact same day that the Intergovernmental Panel on Local weather Change (IPCC) launched its “now or by no means” plea to slam the brakes on carbon, Calgary-based Suncor Vitality ditched its photo voltaic and wind property—aiming as an alternative to maintain the combustion engine alive with hydrogen, biofuels, and carbon seize and storage (CCS) tech.
In an electronic mail to the Globe and Mail, the Calgary-based fossilsaid it plans to off promote its pursuits within the 30-megawatt Magrath and Chin Chute wind farms, each in Alberta, and the 40-MW Adelaide wind farm in Ontario.
Additionally headed on the market is the unfinished Forty Mile photo voltaic undertaking in Alberta, an growth on a wind set up, in keeping with the Globe. Suncor says it’s going to honour its commitments to contractors to make sure that the 220-MW undertaking is completed this 12 months.
Suncor beforehand offered off its pursuits in three extra of the eight wind farms it had developed over the past 20 years in partnership with Calgary-based Enbridge: the 100-MW Cedar Level and 20-MW Kent Breeze initiatives, each in Ontario, and the 88-MW Wintering Hills wind farm in Alberta.
Decided to focus as an alternative on applied sciences which might be “complementary to its base oil and gasoline enterprise,” writes the Globe, Suncor will likely be “accelerating the industrial scale deployment of carbon seize expertise and partnering with power firm ATCO Ltd. to construct a brand new hydrogen undertaking in Alberta.”
The oil main is “dabbling in renewable fuels, too,” with pursuits that embrace an funding in Enerkem Alberta Biofuels, “whose Edmonton plant is the primary commercial-scale facility on the earth to show non-recyclable, non-compostable combined municipal stable waste into cellulosic ethanol, a well-liked biofuel.”
(The waste would consist of drugs like agricultural and forestry residues—so, natural substances and due to this fact compostable. However not simply so. Lignin, a basic constructing block of such substances, and a key part of cellulosic ethanol, takes a very very long time to decompose.)
With its eye on attaining net-zero emissions by 2050, Suncor additionally mentioned it could search to “procure renewable energy by energy buy agreements.”
Such “preparations are a rising pattern in Canada as extra corporations attempt to scale back their carbon footprints,” writes the Globe.
The timing of Suncor’s transfer is akin to “shopping for Blockbuster inventory the day Netflix launches an IPO,” Greenpeace Canada chief power strategist Keith Stewart advised the Canadian Press.
“The IPCC report was mainly flashing an enormous, pink strobe mild at (Suncor), saying wind and photo voltaic are the place we have to be investing,” Stewart mentioned. “They usually simply appeared away, placed on their sun shades, and mentioned ‘no, we’re sticking with what we all know.’”
