Alberta offers new incentives to cut industrial methane emissions

The Alberta government’s new Methane Emissions Reduction Program will provide small and medium-sized oil and gas companies with incentives of up to $250,000 per year, per facility for energy-efficiency upgrades to reduce global-warming methane emissions. Administered by Energy Efficiency Alberta, the program is designed for facilities in Alberta that don’t exceed more than 40,000 barrels of oil per day. In the separate Methane Challenge initiative, Emissions Reduction Alberta has invested $40 million in 12 separate R&D projects that are expected to reduce methane emissions by 6.9 megatonnes by 2030, bring $60 million of investment to Alberta and support 60 jobs. The Alberta Energy Regulator is finalizing new methane standards for the oil and gas industry, the province’s largest source of methane emissions. In 2014, the industry accounted for 70% of provincial methane emissions, or 31.3 megatonnes of carbon dioxide equivalents. Alberta’s Climate Leadership Plan includes reducing methane emissions by 45% by 2025.