POWER August 2015 - 35

PLANT OF THE YEAR
15. Unique job. Khrystyna Vasylkiv, plant chemical technologist, works in one of two chemistry
laboratories at the carbon capture plant, where she and her colleagues are engaged in a
new type of power plant job. Source: POWER/Gail Reitenbach
open to " businesses, governments, research
groups, educational institutions, and stakeholder
organizations interested in advancing
CCS in their jurisdictions. " Global cooperation
is important because, as Gassnova's
chairman of the board, Einar Steensnaes, said
in a video interview, CCS is " important, but
we have learned that it is not so easy to realise
those projects. "
Representatives from more than 30 countries
have visited BD3, and Monea was
quoted in the Financial Times article as
saying that a Chinese delegation visits BD3
" every two or three weeks. " He continued,
" China is just gathering information right
now. When it moves, it will be significant.
I think that's where the next projects of size
and number will be happening. " (Readers
can take a virtual tour of the plant and
carbon capture facility by visiting http://
saskpowerccs.com/tour/.)
What's especially notable about the BD3
and lost power sales. That's likely one reason
that the only post-combustion capture projects
to make headway have involved byproduct
sales.
As noted earlier, both the captured CO2,
when used for EOR, and SO2, used in a variety
of processes, can create revenue streams.
SaskPower says that fly ash will also be
sold " for use in ready-mix concrete, precast
structures and concrete products. " For
the project's first 10 years, CO2 for EOR is
contracted to Cenovus Energy at a cost of
about $25/mt (the actual cost has never been
disclosed). Annual revenue from CO2 is estimated
to be up to $25 million.
SaskPower says that, based on the knowledge
gained from BD3, preliminary estimates
suggest that it could save up to 30% on
its next CC project. In April, Monea told the
Financial Times that the company will make
a decision by late 2016 or early 2017 about
building two more CCS facilities (at Units 4
and 5).
Even with some sort of carbon pricing
scheme, CCS may prove challenging for
plants without easy access to appropriate injection
sites. BD3 has what is clearly an ideal
set of circumstances.
An Industry Leader Breaking
Boundaries
In order to reach environmental goals of a
lower-carbon future while ensuring access to
affordable and reliable electricity for people
around the world, we need proven, effective,
affordable options that can be widely deployed.
Although the type of CCS technology
deployed at BD3 may not be suitable for
August 2015 | POWER
all fossil power plants, it is likely to be one of
the viable first-generation options.
SaskPower is continuing to advance CCS
technology with its Shand Carbon Capture
Test Facility (CCTF) at the Shand Power Station,
also near Estevan. This facility, developed
in collaboration with Mitsubishi Hitachi
Power Systems, started operating on June 18,
2015, and is designed to provide a proving
ground of sorts for a variety of amine-based,
post-combustion technologies. SaskPower
explains that, " It has the capacity to add and
remove process equipment, change the configuration
of vessel internals, and expand the
height of the key absorber vessel. " In SaskPower's
employee magazine, Monea notes
that, whereas BD3 is rated at 3,200 mt CO2/
day, the Shand test facility will handle 120
mt/day-roughly 2% of Shand's flue gas.
" The (CCTF) facility will be one of the largest
in the world, " he said.
In addition to two onsite chemistry labs at
BD3 (Figure 15), the company is also supporting
the broader CCS project with an Amine
Laboratory in Regina. Its role is analyzing
environmental and occupational health and
safety samples from the CCS facilities for
environmental contaminants that may be produced
as a result of carbon capture. The goal
is environmental safety. (Concerns about possible
amine-based health risks stalled work
on Norway's Mongstad refinery CCS project
in late 2010.) SaskPower's international
collaborators in the Amine Laboratory work
include TNO from the Netherlands, TCM
Mongstad in Norway, and the U.S. National
Carbon Capture Center.
SaskPower's CCS Global Consortium is
www.powermag.com
project is that, beyond simply integrating
CCS into a single unit, SaskPower has developed
a larger supporting ecosystem for
ongoing research, monitoring, and project
development. As a government-backed
utility, SaskPower does have advantages
that some of its peers around the world may
lack. However, it says something about both
SaskPower and the province of Saskatchewan
that a geographically large (251,700
square miles) but sparsely populated region
(1.13 million) and small utility (serving
roughly half a million customers) reached
the finish line first-and with fewer technical,
budgetary, and political setbacks than
might have been expected.
People at the Heart of the Plant
Nobody who interacts with the BDPS team
could fail to see their well-justified pride
in what they have accomplished. But their
achievement took serious stretch efforts over
the long term. Walton made sure to note the
dedication of SaskPower's employees from
across the company, who sacrificed to make
the project a success: " They did an excellent
job. " Then there was the plant operations
and maintenance staff, who " stepped up
and worked long hours for a year and four
months, " Walton noted. " Everyone invested a
lot to make this succeed. "
The regulation of CO2 emissions is a
sensitive topic in some corners of the power
world, and I'm sure there are those even
within the SaskPower orbit who still do
not support such regulations. Nevertheless,
those I spoke with noted that staff looked
at this project as an opportunity. As Dave
Jobe said, if coal power is to have a future,
this is it. ■
-Gail Reitenbach, PhD is POWER's editor.
35

http://http:// http://www.saskpowerccs.com/tour/ http://www.powermag.com

POWER August 2015

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