Western Standard — Alberta is spending $5 million from its TIER fund to help launch what is being called the world’s first direct air capture innovation and commercialization centre, a project aimed at pulling carbon dioxide directly from the atmosphere.
The funding, delivered through Emissions Reduction Alberta, will support Deep Sky in designing, building and operating the new facility in Innisfail.
Construction begins this summer on the five-acre site, which will host up to 10 carbon removal units and test multiple air capture technologies.
Unlike traditional carbon capture systems that operate at industrial sites, direct air capture targets emissions already in the atmosphere.
Alberta officials say the technology represents a major leap in the province’s emissions reduction strategy and could support cleaner energy development across sectors including oil and gas, cement, utilities and agriculture.
“We don’t need punitive taxes, anti-energy regulations or nonsensical production caps to reduce emissions,” said Environment Minister Rebecca Schulz. “Our approach is to support innovation and de-risk new technology.”
The project is expected to capture 3,000 tonnes of carbon each year and create 80 construction jobs, 15 permanent jobs, and more than $100 million in local economic benefit over the next decade.
Carbon dioxide captured at the site will be transported by truck and permanently stored underground in Legal, Alberta.
Energy Minister Brian Jean said the initiative helps cement Alberta’s leadership in carbon capture, while Deep Sky CEO Alex Petre called the project a “world first” with potential for global impact.
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**Submission Statement**
Canada’s expansive [boreal forest](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taiga), covering an impressive 1.2 billion acres, stretches across ten provinces and territories, from Newfoundland and Labrador in the east to Yukon and the Northwest Territories in the north. This vast ecosystem, characterized by its dense coniferous trees, wetlands, and peatlands, serves as the planet’s largest terrestrial carbon reservoir, sequestering an estimated 186 billion tonnes of carbon in its soils, vegetation, and peat. This immense natural carbon storage capacity dwarfs artificial carbon capture technologies, rendering the development of carbon capture and storage facilities in Canada largely unnecessary and redundant, as the forest already performs this function on an unparalleled scale. The boreal forest’s critical role in global carbon sequestration highlights the importance of its conservation, as it naturally mitigates climate change by locking away vast amounts of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Thus, investing in man-made carbon capture centers in a country endowed with such a formidable natural asset seems not only superfluous but also a misallocation of resources that could be better directed toward protecting and sustaining this vital ecosystem.