Canadian carbon-capture plant gets off to rocky start

New York Times : The Boundary Dam Power Station in Saskatchewan, Canada, site of the first commercial-scale carbon-capture and storage system, has been plagued by shutdowns for repairs and multiple other problems. According to confidential documents released by Cathy Sproule, a member of Saskatchewan’s legislature, the system has been working at just 45% of capacity and often hasn’t worked at all. The power station came on line in September 2014. The documents reveal that the filtering system fails to completely remove all the tiny ash particles from the coal’s exhaust, thus reducing the system’s ability to successfully capture carbon. The plant also requires a huge amount of electricity. Nevertheless, SaskPower, the company responsible for the plant, has continued to work to improve the system and says it is now working at 67% of capacity.