A huge piece of equipment belonging to SaskPower will be arriving at Boundary Dam within the next couple of days.
A 90,000 kilogram cylinder, the size of a six-storey building, 20 metres in length and nearly 12 metres in diameter, lying on its side, is making its way from Biggar to Estevan, using secondary highways as much as possible.
The move will require several power lines to be temporarily lifted. Where possible, power will be rerouted to avoid outages. Localized power outages may be necessary along the route. These outages could be expected in the Estevan area on Sept. 17.
The vessel left Biggar on Sept. 14.
The cylinder is one of the major components in SaskPower’s carbon capture and storage (CCS) process. It will improve the reliability of the storage for the amine solution being used to capture carbon dioxide molecules. This contributes to a growing CCS knowledge-base that SaskPower is developing and commercializing internationally so that CCS increasingly contributes to the fight against global climate change.
Mike Monea, president of carbon capture and storage initiatives for SaskPower, told the Mercury this week the new vessel will work in concert with and provide a back-up for the unit that was installed for the Boundary Dam original carbon capture system.
Components for the unit were manufactured by a variety of companies and then assembled by AGI Envirotank in Biggar.
“It’s another liner, a back up at the plant itself to allow for a dual system. These are expected to function for 35 to 40 years, so this is the safest strategy to have at this point,” Monea said.
To date, the CCS process has captured more than 400,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide, or the equivalent of taking more than 100,000 vehicles off Saskatchewan highways. SaskPower continues to fine-tune and test every part of the process, to be able to capture up to a million tonnes of carbon dioxide annually when the plant is fully operational. This world-first project will help SaskPower provide reliable, affordable coal power to about 100,000 homes, but in a manner that is 10 times cleaner than other coal-fueled units and four times cleaner than a comparable natural gas unit.
Travelling almost continuously, the high-load move will follow a path from Biggar down to Rosetown, across to Outlook and over to Nokomis and Melville before entering Highway 1 at Whitewood to Grenfell then heading south to Peebles, Stoughton/Forget and finally Estevan.
