A decade ago, I was an elected politician and a member of Treasury Board when the Sturgeon project was under construction and in trouble — over budget, behind schedule and with engineering that didn’t quite work. Today, the project looks genius. I’m told the value of the carbon credits nearly pays for all the costs to operate the refinery. I also understand MacGregor’s a little bitter about how it all played out, for him personally, in the end.
On arrival, MacGregor’s grin lightens my mood. It’s his 74th birthday; he’s enjoying the day away from his downtown Calgary office. We sit at an enormous wagon-wheel table, coffees in hand; floor-to-ceiling windows overlook a pond and trees, with a Nietzsche quote etched into the wood trim: “In the mountains of truth you never climb in vain.” It’s hard to conjure up a more bucolic setting to talk about forests and the trees.
Two decades ago, the problem to be fixed was figuring out how to cost-effectively capture carbon. There were naysayers, MacGregor recalls, people asking: are you sure you can do it, how expensive will it be, why are you doing it? Fort Nelson First Nation seems interested — they want local jobs — and talks with other Indigenous communities across western Canada are being initiated. “We’re going to help them to own significant, probably controlling, equity interest in the pellet plant,” MacGregor shares, “We’re going to pay a price for pellets that makes that pellet plant financeable.”