Tamar Hallerman
GHG Monitor
5/17/13
PITTSBURGH—Saskatchewan Premier Brad Wall underscored the province’s commitment to carbon capture and storage in a speech this week at the 12th Annual Carbon Capture, Utilization and Sequestration Conference, touting SaskPower’s Boundary Dam project as a breakout success story. During a May 14 plenary address here, Wall said that what was once a “very difficult decision” for policymakers to invest in CCS technology has become a prime component of the western Canadian province’s climate change mitigation strategy. “It’s clear that fossil fuels will be with us for the foreseeable future, and I think policymakers are responding to that basic truth,” Wall said.
Wall highlighted the provincially-owned utility SaskPower and its $1.24 billion post-combustion capture retrofit of Unit 3 at its Boundary Dam power station as a notable success story in the province. The facility, located in the southwest corner of Saskatchewan just miles from the North Dakota border, has recently reached peak construction and is expected to begin hot testing in November, President of CCS Initiatives at SaskPower Mike Monea said during separate remarks at the conference this week. Full-scale commercial operations are set to begin in April 2014.
Wall also touted SaskPower’s carbon capture test center at its Shand power station, as well as enhanced oil recovery and geologic sequestration efforts elsewhere in the province, as evidence of the region’s leadership in CCS. “With the two SaskPower projects, the Weyburn-Midale storage site and Aquistore, Canada’s first deep saline CO2 storage site, Saskatchewan is at the forefront of CCUS research,” he said.
Wall: Major Public Funding For CCS Unlikely in Future
During his address, Wall also emphasized that the $240 million federal grant allocated to Boundary Dam is not likely to be repeated in the future, mirroring recent remarks from other CCS industry stakeholders in western Canada who have predicted that future projects will need to secure other sources of funding. “It’s hard to imagine us being able to repeat that [level of funding] because now more governments are moving toward austerity. Our federal government, like any other, is looking for ways to reduce, not increase, spending,” he said.
