Mr. Speaker, in response to (a), since 2006, Natural Resources Canada has committed approximately $1 billion to carbon capture and storage, CCS.
In response to (b), with respect to CCS, the annual breakdown of funding by project, including future funding that is already committed, cannot be released publicly as this information is protected due it being business and contractually sensitive information.
In response to (c), the contribution from other levels of government to CCS projects funded by the federal government is $1.7 billion.
As the amount of funding from the private sector to CCS project is commercially sensitive information, NRCan can not provide the requested information.
In response to (d), the expected greenhouse gas,GHG, reductions resulting from federal funding of CCS projects is approximately 4.7 million tonnes per year.
In response to (e), if the CCS plants are operated over a 10 year period, the minimum expected, then it is estimated that 57 million tonnes of CO2 would be captured resulting in a projected rate of 0.06 tonnes of C02 captured per dollar of federal funding invested. If the operations of the CCS plants are extended to 25 years, then 142.5 million tonnes of CO2 are estimated to be captured resulting in a projected rate of 0.16 tonnes of C02 captured per dollar of federal funding invested.
In response to (f), the Canadian Government has set an economy-wide target for reducing GHGs by 17% from 2005 levels by 2020. Globally, CCS has been identified by many organizations as one of the few technologies available for making significant reductions at existing large industrial point sources of emissions, at large fossil fuel processing plants, as well as at coal-fired electricity plants.
The projects currently being funded are large projects that are expected to start operations by 2013-2015. Therefore, Natural Resources Canada cannot provide the amount of GHG reductions that have been achieved to date from CCS projects funded by the government.