Minerva Energy Marketing Solutions Inc.

08/02/2026

I learned a ton(ne) about the research that is being done in Canada to reduce greenhouse gas emissions during my U of C field trip to the Carbon Management Canada Field Research Station near Brooks, AB last Thursday. Injection of CO2 into underground reservoirs is considered to be one of the best ways to permanently dispose of CO2. At this facility, CMC is studying how the CO2 migrates underground and how to detect if leaks are occurring.
In addition, CMC has a test facility for fugitive methane emissions detection technology. Companies that are developing tools to detect methane leaks are able to test their equipment in a simulated oilfield environment.
Extensive monitoring of seismic activity is done at the site, using a variety of state-of-the-art technology to assess whether the injection of CO2 causes any significant change. One of the operators told me that the equipment is so sensitive, that it actually detected vibrations occurring that were caused by last year's 8.8 magnitude earthquake in Russia!

07/11/2026

This past month's studies have focused on geothermal energy, one of the cleanest, reliable and long-term sources of power and district heating available in many areas around the world. For the moment, geothermal meets less than 1% of global energy demand and its use is concentrated in a few countries with easily accessible and high-quality resources, including the United States, Iceland, Indonesia, Türkiye, Kenya and Italy. According to ThinkGeoEnergy, global geothermal power generation capacity was just 17.2 GW at the end of 2025.

That said, Canada has huge geothermal resources that are waiting development. At depths of 6.5 km, large areas of the Canadian Cordillera and parts of western Canada show temperatures of 150 to 200 °C. Companies such as Eavor Technologies and DEEP Earth Energy Production Corp. are pioneers in the research and development of geothermal energy in Canada.

What is especially appealing to me about geothermal energy is that is a perfect way to provide a "just transition" for our workers in the Canadian oil & gas industry, as many of the skills and technologies used to find hydrocarbons can be easily transferred and applied to finding and developing this form of clean energy.

06/30/2026

Excited to announce that Minerva has just received its first Permit to Practice from APEGA! Why is this important? APEGA is the governing body in Alberta overseeing and regulating the professions of engineering and geoscience. As per APEGA's website: "Any company that engages in the practice of engineering or geoscience in Alberta as part of its business must have an APEGA Permit to Practice and must be registered in the province under the Alberta Business Corporations Act."

The Association of Professional Engineers and Geoscientists of Alberta (APEGA) defines the practice of engineering as the professional application of mathematics, chemistry, physics, or applied sciences to evaluate, design, construct, operate, or maintain structures and processes aimed at the discovery, development, or utilization of matter, materials, or energy.

As Minerva continues to develop and roll out its sustainability services to support the Western Canada oil & gas industry, engineering will be a key component of our work!

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05/23/2026

Happy to announce the successful completion of the first course in the new University of Calgary Graduate Certificate Program for Carbon Capture, Utilization and Storage! Next up is "Subsurface Energy Engineering", which will cover reservoir engineering fundamentals, similar to that covered in my undergrad Chemical Engineering training 45 years ago. Interesting to learn in the first couple of classes, that many, if not all, of the principles and equations developed for oil & gas reservoir engineering are easily adapted to CCS and geothermal situations.

Looking forward to our next field trip to see first hand the Carbon Management Canada Newell Lake Research Station near Brooks, AB, where CMC Research Institutes and the University of Calgary do joint research "for the development of monitoring technologies for CO2 in storage operations, and to detect leaked or fugitive methane emissions. It also has a facility for the scale up and piloting of carbon capture and conversion innovations."

02/19/2026

Where's Waldo (Dave)? My U of C Carbon Capture classmates and I visited the InnoTech Alberta facilities in SE Calgary, adjacent to the ENMAX/Capital Power Shepard Energy Centre yesterday. Thankfully, most of the tour was inside the building behind us, where InnoTech's equipment strips up to 6 tonnes/day of CO2 out of the exhaust gas from ENMAX's 860 MW natural gas-fired combined cycle power plant and supplies it to several partners onsite for use in developing and testing their carbon conversion technologies. Many thanks to the team for the tour!

02/16/2026

Many thanks to the kind folks at the Alberta Machine Intelligence Institute ("amii") for the opportunity to learn about Responsible Artificial Intelligence. I now feel more confident that with the proper governance, ethics and human oversight in place, society will benefit greatly from this rapidly developing technology! Highly recommend checking out their website at https://www.amii.ca/.

12/31/2025

Just finished one of the best books I have read in 2025, "An Army of Problem Solvers" by Shaun Loney. In the book, Shaun advocates for a "solutions economy" to replace government assistance programs as an important next steps in the reconciliation process with First Nations in Canada. His ideas brilliantly tie together sustainability, health, clean energy and reconciliation through a social enterprise lens. He walks the talk with having co-founded and/or mentored 11 successful social enterprises in Manitoba, including BUILD Inc. (utility retrofits) and AKI Energy (geothermal). By thinking outside of the box, creative solutions to financing these new ventures, such as the Pay As You Save ("PAYS") system, have underwritten the investments in a way that makes it a "win/win" for all stakeholders. A must read for anyone active in the sustainability, non-profit and reconciliation arenas!

12/28/2025

Step 1 in the new process of meeting APEGA's new continuing professional development requirements is complete!