EJQ2 - Fall 2024 - Journal - Page 38
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It’s not that solutions don’t exist to address tailings contamination. CVW
Cleantech, for example, has spent the last 15 years developing and testing
technology that, if deployed, would recover about 2.3 million barrels of hydrocarbons, both bitumen and solvent that would otherwise enter into tailings ponds, reducing each site’s emissions by 昀椀ve to 10 per cent.
Initiatives to support increased cleanups
In response to growing concerns about the lack of oil sands remediation,
the Alberta government announced a new committee in May of 2024 to
speed up the process.
“Alberta’s new Oil Sands Mine Water Steering Committee is looking at options to speed up oil sands mine water management and tailings ponds
reclamation. This is important work that needs to be accelerated, which
is why we formed this landmark committee,” stated Ryan Fournier, press
secretary to the Ministry of Environment and Protected Areas of Alberta.
However, the announcement of this new committee has been met with
criticism that it’s just another one of many committees that Alberta has
created only for the province to see minimal progress in addressing oil
sands tailings contamination.
The problem? Despite over $100 million being spent on this technology so
far, including $35 million coming from grants, it hasn’t been deployed yet
at any of the oil sands mining sites in Alberta.
“There are good programs in place to 昀椀nance our research and development, but when the capital is required for a large project like ours, there are
far fewer funding tools available both at the provincial and federal levels.
Those funding tools are extremely prescriptive on what is required before
they can provide support,” said Akshay Dubey, CEO of CVW Cleantech.
Dubey further explained in order to actually deploy this technology on oil
sands mining sites, CVW Cleantech would need the support of both the
government and the oil sands operators. The challenge is that oil sands
operators do not want to take on the risk of being the 昀椀rst ones to use this
cleantech. They want to see more government support before deploying a
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