Fundamentally, the answer to this is technology. The technology I'm referring to is a very well-established field of science called gas treating. It originated in the 1940s. In the early 1950s, there was a family of chemicals called ethanolamines developed and they allow the absorption of carbon dioxide and hydrogen sulphide from gas streams, primarily from natural gas.
When it was first developed, it was required to have at least 350 pounds of pressure in order for that technology to work. Key advances in the 1980s allowed for the ethanolamine chemistry to be applied to low-pressure applications, in effect, atmospheric absorption. I use the analogy of a bottle of pop. You can put carbon dioxide into pop when it's kept under pressure, and ethanolamines act in a very similar way. They have the ability to absorb impurities and the ability to move them and concentrate them.
The Boundary Dam project is the world's first attempt at utilizing the technology for post-combustion carbon capture from a lignite coal-fired power plant. The technology is intersecting stack emissions and removing these airborne pollutants virtually completely. The Saskatchewan government, together with Shell Cansolv technologies, has installed the scrubbing technology at Boundary Dam. CCR Technologies is supporting the program by developing chemistry purification systems.
The implications of this technology are massive, folks, and world changing. Currently installed in one stack out of five, the technology is working and being continuously improved. Scrubbing the emissions from one stack alone at Boundary Dam—Madam Chair, here's the point—the technologies are removing the equivalent of the city of Regina's daily emissions, every car, every truck, every home, water heater, furnace, every streetlight, every industry, virtually everything. Imagine the impact of this technology as it's expanded worldwide. Indeed, the Boundary Dam plant is the standard with which the world powers itself. There are over 7,500 plants around the world exactly like Boundary Dam.
Without delving too far into the science, the Reader's Digest condensed version is that two ethanolamine chemical families are used at Boundary Dam. The first chemical solution is simultaneously scrubbing the sulphur dioxide and carbon dioxide from the flue gas. This gas is then concentrated and introduced to a second scrubbing system where the two are separated. The sulphur dioxide creates a value-added by-product: acid and then fertilizer. The carbon dioxide is compressed to a super-critical state and subsequently injected into stable geologic formations for storage, sequestering, or in the case of Boundary Dam, for enhanced oil recovery.
To give you an idea of the impact of this technology right now, it is expected this year that the Boundary Dam single stack capture program will capture and sequester 800,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide. This is not the equivalent of a solar panel or a wind generator.
I'll quickly move on to super-critical carbon dioxide. As you compress it in conditions in excess of 1,047 pounds per square inch at 37°, it becomes a massive and significant super-solvent. If we inject it into oil reservoirs or stable geologic formations that have lost their pressure, ultimately it can unlock a significant financial resource for Canada. I believe over $200 billion was transferred from the west to east because of oil revenue, and I think it's strategically important to Canada that we keep that going.
Fundamentally, treating technologies' role is absolutely crucial to this technology. Much like the oil in your car, by keeping it clean, if it was clean always, your engine would never wear out.