Several different speakers promoted the potential of carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology Thursday afternoon at the Southeast College’s Estevan campus.
The event was hosted by the Saskatchewan Building Trades and the International Brotherhood of Boilermakers. It was an opportunity for people to learn more about how CCS works and how it can combat climate change.
Dion Malakoff, the executive director of Saskatchewan Building Trades, opened the event by reading a letter from his nine-year-old son Eli earlier this year about the need to protect the environment.
“The next generation is going to look at us and say what did you do? What did we do in this room today? What did we do to ensure the next generation has clean water, air, etc.? Our kids are going to look back on this crucial time … and judge us for what we have done and what we are going to do.”
Mayor Roy Ludwig, who works at the Westmoreland Coal Company’s Estevan mines, discussed his background at the mines, and then Cory Channon from the International Brotherhood of Boilermakes talked about CCS.
“We embrace all of these technologies that will, of course, make the world a better place, with better air, better water, better everything. There’s a variety of different solutions and we have to embrace all of them.”
The boilermakers union is fully supportive of CCS and the Saskatchewan government to implement this technology.
After a brief video, Beth Hardy and Corwyn Bruce from the International CCS Knowledge Centre and Rob Mitchell from the Global CCS Institute talked to the audience about the work their organizations are doing to advance the technology.
Next week’s edition of the Mercury will have more on this story.
