On the grid: Alberta power and its vision of a low-emission energy landscape
In an interview recorded in her office, Alberta Premier Danielle Smith shared her views with ADIPEC news, discussing the province’s carbon capture initiatives, building a mutually-productive model that caters to AI data centres’ power ask, and the need for a coherent policy that enables Alberta and Canada to grow into an “energy superpower”.
Could you share your thoughts on the critical importance of Alberta as a reliable, secure energy provider on the global stage?
Alberta is a little different than Canada as a whole - we sometimes refer to ourselves as the “Texas of the North”, because people understand just how important Texas is to American energy production, while Alberta is just as important to Canadian energy production. We have over 4 million barrels a day of production, with most of it going to the US. But with the development of the Trans Mountain pipeline, Korea, China, and other major heavy oil refineries globally that would like a secure supplier. We need to expand to new markets and that means building more pipelines and aiming to double production. Several projects have arrived that would allow us to achieve that by 2035; we just need a willing partner with the federal government.
How are you integrating the commitment to expanding oil and gas production along with supporting emerging sectors such as hydrogen, geothermal, and critical minerals, into a single, cohesive energy vision for Alberta?
New LNG opportunities allow us to displace a lot of heavier emitting fuels. Ammonia as well, since Alberta has well-developed carbon capture with about 25 locations being mapped out.
South Korea, Japan and India want to be able to co-combust ammonia, along with coal. That’s another aspect we have through Emissions Reduction Alberta. We fund dozens of projects - bitumen, hydrogen, even geothermal - and one of the companies has become a major geothermal player. We also funded E3 Lithium. Our lithium is in brines, so developing the technology to extract it. E3 just broke ground on a major commercial scale project. We have the potential for nuclear development because we have uranium deposits in Alberta. We’ve also got helium deposits, and a wide array of critical minerals.
Alberta has been at the forefront of advancing a lower-carbon energy future with a strong focus on carbon capture, utilisation, and storage (CCUS). Could you tell us more about this journey?
Hydrogen is a potential fuel of the future; if we can get the cost structure down, there’s real opportunity, as there are really no byproducts. We’re the largest producer of hydrogen in Canada with 2.5 million tons a year and growing. We’re not transitioning away from oil and gas production; we’re phasing away from emissions. We have the scalable Quest Carbon Capture and Storage Project with Shell, as well as the Alberta Carbon Trunk Line. We’ve safely stored 14 mega tons of CO2. The big oil sands companies have joined in the Pathways Alliance to consider very large scale sequestration.
Additionally, by having an integrated grid across Western Canada to bring in more hydroelectric power, and eventually nuclear power and even have Small Modular Reactors onsite. We are very excited about our (Deep Sky Alpha) direct air capture demonstration facility in Central Alberta. It could be an indication of future potential from storing CO2. When you look at the Haber-Bosch process, it is how nitrogen from the air is turned into fertiliser, which feeds 8 billion people on the planet. We now have 6,000 products made from a barrel of oil. CO2 may be the next waste product they have to find some useful purpose for, and I’m confident they will.
The rise of AI and data centres is creating significant new demands for electricity. What is Alberta’s plan to meet this growing demand?
We have about 12,500MW of peak electricity production, as well as demand, at our peak. Right now, we have about 17,000MW of ask from AI data centre companies for power. That’s the future requirement to be able to fuel all the AI data centres’ power requirement; it’s one-and-a half times the power we’re using right now. We want data centre companies to come to Alberta, and we’ll approve access to our power grid if they build and add their own power so we can both benefit. Also, in Alberta, we’re cold, so that allows you to cool down big pieces of industrial equipment.
We have almost limitless gas. While we have 165 billion recoverable barrels of oil, we can access 144 trillion of a total of 1.36 quadrillion cubic feet of gas - that’s almost inexhaustible. We have great connections with an international airport in both Calgary and Edmonton that can connect to the world, and we’ve got a well-trained workforce. We are also a growing destination for technology applications. We’ve got about 155,000 direct workers in oil and gas, and about 195,000 in technology. A few months ago at CERAWeek in Houston, the CEO of Saudi Aramco spoke about how they’re already applying AI to their operations and have found 499 use cases. One of them allows them to look at all their data so they can predict where pipelines might corrode, so they can go in and proactively repair something under stress before it breaks. When you manufacture intelligence, the opportunities are endless, and we certainly want Alberta to be at the heart of that.
How can cross-sector collaboration between energy, technology and finance help accelerate scalable solutions and real-world impact?
When you see how indebted nations are while aspiring for big projects, the only way you’re going to be able to do that is with private equity. Creating an investment climate that will attract those dollars here is going to be vitally important. If we fix bad policies, half a trillion dollars’ worth of investment could come back in. Secondly, part of the reason for our technology growth is that energy companies have needed to have more technology solutions. You’ve got a similar dynamic where with our traditional development of oil and gas, you’d have a small company with a good team that got together for three to five years, built a company and then swallowed by a big guy. It’s that same kind of entrepreneurial approach in tech which creates a constructive, innovative ecosystem. The unicorns, they could be that financier. But all of it does require that we have a coherent policy around what we want to achieve.
What are you looking forward to during your participation at ADIPEC this November?
It’s just such a wonderful culture. At ADIPEC, I really hope I’m going to be able to say, “We’re Alberta, we’re on the map. If you want to come to Canada to talk about developing energy, you got to stop into Alberta. We’re the decision makers who can partner with you, and we’re the ones to make sure that our friends and allies have the resources that they need.”
