The carbon capture and storage (CCS) facility at SaskPower’s Boundary Dam Power Station has reached another milestone: two million tonnes of captured carbon dioxide (CO2) since the facility opened in October 2014.
It might have taken a little longer to reach that milestone than some would have liked. After all, when SaskPower announced in 2011 that it was proceeding with CCS technology, the projection was that the facility would capture a million tonnes of CO2 per year.
It hasn’t proven to be that proficient, but it appears the process is trending in the right direction from a performance standpoint.
Ever since a three-month shutdown last year, the facility has been near peak efficiency. It had its best month yet in October 2017, when more than 85,000 tonnes of CO2 were captured. If the facility were to operate at that level for a full year, then it would eclipse a million tonnes of captured CO2.
It won’t, since there will be shutdowns and maintenance during the year. But it was still encouraging to see it operate at a level it hasn’t been at before.
There was a hiccup in late November and early December of last year, but since that time, the CCS facility has been operating at peak efficiency. It was online every day in January and February, and it still captured 150,000 tonnes of CO2.
We’ll forego the government’s comparison of “this is equivalent to taking this many cars off Saskatchewan roads,” but nobody can deny the environmental benefits of capturing 150,000 tonnes of CO2 in two months.
Unit 3, which was retrofitted as part of the project, has also produced more than 120 megawatts of power the last two months.
It’s working, it’s friendly for the environment and it’s still attracting global attention.
The critics don’t want to hear it, but they can’t deny the success of the CCS facility over the last five months.
Hopefully, this trend will continue.
The future of CCS at Boundary Dam is far from certain. The government has yet to decide whether to retrofit Units 4 and 5 at Boundary Dam. The future of Unit 6 is also far from a guarantee.
Cost is cited as the biggest detriment to CCS; many believe that at this time, you can get cheaper baseload power from natural gas than carbon capture and storage.
(Whether that will be the case five or 10 years from now has yet to be seen).
But you still need baseload power, and we’re not going to get it from wind or solar generation for a while.
The carbon capture and storage project at Boundary Dam has been proof of the potential that exists with innovation, ingenuity and technology, and how those can be effective tools in the fight against climate change.
And it’s proof that you can produce reliable, environmentally-friendly baseload power with coal.
