Canada to move ahead on clean coal plant after US fails

Saturday, 23 Aug 2008

Bloomberg reported that the first coal fueled plant capable of capturing and burying carbon dioxide will move forward this fall when Canada's Saskatchewan Power Corporation begins lining up vendors to build it.

Mr Max Ball manager of the project said that Canada, which will spend CAD 1.4 billion on the plant, is incorporating oil recovery in the plans to offset costs, a different approach than the US, which canceled a similar plant in 2007. Slated for 2013, the Canadian facility will prevent 1 million tonnes a year of carbon dioxide emissions.

He added that "This will be the first time there will be full integration of a coal power plant with carbon dioxide capture and sequestration.''

Canada and the US are drafting policies mandating greenhouse gas reductions. The push for regulation has been heightened by a United Nations sponsored report last year concluding that greenhouse gases are warming the planet, causing extreme weather events, fires and rising sea levels.

Coal, which fuels two thirds of Saskatchewan's power and half of the US's, is the focus of potential global warming laws. Coal plants account for 30% of US greenhouse gas emissions.

Provincially owned SaskPower, which is paying for more than half of the project, will select among two technologies and three companies to refurbish a 100 MW coal unit that can capture and pipe carbon dioxide to nearby oil fields. The gas can be used to pull up deep reservoirs of previously unreachable oil from geological seams.