Boundary Dam Visit during IEAGHG’s Summer School

 Last week I was lucky enough to visit my first ever CCS site whilst attending the IEAGHG Summer School. SaskPower hosted the students for a day at Boundary Dam which included a visit to the Shand testing facilities and Aquistore storage site. For me this trip was a particular highlight of the week as I was able to finally see all the research behind CCS being put into action. I feel it has given me a better standing to talk to people and spread the word of CCS, knowing I have seen all of the CCS technologies utilised successfully and seen for myself that these technologies really can work.

We were given a full tour of the Boundary Dam facilities with an introduction to power generation and an explanation of the capture plant technologies. As a geologist it was a great experience for me develop my understanding of capture technologies and better understand the processes behind amine solution capture. I would particularly like to thank the SaskPower team for answering all of the student’s questions, especially on the basics of chemical engineering!

Having heard lots about the Aquistore site it was exciting to see all the monitoring equipment in operation, especially having heard about their fibre optic arrays and GPS monitoring systems at various conferences and meetings. Thank you to PTRC for the tour and great to hear 81,000 tonnes have been safely stored.