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A group of international experts will be analyzing a farm near Weyburn to determine if a carbon capture project is leaking onto the land.
It’s the latest development in the case of the Kerr family. They’re concerned that carbon dioxide injected daily by the tonnes into the ground a mile from their former home is bubbling up to the surface in potentially dangerous levels.
Experts insist carbon sequestration is among the safest ways to deal with the greenhouse gas. Even still, Dr. Carmen Dybwad with the International Performance Assessment Centre for Geologic Storage of Carbon Dioxide (IPAC-CO2) is willing to accept a leak is possible.
“Of course, correlation doesn’t mean causation so you just go back to the basic principles, take a look and see what could’ve possibly caused the events that they saw. Maybe it was carbon dioxide, maybe it was something else coming out of the ground, maybe it’s an absolutely naturally-occurring process.”
She insists the reason for the centre’s existence is to ensure such projects are working as planned.
“The prevailing belief is that it very much is a safe process but of course to make sure it’s safe you still have to go through all the protocols. You know, is driving safe? Yeah, it’s safe now because we’ve put in place a lot of rules to make it such.”
Dybwad says experts from the U.S., Canada, and possibly elsewhere could be involved in studying the land. She also points out that IPAC-CO2 hasn’t talked to the family or Cenovus Energy, the company running the CO2 sequestration project in question. The report done by the consultant hired by the Kerr family, which found significantly higher-than-normal amounts of CO2 and methane on the property, will be looked at by the group.
Because IPAC is not tied to government or industry Dybwad notes that their findings will be made public to anyone who wants to read them.
Work is expected to begin as soon as the spring.
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