Throwing this in here because it Canadian:
Last year Saskatchewan unveiled the Boundary Dam CO2 captured power plant. It was expensive, $1.5B loonies for 110MW of coal generated power (10x the NG CC generation could be built for that price tag), but it is the cutting edge of technology for coal to possibly be environmentally friendly and there was a unique situation were the CO2 could be sold for oil recovery purposes. The plant won all the "new plant of the year" awards and the Sask government including Premier Bruce Wall touted the plant running at 90% efficiency.
Unfortunately, that 90% efficiency only refers to when the plant has been running, and due to a myriad of problems the plant has only run
45% of the time in the last year. 90% of 45% means it really capturing 40% of the CO2 it was expect to. Since there was an agreement to sell the CO2 to an oil company named Cenovus and SaskPower hasn't been able to meet their contractual obligations they have had to pay fines to Cenovus.
Power Magazine ArticleLocal NewspaperLots of other Canadian articles available on the issue. Looks like there will be lots of lawsuits and pointing of fingers over the various mechanical issues at the plant. And really, given what is happening in the US at Edwardsport and Kemper, it shouldn't be a surprise that there were problems, though the magnitude and ability to keep problems under wrap for so long is surprising.
The one question I haven't seen asked, given that the government and power executives all say that problems should be expected in the first year of a cutting edge plant like this, is why didn't they negotiate that into the contract with Cenovus? I mean if it was all expected, why commit to a contract and fines when you expect in advance there to be a problem meeting that commitment?
As a footnote, Premier Wall is supposed to be part of the Canadian delegation that goes to Paris for the Climate talks. I'm sure he'll have a lovely booth.
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