Canada's Carbon Capture Dreams Fall Flat as Norway Succeeds
Canada's oil sands producers have promised to build a pipeline to bury carbon emissions from their sites for years, but so far, not a single shovel has been put in the ground. In contrast, Norway has successfully implemented a cross-border carbon dioxide transport and storage hub, known as Northern Lights, which captures CO2 emitted during industrial production and stores it 2,600 meters below the seabed.
The facility, developed over two decades, is now operational and receives liquid CO2 from several partners, including cement factories and wastewater systems. Norway's oil companies, such as Equinor, Shell, and TotalEnergies, are invested in the project, although they don't ship their own carbon there.
Canada's Pathways Alliance, formed by five oil-sands producers in 2021, promised to build a pipeline to transport carbon from oil-sands facilities to an underground hub near Cold Lake, Alberta. However, the project has faced significant delays and cost overruns, with estimates ranging between $20 billion and $30 billion.
Despite these challenges, Prime Minister Mark Carney signed a memorandum of understanding with Alberta in November 2025, demanding that a carbon capture project be built as part of the new oil pipeline. The federal government has since formalized plans for the pipeline and signed another MOU to advance the Pathways project.
However, experts point out that carbon capture is losing its luster globally due to the high cost of transporting CO2, which makes it difficult for oil companies to justify financially. Norway's success with Northern Lights may be an exception rather than a model for other countries to follow.