Norwegian company hopes to generate energy, capture carbon from Alberta garbage

Varme Energy wants to combine waste-to-energy with carbon capture in Edmonton area

Source: Paula Duhatschek | · CBC NEWS · | October 20, 2022

Source: A waste-to-energy plant is pictured in Stavanger, Norway. Varmes, an Edmonton company, is pitching to use Norwegian technology to make energy from waste and capture and store carbon from the process. (Submitted by Andreas Karlsen)

A Norwegian clean energy development company is betting big on Alberta as the place to combine its waste-to-energy technology with a method of capturing carbon and storing it underground.

Varme Energy, which was incorporated in Edmonton this summer, wants to set up facilities in Alberta that use a two-step combustion process owned by its parent company that's been used in waste-to-energy facilities in Norway for more than a decade.

Through this process, waste that was headed for landfill instead is converted into steam that can be used for district heating, industrial processes or put through a turbine to generate power. 

"You're literally diverting the [garbage] trucks, instead of going and dumping at the landfill, they come and dump into a facility like ours," said Sean Collins, CEO of Varme Energy, a subsidiary of Norway's Green Transition Holding. 

Varme hopes to make a profit while also making a dent in the growing piles of trash sent to municipal landfills, which are collectively responsible for about 23 per cent of the country's methane emissions and can be costly and time-consuming to build.