As reported by CBC news, Construction on the largest hydrogen plant in the world will proceed in northeast Edmonton after the provincial and federal governments agreed to contribute hundreds of millions of dollars.
The project is expected to create 2,500 construction jobs and 30 permanent operational jobs, with the $1.6B plant expected to be operational by 2024.
Jobs created will no doubt include those such as labourers, welders, pipefitters, equipment operators, millwrights and beyond.
The proposed Air Products facility would use natural gas and auto-thermal reforming, combined with carbon capture technology, to produce hydrogen, which the company estimates would capture 95 per cent of the carbon emissions.
"This project is a significant technological step forward,” Seifi Ghasemi, chief executive of Air Products, said at the news conference. “We are demonstrating with the technology we employ in this facility that it is possible to make net-zero hydrogen from hydrocarbons."
The next step for the project is to break ground and get the facility into operation.
“I hope by that time, which is about two, two and a half years from now, we would be able to see our way further in terms of additional demand, and then do Phase 2 and Phase 3 of the project,” Ghasemi said.
"Then obviously by that time, we would have built the liquid hydrogen plant and therefore we would have hydrogen fueling stations at different locations to use the liquid hydrogen to fuel trucks."
Federal Innovation, Science and Industry Minister François-Philippe Champagne said, in an interview on Tuesday, the investment is a sign of corporate confidence in Canada, its workforce and infrastructure.
"My dream is that Alberta, western Canada, becomes the hub of hydrogen in the world that people look at when it comes to clean technology, when it comes to production, when it comes to use of hydrogen," he said.
