The next episode

The next big step in the effort to fight the increasing carbon emissions into the atmosphere is not to slow our carbon-intensive industries, but instead to hide it all underground.

And while the debate over whether this is necessary for Canada is ongoing, steps are already being taken towards implementing carbon capture and storage for our most carbon-intensive industries.

Royal Dutch Shell's answer to the issue is the Quest CCS (carbon capture and storage) project. An initiative designed to further the oilsands development while reducing its carbon emissions. And if approved, the project would see systems attached to two of Shell's plants near Edmonton, Alberta, that combined could reduce carbon up to 40 per cent per year (nearly 1.2 million tonnes.)

But while some see it as being the obvious answer to our ever increasing carbon emissions problem, others see it simply as an excuse to continue polluting. And while it does seem like the simplest answer to the carbon emissions it's easy to see how this is really only putting the issue on hold.

Canada's tarsands use methods of extracting oil from the ground that are up to 15 per cent more carbon intensive than conventional methods. Meaning, there's a lot more carbon produced as a byproduct and something needs to be done about it.

Shells says that "the process permanently stores CO2 underground, preventing it from dispersing into the air." But what happens underground?

Again, Shell says that "storing CO2 underground is based on geological trapping mechanisms similar to those that have naturally contained large reservoirs of oil and gas for millions of years."

Safe? Maybe. But this still seems like we're manipulating this natural system a little too far. The human ability to mimic the careful balances in nature have not proven all too successful in the past.

But as of now, Shell's Quest project is being heavily backed by both the Alberta government and the federal government, as the project could put Canada in the forefront of the world's carbon capture and storage initiatives.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has estimated that carbon emissions need to be reduced by 20 per cent by 2020 and 50 per cent by 2050 in order to stop the rise of the global temperature. And a carbon capture and storage program looks like the perfect sidestep in actually reducing our emissions.