Estevan will remain the Energy City, but the way in which we generate that energy may be getting a bit of a revamp. The city announced this morning they had received a federal grant to conduct a feasibility study to see if a new kind of power plant would work here. 

According to the release, the study will be for a commercial-scale NET Power plant deployment and will be conducted along with 8 Rivers Capital. The money for the grant came from the Western Economic Diversification Canada and the Coal Community Transition initiative. 

“We have been working hard to identify economic development opportunities like this for our city and we are excited to see more projects and studies moving ahead in Estevan.” Said City Manager Jeff Ward. “Working with 8 Rivers, we hope to be able to develop a strong plan that we can present to the provincial and federal governments during discussions around the future of power generation in Estevan.”

The big draw of this NET Power plant is that it produces no carbon emissions. NET Power’s Allam-Fetvedt cycle technology combusts natural gas with oxygen, as opposed to air, and uses supercritical carbon dioxide as a working fluid to drive the turbine and produce zero emissions electricity. It can apparently match a traditional power plant in output while eliminating all of its pollutants and capturing all of its CO2. 

Working with Estevan and leaders in Ottawa, Regina, and other provincial and local governments," said Bill Brown, CEO at 8 Rivers Capital and NET Power, "as well as with private entities like Canada Clean Energy Corporation, we can create jobs and deploy zero emission NET Power plants in a way that allows the entire country to achieve its net-zero emissions goal at the lowest possible costs."

8 Rivers will lead the Feasibility Study, performing engineering and economic analysis tailored to an Estevan deployment of the NET Power technology, work which will be overseen by the City of Estevan and funded by Western Economic Diversification Canada. 8 Rivers is based out of Durham, North Carolina.