Evidence of meeting #6 for Environment and Sustainable Development in the 40th Parliament, 3rd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was co2.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Conservative
Mike Allen Conservative Tobique—Mactaquac, NB
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I have a few questions for Ms. Farrell.
On page 13 of your presentation, your Keephills plant, you're talking about water and water diversion. You say a portion of this water is returned to the river. Can you comment about what a portion means, and how much?
The second part of that question is that you're going to be using 26 million cubic metres of water, of which 1.6 million cubic metres is for your CCS. You also talk on the next page about a “net creator of water due to the significant condensation...”. What is your plan to recapture that condensation and manage that water so it can be safely returned to the river?
Chief Operating Officer, TransAlta Corporation
In terms of a portion of the water, it's a very small amount. I'll have to get the exact number for the committee, and we can forward that to you.
What was your second question?
Conservative
Mike Allen Conservative Tobique—Mactaquac, NB
It was about the 1.6 million cubic metres for CCS, which you're adding, but I guess the important thing is “a net creator of water due to the significant condensation”.
Is there a plan to capture that and a plan to manage it before putting it back in the river or wherever you're going to put it?
Chief Operating Officer, TransAlta Corporation
We condense the water that also comes out of the flue gas. We return that back to the cooling pond, so it becomes makeup water.
Conservative
Mike Allen Conservative Tobique—Mactaquac, NB
You talked about the Mountaineer project, that there is a proven project down there. Can you talk about the size difference between the Mountaineer project and Project Pioneer in terms of megawatt hours?
Chief Operating Officer, TransAlta Corporation
In regard to Mountaineer, the small one that's proven is in the 10-megawatt range. Ours is 100 megawatts. AEP is also undertaking a feed study—they were the ones who did the first phase of Mountaineer—to do a 235-megawatt project attached to a 1,300-megawatt coal plant.
Conservative
Mike Allen Conservative Tobique—Mactaquac, NB
As part of carbon and CCS technology, it also requires an extra station service load on the unit as it is. Is there any kind of estimate as to what the percentage might be in terms of station service—otherwise some people call it “parasitic load”—that would be required to run it?
Chief Operating Officer, TransAlta Corporation
Yes. There are estimates that have ranged from 10% to 20%. The actual estimate for this project is confidential. It's seen by the project vendor as competitive information.
What we do know is that in the early estimates from Mountaineer—the pilot project that preceded this one—they've had good reductions in the parasitic load. That's something that we're all working on, because that's one of the key issues that goes along with CCS, how to get that parasitic load down.
Conservative
Mike Allen Conservative Tobique—Mactaquac, NB
Lastly, on your generation fleet, you said not all locations would be suitable for CCS. Do you have any idea right now what percentage of your generation fleet for fossil assets might qualify for CCS if the project goes well?
Chief Operating Officer, TransAlta Corporation
All of our coal at the Wabamun Lake area, which would be our Sundance and Keephills plants—2,000 megawatts at Sundance, and then there will be 1,200 megawatts at Keephills—would qualify. There is also a large plant out by Hanna, at Sheerness, that would also qualify.
The project that we know does not qualify is our Centralia plant in Washington, D.C., which is 1,400 megawatts. There the issue is both the geological formations, but more importantly its closeness to Seattle. As you all know, the seismic activity on the west coast is too significant to safely sequester CO2. We're looking at other technologies for that.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative James Bezan
Thank you.
Your five minutes is just about up, so we have used all of our time for the day.
I want to thank all our witnesses—Roger Gibbins, Dawn Farrell, David Schindler, and Graham Thomson—for coming by video conference to us here in Ottawa and giving us their perspective in our study on the oil sands and water resources.
I appreciate our committee members dealing with some of the technical difficulties. It has eaten into a little bit of our time today, but I think we still had a pretty fulsome round of questions and answers.
With that, I'll entertain a motion to adjourn.
