U of C gets $75M to make energy extraction greener
A University of Calgary project to reduce the effects of energy extraction on the environment has received $75 million in funding from the federal government.
It was one of 13 projects announced Tuesday with $900 million in funding by the Canada First Research Excellence Fund.
The fund “will equip Canada to respond to some of the most pressing issues it will face in the future: brain health, sustainable food and water supplies, environmental concerns, future energy supplies,” Minister of Science Kirsty Duncan said in a news release.
The U of C study, dubbed Global Research Initiative in Sustainable Low Carbon Unconventional Resources, will see 270 researchers work to reduce the effects of energy extraction and energy use on the environment.
“It’s a significant program that it’s going to support,” said university president Elizabeth Cannon, noting the University of Alberta has received another $75 million in funding for energy research, so the two schools will work together. The funding is spread over seven years.
“We’re going to be able to bring together a bunch of scientists and a bunch of cool things that are happening in different areas of science and address big challenges that are happening in the transition to a low-carbon economy,” said Steven Bryant, an engineering professor at the U of C and the Canada Excellence Research Chair in Materials Engineering for Unconventional Oil Reservoirs.
“It’s not just enabling but accelerating that transition.”
He said the program will work to address the country’s commitment to reduce greenhouse gas emissions while continuing to meet the demand for petroleum over the next couple of decades. It will include research on the oilsands, tight (or shale) oil, unconventional gas and storage of carbon.
Cannon added that it will work toward solutions rather than taking a “business as usual” approach.
“It’s about bringing together multidisciplinary teams on campus with external partners to tackle some of these big opportunities in a way that is going to leverage our expertise and our facilities,” she said, noting they will partner with SAIT.