Published in The Star-Phoenix (May 20, 2011)
In his letter responding to a Star Phoenix editorial criticizing carbon capture and storage (CCS) plans at the Boundary Dam plant, SaskPower Minister Rob Norris cited the Pembina Institute's "support" as evidence the project should go ahead.
To clarify, the Pembina Institute has not endorsed the use of CCS at the Boundary Dam site — but nor are we opposed to the project overall. We see CCS as one of a number of technologies that can contribute to reducing greenhouse gas emissions on the scale required to avoid dangerous climate change. We also see an urgent need to commercialize the use of CCS to reduce emissions at existing coal facilities. But we believe that it's critical to consider CCS as just one part of a portfolio of solutions.
Saskatchewan has begun several initiatives to make sustainable use of its world-class wind resources and tremendous biomass potential, and the province's long-term energy planning should maximize these opportunities. Sinking billions of dollars into CCS represents a huge investment in a single end-of-pipe solution, which risks diverting scarce resources from the portfolio of measures needed to clean up Saskatchewan's energy supply by developing low-impact renewable energy and investing in energy efficiency.
At this point, we have not been provided with the necessary details regarding the technical processes involved in implementing CCS safely and with environmental integrity at the Boundary Dam site to offer an opinion on its risks or merits. We remain skeptical about using captured emissions to enable enhanced oil recovery, partly because doing so produces fuel to be burned in the engines of cars and trucks — leading to additional emissions — and partly because we believe the most reliable and secure locations for disposing of carbon emissions are very deep saline aquifers that have never been drilled for oil or gas.
The potential impact of the promised federal regulation of emissions from coal facilities is another big unknown related to the Boundary Dam project. With Peter Kent resuming his duties as federal environment minister, a top priority for him in the months ahead should be to fulfill his commitment to put clear and strong regulations in effect to reduce the substantial emissions from coal-fired power generation in Canada. Until the federal government publishes those regulations and implements them within a comprehensive national approach to cutting emissions from all major sources, Saskatchewan's Boundary Dam CCS project and other promising efforts to support cleaner energy will be little more than a sideshow to the dramatic growth forecast for Canada's greenhouse gas emissions.
We encourage SaskPower to pursue and strengthen its innovative approach to the Boundary Dam CCS project, which — if successful and done with integrity — could become a template for improving the performance of many inefficient and polluting coal plants worldwide. This could be a win for Saskatchewan and for our climate. But it should be accomplished through a process that maximizes environmental benefits, includes stakeholders and leading scientists, respects local communities and is one part of a wider portfolio of measures to clean up Saskatchewan's power sector.
Ed Whittingham was the Executive Director of the Pembina Institute until 2017.
