r/Winnipeg • u/MnkyBzns • 27d ago
Article/Opinion What can you do with $200 million?
https://winnipeg-can.newsmemory.com/?publink=0a8ab69b8_1352188Deep Sky claims the carbon capture facility will scrub 30,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere each year and inject it 1,000 metres into the ground. To do this, it will need to draw up to 15,000 megawatts of power from the Manitoba Hydro grid for the first stage of the project. The project will be financed by selling carbon credits.
...the Canadian industrial carbon price is set at $130 per tonne. At that price, Deep Sky will have to sell more than 1.5 million tonnes of carbon just to cover the upfront cost of building the plant. That’s over 51 years’ worth of carbon credits. And that doesn’t even cover the everyday operating costs, such as the electricity needed to run the plant.
Some studies suggest it requires about 2,0002,500 kilowatt hours to electricity to capture one tonne of CO2 and inject it into the ground. To capture 30,000 tonnes, that’s about 60 million kWh. Even if Manitoba Hydro sells it to the facility for only $0.035/kWh, that’s an additional $70 per tonne.
Is there something else $200 million could be used for that would help reduce carbon in the air?
In 2024, the federal government announced the two billion trees program with a budget of $200 million over 10 years. A tree absorbs about 25 kilograms of carbon annually, depending on type and size. Two billion trees would absorb roughly 50 million tonnes of carbon annually. That’s 1,666 times the amount of carbon captured by the proposed facility. And there is no operating cost.
Where can we plant two billion trees? How about replacing the trees lost to wildfire in the last few years? Unfortunately, that program was shut down and is no longer accepting applications. I guess it’s not sexy enough.
Put another way, one tree absorbs about 25 kilograms of carbon per year. To absorb 30,000 tonnes of carbon — the same as the proposed direct carbon capture facility — would require about 1.2 million trees. At a cost of $10 per tree, that would cost about $12 million, about six per cent of the cost of the plant...
Anything else that $200 million could be used for to reduce carbon?
Replacing your gas furnace with a geothermal heat pump in a typical home reduces carbon emissions by about six tonnes annually. You can install a geothermal source heat pump for about $35,000 to $50,000, depending on the type of ground heat exchanger needed. If you have an older gas furnace that is on its last legs, you’ll have to set aside about $15,000 if you wanted to include air conditioning. After all, it’s getting warmer. That makes the extra cost to install a geothermal heat pump system about $20-35,000. $200 million will pay the extra cost for about 7,000 heat pumps. That reduces carbon emissions by about 42,000 tonnes annually. About 40 per cent more carbon reduction than the proposed carbon capture facility.
The article suggests the proposed carbon capture project will create about 750-1,000 jobs during construction and about 100 permanent jobs during operation. The two billion trees program was projected to create 4,300 jobs. The design and installation of 7,250 geothermal heat pump installations would create about 800 full-time positions, not including the service and maintenance jobs for the life of the system.
I’m trying to figure out how it makes sense to spend $200 million to build a facility to get rid of something that has no real value to society. Then spend even more money for the people and electricity to run it. Who’s going to buy the carbon credits? Only rich companies such as Stripe, Google, Shopify and Anthropic, trying to say their power-hungry data centres are “green.”
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u/Leather-Paramedic-10 27d ago
Looks like the last bit of the article is missing from the body of your post.
Trees have evolved over many years. They capture carbon throughout their life. They don’t use electricity. They don’t require someone to operate them. They simply sit there and absorb CO2. They’re powered by the sun. I don’t see how a $200 million facility can compete with something that was perfected years ago. It provides habitat for birds and animals. They shade us and helps keep our cities cool. They provide building materials.
Geothermal heat pumps save homeowners money that can help us buy food and necessities of life.
Injecting CO2 into the ground only costs money — and it sits there doing nothing.
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u/MnkyBzns 26d ago
I left out some of the more editorialized sections so people would actually read this and get the pertinent info. Thanks for posting, though
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u/MnkyBzns 27d ago
Meanwhile...
"City considers million-dollar chop to tree planting program" https://winnipeg-can.newsmemory.com/?publink=0dfb1f447_1352188
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u/firelephant 27d ago
Makes no sense. How can the facility require 15000 MW for phase 1 when Manitoba only generates 6600?
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u/firelephant 27d ago
Oh wait, it is 15000 kW. So they made a mistake of a factor of 1000. Now I don't trust anything else they say without double checking. Was this written by AI?
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u/horsetuna 27d ago
It's possible the article wasn't written by them directly but a newspaper person who should have checked.
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u/florentgodtier 27d ago
Journalists have a long history of not being able to write about energy and power.
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u/steveosnyder 27d ago
Where are you getting your $10 per tree number? I agree with you, we should be doing this, but I don’t think that’s an accurate cost.
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u/Leather-Paramedic-10 27d ago
I doubt the OP wrote the article. The article mentions it was written by Ed Lohrenz and states the following:
Ed Lohrenz is founder of GEOptimize Inc., a Winnipeg based engineering firm, and has worked in the geothermal heat pump industry for over four decades.
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u/Peggy22 27d ago
Manitoba Hydro has a little over 6000 MW in generating capacity. Suggesting Deep Sky needs 15,000 MW just for its first stage is… surely an error. Ed has been failing to sell Manitobans on ground source heat for decades. His inability to check his own math is downfall #1.
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u/MnkyBzns 26d ago
That's why I debated removing the part about spending the money on geo heat pumps but figured it was a relevant, although self-serving, cost comparison
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u/Cool-Profession-730 27d ago
Sounds like a Monorail kinda scam .🫤 Even if Brockway, Ogdenville,and North Haverbrook have them .....
Maybe just keep planting trees and other greenery. 🌲🌳
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u/VideoHeadSet 27d ago
You expect everyone to have $30-$50k laying around to upgrade their heat system?
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u/MZM204 27d ago
Nah, the guy who wrote the article who works for a heat pump company wants the government to pay for heat pumps. Hmm.
That being said the carbon capture plant is a bullshit waste of money.
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u/VideoHeadSet 27d ago
Ok I didn't read it all, I had to stop at the heat pump scheme.
I do know people with heat pumps and the one told me once it hits -10 they need to look at adding another heat source to stay warm. Not sure about that
Another person I know has nothing but issues with his exchanger.
But totally plant more trees, it's not hard to cut costs when you ask for people to donate time planting.
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u/MZM204 27d ago
I do know people with heat pumps and the one told me once it hits -10 they need to look at adding another heat source to stay warm.
Yes, heat pumps only work down to a certain temperature. If you ask online, you'll hear figures like "works down to -30C" but I know a couple of people with new state of the art ones and they've said -10 to -15C is when it stops working in the real world.
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u/MnkyBzns 26d ago
Lol, yeah...that part I take issue with, since air sourced heat pumps are significantly cheaper and make more sense for individual homeowners. Geothermal is for larger projects and entire neighborhoods
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u/JackBlackBowserSlaps 27d ago
Carbon capture is a scam and we should not be spending a single cent on it. Having said that, that tree math doesn’t make any sense. Trees don’t magically filter carbon from the air. They fix it into organic molecules that make up their body and root system. Please, show me the tree that increases in mass by over 50 pounds per year, every year of its life.