Residents in St. Paul County, Alberta, are raising concerns about the environmental risks of a proposed 400-kilometer CO2 pipeline that would transport emissions from oilsands facilities to an underground storage site near Cold Lake. The Pathways project aims to capture 6 million tonnes of CO2 annually by the mid-2030s and up to 16 million tonnes by 2045, backed by a federal-provincial agreement. Local groups like No CO2 Pipelines Alberta argue the risks to groundwater and communities are not fully understood, and they want stronger guarantees before construction begins. Experts say CCS is a proven technology but acknowledge the scale of this project is unprecedented. University of Alberta researchers stress that monitoring systems must be robust to detect leaks or pressure changes in the storage reservoir over a kilometer underground. The Alberta Energy Regulator will review the project before approvals, and the Oil Sands Alliance points to decades of oil and gas experience as a safety foundation. The debate highlights a key tension in climate policy: whether large-scale CCS can deliver real emission cuts without creating new environmental liabilities.
