Despite heavy opposition from environmentalists, economists and renewable energy supporters, it’s looking increasingly like carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) will play a large part in various government plans for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The latest project to be announced — a full coal burning plant using CCS technology in Canada.

Most CCS technology aims to reduce the carbon footprint of coal, which represents much of the CO2 emitted around the world. However, projects have had trouble getting off the ground. Groundwork for one of the biggest projects ever planned, the United States’ Futuregen coal plant, was scrapped in favor of a less ambitious approach early this year. Independent utilities balk at the price, which can run into the billions of dollars.

The Canadian project will be run by Saskatchewan Power, which will spend CAD $1.4 billion (about $1.33B in US dollars) on a small 100 megawatt coal plant. The utility will use two technologies and contract out to three companies to help with construction, according to Bloomberg. FutureGen, for comparison, was set to receive a similar amount for a 275MW plant, but faced rapidly climbing costs.

The CO2 will be pumped into a nearby oil field to enhance recovery. Notably, that means that the project offers nothing to the significant portion of CCS startups who plan to use CO2 for various industrial processes. These include algal biofuel firms like Greenfuel, which feeds its critters with the gas, as well as companies like Calera, which wants to make cement using CO2.

Like most clean coal projects, this one is slated for completion years out, in 2013 — if it manages to avoid cancellation. However, since it will be the first complete CCS power plant project in North America, it should help start the process of proving whether clean coal and the CCS technologies needed to make it happen are real, or just a stalking horse.