Technology will play a central role in Alberta's approach to improving energy efficiency and lowering greenhouse gas emissions, says the province's point man on climate change.

Bob Savage, senior policy adviser on climate change issues in Alberta Environment's environmental policy branch, said that unlike the federal government, which approaches the climate change issue from an international-agreement perspective, Alberta continues to look toward innovation to solve the problem.

"A big part of our strategy is the implementation of new technology" Savage told a Petroleum Technology Alliance Canada (PTAC) forum on energy conservation and air emissions last week in Calgary. "We take a longer-term view on climate change than the federal government, which has a very demanding timeframe to meet the Kyoto commitments. Alberta isn't constrained by that timeframe."

With the price of oil above $60 per barrel, Savage acknowledges that industry doesn't need to hear government harping on the need to improve energy efficiency. "However, with the costs of energy where they are, governments are also motivated to develop strategic responses to energy efficiency and climate change as well."

Savage said the province is working on specific regulations that will set out gas emission reduction targets for Alberta's energy sector, and is in the process of working at both the national government level and with industry.

Under this new legislation, offset credits - where industry can trade emission credits and invest in carbon sinks to offset its emissions - will be harmonized with the national program.

However, Savage said the province believes that a pivotal element in the legislation will be to encourage investment in technology and renewable energy.

"We can't allow industry to buy offsets ... without encouraging them to improve efficiency and investment in technology.

"It's a proposed new regulation to manage greenhouse gas emissions. The current thinking is there'd be facility-based reduction objectives - a 12-percent reduction in emissions off of business-as-usual intensity, although there'd be sectoral nuances with those targets."

Savage said there would be two types of targets: One for existing facilities built prior to Jan. 1, 2000; and another for new facilities constructed after Jan. 1, 2000. A BATEA test - best available technology economically achievable test - would be applied to these facilities, where new technologies would be evaluated and implemented in plants to lower greenhouse gas emissions and improve energy efficiencies.

"We'd run (the BATEA tests) through the existing regulatory approval process because in our view, you don't manage greenhouse gases in isolation of all the other environmental or economic considerations," he added.

Getting the federal government to buy in to ideas such as the BATEA test, however, has not been easy, Savage conceded. He said the feds are focused on the reduction of tonnes of carbon to meet Kyoto obligations, and are therefore worried about Alberta's growing oilsands sector and are not convinced implementing BATEA will measure up.

"They're very concerned that's a huge liability for them, so they need some certainty around that process," he said, adding that " ... from our perspective, we would like to tie in BATEA around the whole suite of parameters that have to be managed," when planning cuts to greenhouse gas emissions.

Savage said he expects the gas emitters regulations to be brought to industry in workshops scheduled to begin in mid-November, with the goal of passing them into law during the spring legislature sitting in 2006.

Another area where the province is placing considerable emphasis is in the management, capture and storage of carbon produced from so-called "clean coal" burned in the province's power plants.

A big part of this will be constructing a pipeline to transport carbon dioxide to enhanced oil recovery projects. He added that there would be royalty relief for private sector pilot projects demonstrating CO2 use in enhanced recovery projects.

PTAC president Eric Lloyd said in an interview that while still in its infancy, the area of energy efficiency and controlling emissions continues to receive more attention from oil and gas companies, as do the technologies that make them possible.

"Energy conservation and using technologies to lower air emissions is finally starting to gain a little traction, but I'd say it has quite a ways to go yet," Lloyd said.

"All the stuff we're promoting should generate pretty good rates of return to industry."

Lloyd cited some of the more exciting technologies, including: energy-efficient reciprocating engines used in across the oil and gas industry; incinerator optimization processes to reduce air emissions; and new line heaters used to improve the efficiency of fired heaters in pipeline operations.

This is the third year PTAC has staged the energy efficiency and emissions forum. About 100 delegates attended the event.

Web Watch: www.ptac.org