After stumbling a bit in August, SaskPower’s Boundary Dam Unit 3 carbon capture and storage project in Saskatchewan, Canada, operated throughout the month of September, the company announced late last week. The plant was offline for almost half of August due to a minor electrical failure and later for planned maintenance. “In September, the process operated very reliably (100 per cent of the hours in the month), capturing 77,111 tonnes of carbon dioxide for sale or permanent storage,” a SaskPower release says.
In 2014, the plant captured 113,600 metric tons of carbon dioxide from October, when it was brought online, to the end of the year. In 2015, the facility captured 426,100 metric tons of CO2. More than 604,000 tons have been captured so far in 2016. To date, the plant has captured a total of roughly 1.44 million metric tons of CO2 since becoming operational.
Under an off-take agreement, SaskPower is to provide 800,000 metric tons of CO2 annually to Canadian oil company Cenovus, which uses the material for enhanced oil recovery.
CO2 in excess of that 800,000 metric tons is sent to the Aquistore geologic storage project. “The Aquistore deep underground injection well is also functioning reliably, with more than 86,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide stored permanently and safely, 3.2 km underground. Measuring, monitoring and verification activities at the well confirm that the stored carbon dioxide is remaining in the target geological layer, as expected,” the update says.
SaskPower does not plan any maintenance at BD3 this month.