L-555 has key role in first-of-a-kind CCS project

GLOBAL ENERGY INTERESTS are keeping a close eye on operations at the Boundary Dam Power Station in Saskatchewan these days, now that SaskPower has begun operating its rebuilt coal-fired Unit 3 with carbon capture and storage (CCS) capability.

Google cofounder Larry Page is fond of saying that if you choose a harder problem to tackle, you’ll have less competition. This business philosophy has clearly worked out well for the company and led to some remarkably successful “moon shot” projects: a translation engine that knows 80 languages, self-driving cars, and the wearable computer system Google Glass, to name just a few.

Faced with persistent power outages and dwindling gas reserves, Pakistan is embracing coal-fired power expansion, with a dozen new plants set for construction.

Bloomberg reports that the government is encouraging investment totalling $15bn that looks likely to see 10,000 MW of coal-fired power added to the country’s power mix by 2020.

The Valley Forge toll plaza is where route 76 splits from the Pennsylvania Turnpike and becomes the Schuylkill Expressway to Philadelphia. It’s one of the busiest turnpike interchanges with more than 60,000 cars passing through every day. And there’s a good change the gasoline those cars are running on was made at the 148-year-old oil refinery in South Philadelphia.

Physicist Peter Eisenberger had expected colleagues to react to his idea with skepticism. He was claiming, after all, to have invented a machine that could clean the atmosphere of its excess carbon dioxide, making the gas into fuel or storing it underground. And the Columbia University scientist was aware that naming his two-year-old startup Global Thermostat hadn’t exactly been an exercise in humility.

In 2013 a purchase power agreement between Summit and CPS expired, and the two companies have been in negotiations since then. Officials at CPS Energy say this agreement is "more favorable to CPS Energy customers" and will help the state meet EPA emissions limits.

Canada has switched on the first large-scale coal-fired power plant fitted with a technology that proponents say enables the burning of fossil fuels without tipping the world into a climate catastrophe.

The project, the first commercial-scale plant equipped with carbon capture and storage technology, was held up by the coal industry as a real life example that it is possible to go on burning the dirtiest of fossil fuels while avoiding dangerous global warming.