Tar Sands "Carbon Capture" Boosters Strangely Absent At Trade Show; Also Absent - Any New Project Announcements

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This year’s Carbon Capture Canada expo did not feature speakers from the tar sands consortium Pathways Alliance, which has been planning a major oil sands CCS project since 2022. Credit: YouTube

Despite considerable public funding, aggressive ad campaigns, and optimistic pronouncements by politicians of various stripes over the last few years, there were no major project announcements at Canada’s annual carbon capture expo this year. Neither were there any announcements related to Pathways Alliance, the signature carbon capture and storage project (CCS) of Canada’s tar sands producers.

The fourth edition of the annual Carbon Capture Canada expo, held September 23 to 25 in Edmonton, appeared to have fewer panel discussions and keynotes, did not feature speakers from the tar sands consortium Pathways Alliance, and did not include addresses from federal government representatives, as was the case in previous years.

Though employees of Environment and Climate Change Canada and Natural Resources Canada attended, representatives of the federal cabinet were conspicuously absent. This is significant because it is the first carbon capture expo to be held under Prime Minister Mark Carney’s new government, and Carney has been aggressively pushing for energy infrastructure development to counteract the tariff war instigated by U.S. President Donald Trump. In 2021, the Pathways Alliance — a consortium of six major Canadian tar sands oil producers — proposed a massive carbon capture and storage project for Northern Alberta. The project would connect more than 20 tar sands production facilities via a 400-kilometer network of carbon dioxide pipelines to a massive subterranean storage facility in the vicinity of Cold Lake, Alberta.

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The initial estimated cost of the project was $16.5 billion, with Pathways Alliance expecting the federal government to cover up to 75 percent of the total cost. Pathways has claimed the project will be able to store 1,100 megatonnes of carbon dioxide and has advocated for it by arguing it will help “decarbonize” Canada’s emissions-intensive tar sands heavy crude oil. However, these claims have been challenged by environmentalists, climate scientists and energy economists. Among other criticisms, experts have derided the Pathways project as nothing more than greenwashing, noting that downstream emissions from continued tar sands production would exacerbate climate change. As previously reported by DeSmog, Pathways Alliance scrubbed their website of practically all content before Canada’s anti-greenwashing laws came into effect in June 2024.

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https://www.desmog.com/2025/10/21/no-federal-ministers-or-major-announcements-at-leading-canadian-carbon-capture-expo/