There seems to be a rush of interest in Canada for what our universities can do to help the environment and the University of Alberta is progressing steadily with its unique program, the Centre for Oil Sands Innovation (COSI).

COSI is a multi-million dollar project that is focused on finding newer, cheaper and cleaner ways of oil sands development.

Murray Gray, the program’s project leader, said the centre’s emphasis on finding new technologies means they focus on high-risk but high-reward programs to improve the overall environmental performance of the oil sands mining industry.

Some examples of these new technologies include the use of solvents to get the bitumen (a substance used to make asphalt) from the oil sands so that they don’t create tailing ponds — the leftover puddle of unneeded residue from the oil sands. Another new technology is the development of catalysts that break down the bitumen more easily so that synthetic crude oil is created.

Gray said COSI is a program centered on the idea of innovation, not just efficiency. “Rather than trying to just deal with the impact of current practices, like cleaning up tailing ponds, we are working to provide new options,” he said.

COSI creates multidisciplinary teams,  meaning each team has many goals and works in many differnt fields in order to  reach each goal to pursue important research directions. They are constantly adding new faculty members into the program’s research on oil sands.

The centre was founded in the early 2000s and since then has been supported largely by two groups: Imperial Oil and Alberta Ingenuity (a foundation created by the government of Alberta). Imperial Oil is the primary industry sponsor and has recently decided to commit to another five-year support contract at $2 million a year.

Gray said there is an emphasis on collaboration, and that there are now COSI projects at not just U of A but also University of Victoria, University of British Columbia, Queen’s University and University of Ottawa. He said they hope to add more in the next few years.

The universities that are involved in the project are doing research activities that focus on the natural production of oil sands that are too deep for mining, and complement the work of COSI at U of A.

Many of these projects at other universities are more focused on analyzing and improving current technologies, while U of A is searching for new ways to mine the oil sands.

Gray said the centre hopes to move at least one of its new and innovative technologies out of the lab and into large-scale testing over the next few years. Gray added he plans to stay with the centre for quite some time to see these projects grow and excel.