Minister Smith Visit Media Release
SARNIA-LAMBTON, ON- Today Minister Graydon Smith, Minister of Natural Resources and Forestry, arrived in Oil Springs to announce that the Ontario government is taking steps to encourage innovation and reduce emissions by enabling industries to begin testing and demonstrating small-scale underground storage projects on private land.
Carbon storage involves capturing carbon dioxide from industrial emissions and the atmosphere and compressing it to inject it into underground rock formations.
This announcement follows the Sarnia-Lambton Economic Partnership’s (SLEP) long-term advocacy efforts to encourage regulation changes to enable and permit geological carbon sequestration in Ontario, which will have major economic impacts on local industry and their efforts to decarbonize on a path to net zero. It also represents an economic opportunity for capital investment and innovation in the low-carbon hydrogen industry.
The announcement also follows SLEP’s visit to Queen’s Park in September 2023, facilitated in part by MPP Bob Bailey who has always been supportive of Sarnia-Lambton and local industry in pursuing the ability to demonstrate carbon capture utilization storage. During their time at Queen’s Park, CEO Dan Taylor and Economic Development Officer Shauna Carr alongside partners from the Sarnia Energy and Chemistry Committee, the Sarnia-Lambton Chamber of Commerce, Enbridge, and Imperial Oil met with Minister Smith and discussed carbon capture utilization and storage associated frameworks as well as the benefits of Sarnia-Lambton to support this infrastructure.
“It is meaningful that Minister Smith chose to make this exciting announcement in Sarnia-Lambton, at the Oil Museum of Canada as this represents another exciting step in our energy history as we transition toward net zero.” Said Dan Taylor, CEO, SLEP “The Economic Partnership will continue our advocacy efforts and actively seek out permissive regulatory changes and expedited clarity to support local decarbonization and investment in our energy and chemistry industries; and to support Ontario’s Hydrogen Hub.”
Work is underway on a framework to allow for the development of large commercial projects. Public consultations are scheduled to begin in the new year.
