Sign up for the paNOW newsletter

Phasing out coal would challenge Saskatchewan: university professor

Nov 24, 2016 | 9:00 AM

As the federal government announced earlier this week to phase out coal powered electricity by 2030, Saskatchewan could be facing some difficulties.

Bill Brown, professor and head of the agricultural and resource economics department at the University of Saskatchewan, explained why.

Saskatchewan “is the province that generates the most amount of its power from coal fired power plants,” he said. “It’s difficult. Coal is an abundant supply and that’s where we are at now.”

Being the most dependent coal fired power consumer in Canada, finding an alternative would be a problem. According to Brown, a lot of other provinces used hydro power to replace coal; but for Saskatchewan, hydro power is not as accessible.

“Our topography is not conducive to having a lot of hydro power generation,” he said.

Replacing coal fired power completely would also be very expensive, Brown said, and it would be the electricity power users who would pay the extra price.

Malcolm Wilson, chief operating officer of Prairie Biogas Ltd. and former director of energy and environment at the University of Regina, agreed hydro power would be the only possible alternative, since solar and wind power are not available all the time.

In an email Wilson said the choices for the province to phase out coal could be purchasing hydro power from outside or adding more biomass to electricity. He believes hydro development in the province could bring forth issues such as which river to use and the impacts of dams on the environment.

Both Brown and Wilson agreed abandoning coal fired power would be good for the environment, since coal is notorious of producing pollutants like CO2, SO2, nitrogen oxides and heavy metals. Even though the northeastern Saskatchewan is a very minor greenhouse gas generator in the world due to its small population, Brown said, the amount generated per capita could be fairly substantial.

Wilson said there are also ways to use coal while reducing the pollution by capturing the CO2 produced by coal-burning.

Saskatchewan was spending money on carbon capturing technology in Estevan before the federal announcement came out.

 

news@panow.com

On Twitter@princealbertnow