From the Canadian Energy Centre

By Grady Semmens

Heartland leaders welcome proposed new natural gas connector

As a lifelong farmer, entrepreneur and community leader, Alanna Hnatiw knows first-hand the crucial role energy plays in a strong and diverse economy.

The mayor of Sturgeon County, a sprawling rural municipality northeast of Edmonton, Hnatiw has spent much of the last decade working to protect its agricultural roots while building new industries that support the jobs and services families and businesses rely on every day.

Hnatiw says there is widespread appreciation among the county’s 20,000 residents for the opportunities afforded by the province’s oil and gas resources. That’s why she joined other leaders in Alberta’s Industrial Heartland region to applaud a major new natural gas pipeline planned for the area.

“Natural gas is an integral to all the industrial operations in Sturgeon County and the surrounding area. It goes beyond just burning it to turn turbines, it is the feedstock for all kinds of value-added processing. From fertilizer and plastics to petrochemicals and hydrogen, natural gas is the lynchpin for us into the future,” she said.

Filling growing demand

Hnatiw is one of more than a dozen community and industry leaders who sent letters of support to the Alberta Utilities Commission (AUC) last year endorsing ATCO Energy Systems’ proposed Yellowhead Pipeline project.

The project achieved a significant milestone in August when the AUC approved ATCO’s application determining the pipeline is needed.

The largest infrastructure investment in the company’s history, the 230-kilometre pipeline from Peers to Fort Saskatchewan will transport more than 1.1 billion cubic feet of natural gas per day when operational in late 2027.

For context, Alberta produced about 11 billion cubic feet per day of natural gas in 2024, according to the Alberta Energy Regulator.

Proposed route map of the Yellowhead Pipeline. Map courtesy ATCO

The Yellowhead Pipeline will boost deliveries to the greater Edmonton area as demand continues to grow for power generation, manufacturing, petrochemical processing and residential use.

Industrial customers have reserved 90 per cent of the pipeline’s capacity to meet their future needs.

This includes Dow Chemical, which plans to build an $8.9-billion net-zero ethylene processing facility in Fort Saskatchewan, Heidelberg Materials’ Edmonton facility that aims to be the world’s first full-scale cement plant equipped with carbon capture and storage (CCS), and McCain Foods, which requires more natural gas for a planned expansion of its French fry factory in Coaldale.

Prosperity driver

Edmonton Global CEO Malcolm Bruce described the Yellowhead Pipeline as a “visionary” infrastructure project in his letter of support to the AUC.

“The [project] will create jobs, enable billions in new investment and drive Alberta’s hydrogen roadmap and natural gas vision and strategy.”

ATCO’s projections show the pipeline will generate substantial economic benefits. The company estimates that during construction, it will support 12,000 jobs and contribute $1.6 billion per year to Alberta’s economy.

Once in operation, the pipeline is expected to support 23,700 jobs per year and add $3.9 billion annually to Alberta’s GDP.

For Sturgeon County, the project also provides much-needed certainty that natural gas will be available for the $30 billion in new industrial investments the region is hoping to attract in the coming years.

Future plans

The municipality is already home to major operations including the NWR Sturgeon Refinery and Nutrien fertilizer plant, both of which capture carbon dioxide emissions that are transported through the Alberta Carbon Trunk Line for deep underground storage near Clive, Alberta.

Hnatiw said future development may include hydrogen production with CCS, petrochemical processing, gas-fired power plants and large-scale data centres.

“With our operations running near capacity right now, this new pipeline helps alleviate the uncertainty around gas supplies for industrial developers,” Hnatiw said.

The county’s industrial goals are inextricably tied to ensuring its farming sector continues to flourish, she said.

“Eighty per cent of our land base is agricultural, but it only accounts for one per cent of our budget as far as taxes go, so we need our industrial residents to support our rural way of life,” she said.

“We don’t want people to have to leave our community to make a living. We want a future that is full of opportunity, and one that is also sustainable for the families that produce our food, our fuel, and all the other value-added products we can provide.”

ATCO’s next step is to file for AUC approval to build the pipeline later this year. The company expects construction to begin in 2026.

E3 Lithium employees walk through the company’s lithium pilot plant near Olds

From the Canadian Energy Centre

E3 Lithium milestone advances critical mineral for batteries and electrification

A new Alberta facility has produced its first battery-grade lithium carbonate, showcasing a technology that could unlock Canada’s largest resources of a critical mineral powering the evolving energy landscape.

In an unassuming quonset hut in a field near Olds, Calgary-based E3 Lithium’s demonstration plant uses technology to extract lithium from an ocean of “brine water” that has sat under Alberta’s landscape along with oil and gas for millions of years.

Lithium is one of six critical minerals the Government of Canada has prioritized for their potential to spur economic growth and their necessity as inputs for important products.

“The use for lithium is now mainly in batteries,” said E3 Lithium CEO Chris Doornbos.

“Everything we use in our daily lives that has a battery is now lithium ion: computers, phones, scooters, cars, battery storage, power walls in your house.”

A vial of lithium at the E3 Lithium demonstration plant near Olds, Alta. CP Images photo

Doornbos sees E3 as a new frontier in energy and mineral exploration in Alberta, using a resource that has long been there, sharing the geologic space with oil and gas.

“[Historically], oil and water came out together, and they separated the oil from the water,” he said.

“We don’t have oil. We take the lithium out of the water and put the water back.”

Lithium adds to Canada’s natural resource strength — the country’s reserves rank sixth in the world, according to Natural Resources Canada.

About 40 per cent of these reserves are in Alberta’s Bashaw District, home to the historic Leduc oilfield, where E3 built its new demonstration facility.

“It’s all in our Devonian rocks,” Doonbos said. “The Devonian Stack is a carbonate reef complex that would have looked like the Great Barrier Reef 400 million years ago. That’s where the lithium is.”

Funded in part by the Government of Canada and the Government of Alberta via Alberta Innovates and Emissions Reduction Alberta (ERA), the project aims to demonstrate that the Alberta reserve of lithium can be extracted and commercialized for battery production around the world.

E3 announced it had produced battery-grade lithium carbonate just over two weeks after commissioning began in early September.

Inside E3 Lithium’s demonstration facility near Olds, Alta. Photo for the Canadian Energy Centre

In a statement, ERA celebrated the milestone of the opening of the facility as Alberta and Canada seek to find their place in the global race for more lithium as demand for the mineral increases.

“By supporting the first extraction facility in Olds, we’re helping reduce innovation risk, generate critical data, and pave the way for a commercial-scale lithium production right here in Alberta,” ERA said.

“The success from this significant project helps position Alberta as a global player in the critical minerals supply chain, driving the global electrification revolution with locally sourced lithium.”

With the first phase of the demonstration facility up and running, E3 has received regulatory permits to proceed with a second phase that involves drilling a production and injection well to confirm brine flow rates and reservoir characteristics. This will support designs for a full-scale commercial facility.

Lithium has been highlighted by the Alberta Energy Regulator (AER) as an emerging resource in the province.

The AER projects Alberta’s lithium output will grow from zero in 2024 to 12,300 tonnes by 2030 and nearly 15,000 tonnes by 2034. E3 believes it will beat these timeframes with the right access to project financing.

E3 has been able to leverage Alberta’s regulatory framework around the drilling of wells to expand into extraction of lithium brine.

“The regulator understands intimately what we are doing,” Doornbos said.

“They permit these types of wells and this type of operation every day. That’s a huge advantage to Alberta.”