The MOU grew out of Stelmach’s missions to Texas in 2008 and 2009, where he met with Texas Gov. Rick Perry and business leaders and visited Rice and the Smalley Institute. During these missions, the premier discussed Alberta’s commitment to technologies such as carbon capture and sequestration and the role other technologies, such as nanotechnology, can play in the greater energy equation.

Wade Adams, director of the Smalley Institute, said the interests of nanoAlberta and those of his team at Rice are aligned.

We want to help them figure out how to extract oil from their resources in a more environmentally friendly way, a more efficient way and one that will cause less damage to their own territory as well as provide oil for the needs of the human race, as they become a more important source of it.

—Wade Adams

Adams noted America is the biggest market for Canadian oil. He also said that Rice is eager to work with nanoAlberta on applications for health care, another area of common interest. Emil Peña, executive director of the university’s Energy and Environmental Systems Institute, will help coordinate Rice’s efforts.

NanoAlberta works with industry, researchers and investors to help build the province’s nanotechnology industry and apply the benefits of nano research to the energy, environmental, medical, agriculture and forestry sectors. Alberta aims to generate $20 billion in nanotechnology commerce by 2020.