ober and early November on the hot seat with the NDP opposition questioning the Boundary Dam Integrated Carbon Capture and Storage Project, the Saskatchewan Party’s signature initiative on climate change. In the midst of this, Wall was in Estevan on Oct. 29 for a roast for retiring Estevan MLA Doreen Eagles. There Wall spoke to reporters about the Boundary Dam project.
The premier does not think the issues surrounding the Boundary Dam Unit 3 (BD3) carbon capture project will affect Saskatchewan’s standing on the world stage. He noted SaskPower’s been pretty clear that in a commissioning year, whether it’s a carbon capture unit or a gas plant, you’re going to have ramp-ups and ramp-downs and adjustments to makes.
“That’s exactly what’s been happening,” he said. “It could be in a couple weeks, that the challenges have been met. It could well be that further adjustments are needed as well.”
“Here’s the good news. This is what’s positive, for the world. Ninety per cent capture is exactly what it’s doing. CO2 moves through the amine technology, and it works. It works at the scaled up level. That’s why the world’s been interested and, I think, will stay interested. In fact, we’ve been fielding inquiries through all of this.”
Asked if SNC-Lavalin, the prime contractor, should be held responsible, Wall said, “They are, absolutely. They must.
“Through the warrantee agreements we have and legal action, we’re going to be recovering all the money that we think is owed by the consultants to get it right.”
Wall used the example of Saskatchewan’s other big science project in recent years, the Canada Light Source, or synchrotron, at the University of Saskatchewan. “In 2003 … the NDP government unveiled it. People were concerned. For the first three months, nothing worked. You’re going to have a year of difficulty with major projects. And now, it’s an outstanding asset and a great facility. In fact, we’ve added to it, with a Cyclotron and PET scan and other things, as part of the nuclear centre we’ve put up there.
“This project (BD3) has actually achieved the 90 per cent capture, and we’ve sold 400,000 tonnes for capture and sequestration and enhanced oil recovery, first. So we’re actually going to turn a small profit on this, SaskPower is, this year. That’s basically a year later. I’m pretty happy about that. I’m very happy about that. We’re going to get back what we need to get back from SNC-Lavalin,” Wall said.
In the feisty question periods in the Legislature on the subject had Wall countering NDP Leader Cam Broten by demanding to know where the opposition leader stood on continued coal-fired power production in Saskatchewan.
Wall said, “We don’t really have a choice but to make this work. Well, maybe we do have a choice. That’s what the debate was about. We’re going to make sure this technology works, and continues to work as it is, and can perhaps be applied to (Boundary Dam Units) 4 and 5. Because if we don’t, we’ve seen the coal regs from the federal government. We don’t know what the new federal government might do. If we don’t apply this world-leading technology and clean up coal, we’ll have to shut it down. That’s 500 jobs, and a lot of contractors at the power plant itself, and another 400 mining coal, and a lost opportunity to sell this technology to other countries in the world that are going to keep burning coal, period, like India and China.”
Wall said he couldn’t get an answer out of Broten (as reflected by the debate transcripts in Hansard). He asked what the provincial NDP’s position is on coal, since Alberta’s NDP government has said they would phase out coal.
“If that’s the NDP plan here, fair enough, we’ll have a debate. But they should be letting folks know, especially here, in Estevan.”
Much of the NDP’s line of questioning had been around the aggregate amount of carbon dioxide captured – 400,000 tonnes in the first year of operation, and trying to square that with Wall’s, and SaskPower’s, assertions the plant captures 90 per cent of the CO2 passing through it. (SaskPower had initially projected the plant would capture one million tonnes per year of carbon dioxide.)
Asked about the differences between the instantaneous and aggregate capture numbers, Wall said, “When the plant is shut down, it’s not capturing any CO2. It gets shut down for these adjustments. (Then) the facilities is turned on and it hits 90 per cent carbon capture, then the engineers notice some things about efficiency and capacity, and they bring it down and make adjustments. When we were down with the (United States) senators, there was no capture going on. So to have that happen throughout the year, and still capture 400,000 tonnes of CO2, successfully, and sold it, for a small profit, it good news.
“They’re applying the cumulative number to a moment in time. It’s a specious argument. It’s just not true. It’s capturing 90 per cent when it’s on, when the technology’s working, but it’s been down for adjustments. “
Wall added similar issues happen with a combined cycle natural gas power plant starts operation. “This one, there’s a greater likelihood of that, because there’s nothing like it on earth. This is the first one. When you step out, and I would call it technological leadership by SaskPower, as the province as done, you’re going to have issues. I think the people of Estevan and area need to know this technology is capturing at 90 per cent, what we tell the world is true, and proof is in the pudding.”
He added the plant was expected to go online again in early November, and it did.
Wall noted there’s ongoing interest from southeast Asia in the project. “But even if the only purpose of Boundary Dam 3 was to make sure we can keep coal in the mix, as and affordable mix that keeps coal and wind and natural gas and renewables … if this technology allows us to keep coal in the mix, it’s pretty important. We’ve got 400 years of this stuff.”
Wall, along with other provincial premiers, was invited to be part of the Canadian delegation to the COP21 United Nations Conference on Climate Change which will run from Nov. 30 to Dec. 11 in Paris.
Carbon capture technology will be presented in the “technology week” before world leaders gather, he noted. “There’s a lot of interest in having Boundary Dam 3 there and SaskPower will be there,” Wall said.
“My job is to defend the interests of the province of Saskatchewan. What I mean by that is we’ve said to the previous and current federal governments we need to do more in terms of emissions. We need to do that in Saskatchewan. But let’s be careful to balance some of the economic considerations, especially in the West. Right now, the West is suffering from US$45 West Texas. We’re suffering from oil prices and we see layoffs. We can’t sign onto anything that’s going to ‘kneecap’ the economy. The economy’s what’s going to pay for various environmental measures.
“I think I’ll be suggesting that we all remember that Canada’s responsible for about two-and-a-half per cent of the world’s emissions, and we need to do more. Our province has a high per capita level of emissions. But we need to remember if China’s building coal plants, one every 13 days, and India has about 540 coal plants on the books to build, we need to focus on this technology at Boundary Dam 3. Canada should focus on technological solutions, not simply carbon taxes or cap and trade.
“We also won’t be signing on with any cap-and-trade, if it’s proposed. Some provinces are looking at Ontario and Quebec’s model. We’re not. We need to do something about emissions, and that’s the technological solution,” Wall concluded.
