Saskatchewan has been a ember - powered state for years , its Boundary Dam power plant burning the most polluting forms of brown coal since 1959 . But thanks to a modern retrofit , Boundary Dam now serves as the demarcation line between dirty and clean Canadian ember business leader .
“ Natural gasoline price rise and decrease erratically , while ember is abundant and affordable in Saskatchewan , ” readsSaskpower’swebsite . “ political science regularization and the motivation to reduce nursery gas discharge around the human race mean we call for to find a way of life to keep producing affordable baron , but in a way that reduces our impact on the environs . ”
The Boundary Dam has been in operation since 1959 when its first two 62 MW boiler were installed . Two more 139 MW boilers were brought online in 1970 , a third 139 MW unit joined in 1973 , and a 273 MW unit power up in 1978 ; bestow the totality to 6 boilers and 752 MW of full capacity . The flora has traditionally utilized topically sourced ember for its fuel , including what ’s experience as “ chocolate-brown ember , ” a highly polluting form of lignite considered one of the dirty var. of coal might . Even worse the Boundary Dam plant would simply port any surplus CO2 get by the energy rebirth process straightaway into the atmosphere .
But beginning October 22nd of this year , that nursery accelerator pedal stopped being dumped into the breeze and started being pumped deep underground . The proficiency , have intercourse as theaquastore project , involves dissolving the gaseous CO2 into a nearby brine aquifer , thereby sequestering up to 1 million tons of CO2 annually — thats rough 90 per centum of what the world power plant life produces and the equivalent weight of need a fourth million railcar off Canadian roads .
Boundary Dam is the world ’s first Post - Combustion Coal - Fired CCS , which required a $ 1.4 billion retrofit to building block 3 . The carbon seizure process will also reduce unit 3 ’s capacity from 139 MW down to 110 MW .
AsScientific Americanexplains :
Boundary Dam also burnsbrown coal , the most polluting form of the most polluting dodo fuel . Saskatchewan has an guess 300 - year supply of the dirty fuel to burn at present rate of consumption . The unit uses amines — a atomic number 7 - based molecule that can bind with CO2 — to capture a projected 1 million metrical tons of the lead glasshouse gas each yr . The amine captures the CO2 and then when further heated release it again , meaning it convey away some of the plant ’s power to take away the flora ’s CO2 . The fascinate CO2 , contract and liquefied , will then travel 66 kilometers via word of mouth to the nearby Weyburn crude oil fields and join the CO2 captured at a plant that turns brown coal into a gas in North Dakota . At Weyburn , the CO2 will be used to scour more fossil oil out of the basis . Of of course , the eventual combustion of this oil will also release CO2 into the atmosphere .
It ’s not a perfect solution — a perfect solution would be the global implementation of pebble bed or thorium reactor technology — but it marks a Brobdingnagian step forward in the governance of a low - carbon economy . The plant is the 13th facility worldwide—10 of which are here in the U.S.—to implement capture and store technologies . [ SaskPowerviaCleantechnica – SciAm – Wiki – MIT ]
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