The writing was on the wall, now that I think of it, and it has been for quite a while.
I’m talking about the announcement July 9 that SaskPower would not be proceeding with carbon capture retrofits on Boundary Dam Power Station Units 4 and 5 (BD4 and BD5).
I think back to the conversation I had with a SaskPower vice-president (whose name escapes me) over a lunch during one of the numerous tours I’ve taken part of the BD3 carbon capture facility. He noted it might make more sense to install carbon capture on one of the larger coal fire units, such as Poplar River or Shand, than it would to install it on BD4 and BD5.
Then there was the time I asked the previous CEO of SaskPower, Robert Watson, about the long-impending decision to go ahead with BD4 and BD5, and he basically said they would push those decisions back as long as they possibly could. Apparently they did.
Then there was two weeks ago, when Minister of Environment and Minister Responsible for SaskPower Dustin Duncan addressed the Estevan Chamber of Commerce. He made the not-so-subtle point that natural gas prices are at historic lows, and have been for a long time. As in, it’s really hard not to consider natural gas for new power plants.
I made the point to him that everyone in the room was concerned that if we losw the coal mines and coal-fired power plants at Estevan, we would each lose $100,000 value on our houses.
And I might have been underestimating that.
So BD4 and BD5 will close. But we do not yet have that much-ballyhooed fleet-wide equivalency agreement on CCS with the federal government; the one I, and many others, thought was in the bag years ago. Turns out, the provincial government has been talking about it, but the feds appear to not have been very receptive, to date, to doing anything about it. Will SaskPower closing two units finally give the feds the impetus to sign on?
The reality is that a few years ago, Boundary Dam Power Station was a six-unit station, with two 75 megawatt units, three 150 megawatt units and one 300 megawatt unit. (These are round numbers usually quoted by government sources. SaskPower’s own website refers to Units 4 and 5, as Unit 3 was before it, as 139 megawatts apiece.) Units 1 and 2 were retired at the age of 50 years due to carbon dioxide emissions regulations and Unit 4 and Unit 5, in 2021 and 2024, respectively, will be retired. But that’s only if we get that equivalency agreement. If we don’t, they close at the end of 2019.
The net result is that a power plant that used to produce more than 800 megawatts of power will soon produce more like 450 megawatts gross. And when you reduce the power produced by half, you reduce the amount of coal consumed by half, too. That inevitably means fewer coal miners, fewer direct jobs, fewer spin off jobs and lower house values.
That won’t be half of the area’s total coal production overall, as there’s still the charcoal plant and Shand’s consumption for 276 megawatts (often rounded up to 300 megawatts).
You’ll note there was no mention of converting BD4 and BD5 to natural gas consumption. If that were to happen, they would be simple cycle, not combined cycle, natural gas – not nearly as efficient. Ergo, converting them to natural gas wouldn’t see huge savings in emissions, and that’s likely why it won’t be done. It’ll also likely be easier to build new than retrofit an old plant.
Besides, if SaskPower were to build natural gas power plants, I hate to say it, but it won’t be at Estevan. It will be close to demand centres – Regina and Saskatoon. Yes, there are already power lines running from Estevan, but the line loss due to electrical resistance over those distances is not insignificant, and would be never-ending. It would require more power production at the power station end of the line (and more emissions) for the same result at the consumption end.
No, if SaskPower builds new gas-fired power plants, you can bet your bottom dollar you will be able to see them from the edges of either Regina or Saskatoon, where line losses will be negligible. They’ve already done it at North Battleford, and are building one for Swift Current. Maybe some day Yorkton will get one.
The federal government is getting its way. Coal is being pushed out, slowly but surely.
Brian Zinchuk is editor of Pipeline News. He can be reached at brian.zinchuk@sasktel.net
