Two of the major players in the Carbon Capture Test Facility at the Shand Power Station tied the knot last week.
SaskPower and Hitachi celebrated their partnership in the $60 million project with a ribbon joining ceremony at Shand. The CCTF is being built to give developers an opportunity to test their technology on a coal-fired power station.
Officials and employees from both companies as well as all three levels of government were on hand for the ceremony and celebration of a facility that has the potential to make coal a viable power source into the future.
"(The test facility) is going to combine two great strengths. One is SaskPower's choice in creating a future for coal and that is not a small thing," said Mike Monea, the president of Carbon Capture Initiatives for SaskPower. "You folks here that are working for SaskPower, you are working at a coal plant. I hope that we can show the world, and certainly our government first, that coal will play a role in this province for the next 100 years and not only will you have employment, but your children will have employment and the people who do the mining will have employment."
Monea said instead of getting rid of coal, their goal is to show that coal can be cleaned up and the test facility at Shand will play a major role in that. He also touted the importance of their partnership with Hitachi, which is supplying their employees and process equipment from their Saskatoon location. The two sides are also splitting the estimated $60 million price tag.
"We have plants that are getting old and we need to rebuild them and put on capture systems. We have one system we are testing now but the future, generation two, is what is happening at this table. As quickly as we can build the test facility they will be demonstrating their technology, and they would like to launch their equipment and technology around the world."
Monea said their belief is that the data generated at the carbon capture unit at Boundary Dam and the test site at Shand will show them how to keep coal viable and that capturing carbon makes sense.
He added many companies in the United States are not thrilled about the work being done at the two plants because they fear it could end up costing them money down the road. However, Monea feels their work will not only show the feasibility of carbon capture, it will also show it can be done relatively economically.
Work on the test facility began earlier this year and remains on schedule for a 2014 opening.
"This Shand operation is very flexible and generic so different companies can come in and within weeks you can have a new system in testing and it is testing on a real coal plant," Monea said. "It's real conditions."
Monea added work on the CCS project at Boundary Dam is also progressing well, noting that major construction is complete and they are now in the commissioning phase.
"We are well under budget on the whole project, which is a big shock to a lot of companies around the world," said Monea, who added one of their principal tasks at the moment is rebuilding the power island at the plant. "The power island is a different beast. It's an old plant and you lift the lid off something and go 'oh my God, I guess this is a little worse than we expected.' But it's just typical of rebuilding plants and the men and women are doing a fantastic job."
