Sask. ‘a leader’ in carbon capture

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REGINA — Saskatchewan is positioned to take the lead in addressing one of the issues U.S. President Barack Obama discussed with Prime Minister Stephen Harper during his visit to Canada in February.

Obama mentioned that he wants Canada and the U.S. to collaborate on “ways that we can sequester carbon, capture greenhouse gases (GHG) before they’re emitted into the atmosphere.”

The International Test Centre (ITC) for carbon dioxide capture, located in Regina’s Innovation Place, is a world leader in carbon dioxide (CO2) capture research, development, and demonstration. Carbon capture involves separating the CO2 created by burning coal in a power plant from the flue or exhaust gas, then storing it underground, mostly in geological formations.

With recent stories about carbon capture and storage in the media, Malcolm Wilson, director of the University of Regina’s office of energy and environment, said it was time to explain what has been happening at ITC.

“Saskatchewan has really been a leader going back to the late ’80s,” said Wilson. “We started to get involved with CO2 capture for enhanced oil recovery (EOR).”

The U of R became actively involved in carbon capture and storage in 1991. Since then, it has participated in testing and research throughout the province, Wilson said.

One research project, managed by the Petroleum Technology Research Centre, is called the International Energy Agency (IEA) GHG Weyburn-Midale CO2 monitoring and storage project. It studies two large-scale commercial projects, by EnCana in Weyburn and Apache Canada in Midale, that use and store CO2 for EOR. Over 7,000 tonnes of CO2 are injected at Weyburn each day, allowing 18,000 additional barrels of oil per day to be produced. Another 1,800 tonnes of CO2 are injected at the Midale field.

“That research project has become the global standard for understanding CO2 storage in geological formation,” said Wilson.

In terms of carbon capture, ITC has a research and pilot plant facility at its Regina location, which gives researchers the opportunity to test their carbon capture technologies in a real life environment through its $3.3 million CO2 capture plant, which can capture one tonne of CO2 per day.

Additionally, pre-commercial testing and demonstration occurs at ITC’s CO2 capture plant located adjacent to SaskPower’s Boundary Dam power station. This plant captures four tonnes of CO2 per day from the power station’s flue gas.

“The University of Regina has developed an international reputation in the area of CO2 capture because of our well-balanced program. We go right from test-tube level, right through a series of bench scale facilities, right up to pre-commercial demonstration,” Wilson said. “We can test CO2 capture in an Alaska environment or a Saharan environment, and we do that all in one year in Saskatchewan.”

Wilson said that while it’s easy for society to sit around and wait for the next generation of carbon capture technology to come along, the reality is that people need to start taking action now. Specifically, the technologies developed in Saskatchewan need to introduced at the commercial scale.

“What if we just continued to use fossil fuels, produce the greenhouse gases and allow climate change to take its course?” said Wilson. “I think we have to be very clear that while we don’t understand those costs in any detail at this point, there are studies out there that would indicate that it’s a lot more costly to do nothing than it is to take action now.”