SaskPower ready to launch $1.4B carbon-capture plant

Saskatchewan’s governmentowned power utility is set to launch its flagship carboncapture-and-storage project this week when it cuts the ribbon on a $1.4-billion addition to its Boundary Dam power plant near Estevan.

Billed by SaskPower as the world’s first and largest commercial-scale, carboncapture operation of its kind, the project outfits part of the coal-fired power station with a mechanism to capture carbon dioxide emissions and transport the gas through a steel pipeline into storage deep underground.

While its proponents say the project represents a way to burn fossil fuels — such as coal — more efficiently with less greenhouse gas, critics argue carbon capture simply enables the status quo and does little to mitigate the damage caused by carbon emissions.

“It’s a waste of vital capital that should be invested in conservation, efficiency and renewable [energy],” says Sierra Club Canada director John Bennett. “It doesn’t get us off fossil fuels. We can no longer talk in terms of using less of them, we have to be working toward eliminating them.”

The project aims to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by one million tonnes annually, which amounts to about 90% of the emissions from the plant.

“We sincerely expect this to become a model for plants around the world,” says Sask- Power CEO Robert Watson. “This is what we think is a long-term, fiscally responsible way of getting less emissions into the air.”

Some of the carbon dioxide will be liquefied and sold to oil companies to help extract more crude from the ground. The utility has a 10-year contract with Cenovus Energy Inc., a Calgary-based oil company, to buy the captured carbon.

The power station will also capture sulphur dioxide, which can be converted to sulphuric acid and sold for industrial use.

A byproduct of coal combustion called fly ash will be captured and sold for use in concrete products.

The carbon dioxide that isn’t used for oil recovery will be stored permanently through a process that injects the gas more than three kilometres underground.

The plant has been touted as a solution to climate change since 2008, when Prime Minister Stephen Harper visited the site and announced $240-million in federal funding.

While the final costs are still being calculated, Mr. Watson acknowledged the project is over budget. Last fall, that overage was pegged at $115million, or 9%.

He said while the carboncapture facility was “essentially on budget,” there were unforeseen issues with the power facility, including rebuilding the boiler and costs arising from an asbestos scare.

“Things that were beyond our control caused those issues,” he says.