Quebec City's CO2 Solutions posts results from Valleyfield Demonstration Project

Quebec City-based CO2 Solutions (TSX-V: CST) announced recently the verified results of a carbon capture demonstration project at Salaberry-de-Valleyfield, near Montreal, producing CO2  CO2 suitable for food, beverages and other reuse applications.
Overall, the demonstration project showed that the company’s enzyme-enabled carbon capture technology is both reliable and cost-effective, results that CO2 solutions will be presenting at upcoming carbon capture conferences.
It’s a timely project, given the release of a report called “Energy Future 2016: Energy Supply and Demand Projections to 2040”, presented two days ago to the Toronto Board of Trade by National Energy Board Chair Peter Watson, who outlined the government’s desire to implement “the rapid deployment of advanced technologies for renewable and fossil fuel energy production.”
Successfully operating on a largely autonomous basis for 2,500 hours, the demonstration project produced several key verified results including that CO2 Solutions’ proprietary enzyme, called 1T1, performed in a stable manner, with negligible solvent consumption and without production of any toxic waste products.
Cost was an issue, too, with the plant using low-grade, nil value heat for solvent regeneration, bringing operating costs down considerably.
“The completion of the project and the independent engineering review confirm the low cost and environmentally sustainable nature of our technology, both of which are key differentiators in our industry,” said CO2 Solutions President and CEO Evan Price. “We have now proven the robustness and operability of our technology in a real-life, industrial-scale setting, which puts applications for carbon mitigation and beneficial reuse of CO2 squarely in our sights. These results will now be used to move forward prospective customer and partner opportunities currently under discussion.”
CO2 Solutions contracted with engineering firm Tetra Tech, Inc. to independently review the project data relating to mass and energy balances.
Tetra Tech found a core process capture cost of $28/tonne for 1,250 tonne-CO2 per day (tpd), putting the cost below the proposed Alberta carbon tax and the United States Department of Energy’s target for proposed carbon capture processes.
CO2 Solutions claims that its technology has now demonstrated by a considerable margin the lowest cost in the industry for a post-production carbon capture application.