Cleaner and Greener | Technology | Trends | Canadian Business Online

Capture co2 use thepollutant constructively -soundsappealing SH

Cleaner and Greener | Technology | Trends | Canadian Business Online: "The solution to finding both a clean method for generating coal, then storing the carbon dioxide, could come out of important, world-class research now being headed by Malcolm Wilson, director of CO¸ management with the Energy Innovation Network, a research group sponsored by various government, corporate and university bodies, including the University of Regina, where Wilson is based. He says the technologies needed to develop clean coal power are readily available; it's a matter of combining them in a commercially viable way at a cost that society is willing to accept. Much of the work of Wilson and others at the university--home to the International Test Centre for CO¸ Capture, one of only four major research centres in the world devoted to developing such technologies--centres on a pilot project at Boundary Dam Power Station, near Estevan, about a two-hour drive southeast of Regina. There, they are looking for cost-effective ways for generating electricity with clean coal methods, including the capture of carbon dioxide.
The Boundary Dam project uses the post-combustion process. It is slightly less effective than the oxyfuel method for separating CO¸, but one (continued on page 49) (continued from page 46) advantage it does have is that it can be added on to existing coal-fired plants currently using traditional 'dirty' technology. Oxyfuel and coal gasification technology can only be considered if building a new plant is an option.
Wilson says the Boundary Dam project captures about four tonnes of carbon dioxide each day--admittedly only a tiny percentage of the 6,000 tonnes of greenhouse gas emitted daily by the power plant. However, he adds that the initiative has shown good results in reducing the cost of"