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Issue 6
SERVING THE ENERGY CITY SINCE 1903
Wednesday, June 5, 2019
www.estevanmercury.ca
Mailing No. 10769 | Publication No. 40069240
Boundary Dam praised by international delegates The latest delegation to tour the Boundary Dam Power Station’s carbon capture and storage (CCS) facility came away marvelling at the concept and its technology. Visiting members of a COP24 delegation were at Boundary Dam on Thursday. Michał Kurtyka, COP24 president and state secretary in the Ministry of Environment of Poland, and Paweł L esz cz yński, the director of the COP24 Presidency Bureau and Ministr y of Environment of Poland, were among those who toured the facility. They also visited the carbon capture test facility at the Shand Power Station. Kurtyka met with the media the following day. He was joined by Dustin Duncan, who is the provincial minister of the Environment as well as the minister responsible for SaskPower. Duncan said they had a very productive meeting to talk about CCS and some of the other initiatives when it comes to fighting climate change. “ I r e a l l y c a n’t s a y enough about having the president of COP 24 here in Saskatchewan and the entire delegation from Poland, and
The COP 24 delegates took a keen interest in the Boundary Dam Power Station. Photo submitted seeing first hand what we’re doing in Saskatchewan, and hopefully building what I think will be a very fruitful relationship into the future,” said Duncan. Kurtyka said he was pleased to see the advances
that have been taking place in CCS, in which Saskatchewan and SaskPower are global leaders. And he was pleased to attend a clean energy session in Vancouver a few days earlier. “It’s extremely impor-
tant, and we all know how many challenges are in front of us in terms of energy transition … but societal transition is ahead of us, and in all of this, you are taking a leading role,” said Kurtyka. Poland is very inter-
ested in CCS technology, and there were talks about future collaborations with Saskatchewan. “Poland is having lots of interest, but also lots of scientific abilities, so there are lots of pilot projects
which were made in Poland, but not at the scale of what is happening at Boundary Dam in Saskatchewan,” he said. While the CCS facility at Boundary Dam was an expensive project, Kurtyka pointed out the cost is going down. “ We are part of the European Union, and within the European Union, we share a number of research projects,” said Kurtyka. “So I think it’s worthwhile to think about the project that could be located in Poland.” What ’s happening in Saskatchewan is not only important from the perspective of an existing facility, but also in terms of research, proving that the cost continues to go down. O n c e t h e y ge t p a s t the cost, they will need to discuss the strategy to be adopted. The EU is talking about the transition towards renewables, as they want to have 32 per cent of their power generation comes from renewables by 2030. “Carbon capture and sequestration will be important to make an advance to carbon neutrality,” he said. Norway and Germany have also moved forward on CCS technology. China and A2 » KNOWLEDGE
Boston Tait asked for lower speed limits on Victory Road By Ana Bykhovskaia abykhovskaia@estevanmercury.ca
Boston Tait, 10, who goes to Pleasantdale School and lives on Victory Road, made a speech during the Estevan police board meeting on Wednesday. He asked the board to consider decreasing the speed limit on Victory Road and expand the road on to the Pleasantdale school zone. “I love playing basketball and hockey on my driveway with my friends. Sometimes the ball goes on the road and it is unsafe. People are going like 50 (kilometres per hour), which is the speed limit, but it’s too fast,” said Tait during his speech. He explained that his house is just two buildings away from the school, and that ’s where people don’t even start to slow down for the school zone yet. Tait also noted that there are a lot of children living on that street and he started the petition, which a lot of people already signed.
He forwarded the collected letters to the city clerk Judy Pilloud. Tait also suggested some possible measures that can be taken. “All school zones in Estevan should be expanded. People are going 60, then getting to the school zone and then slowing down to 30. So at the beginning of the school zone, they are going 40. There should be licence plate readers at the edge of the Estevan school zones. This will help, because people are not wanting to pay a fine, so they will start going slow in school zones,” said Tait. He questioned if it ’s going to take a kid getting hit in that area to change something. The speech caused a discussion among the board members. Estevan Police Chief Paul Ladouceur explained how they usually go about such requests. “ W hen it comes to speeds in the city, there is a number of processes we usually take before we make a decision… We would look at
any changes we make from an evidence-based perspective. Have we had accidents on Victory Road before? Have we had the reports of aggressive driving?” said Ladouceur. They also conduct the research to find out the average speed of the traffic in the area. After that they bring all the collected data back to the Traffic Control Committee, which decides the best way to address it, whether it’s decreasing the speed limit, putting speed bumps or other possible measures. “My recommendation to the board will be that we follow the same process with this request,” said Ladouceur. City Councillor Trevor Knibbs also noted that the discussed area has quite a few uncontrolled intersections some of which may soon be changed to controlled ones with the government funding that Estevan received recently. “We look at the statistics, we have 297 accidents within the past five years on uncontrolled intersections in
Boston Tait made a sharp and well-reasoned speech during the police board meeting. the city, 57 injuries. That’s pretty significant… We did get funding to deal with 40 … uncontrolled intersections in the city. We will work with the Traffic Committee to come up with the determination what are those priority
intersections to deal with first,” said Ladouceur. The changes in intersections may affect the described situation on Victory Road. The chief thanked Tait for his recommendations and noted that he has received
a lot of valuable ideas from youth in this community. He also reassured Tait that his voice was heard and they will proceed with further actions. The video of the speech can be found at www.estevanmercury.ca.
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