Canada to phase out coal power by 2030: Official

Canada will shutter its coal-fired power plants by 2030 as part of its strategy to cut greenhouse gas emission under the Paris climate accord, Environment Minister Catherine McKenna announced on Nov. 21.

The plants, located in four provinces, produce about 10 percent of Canada's total CO2 emissions, and closing them will remove the equivalent in emissions of 1.3 million cars from roads, or five megatons of greenhouse gas emissions, she told a press conference.

"As part of our government's vision for a clean growth economy, we will be accelerating the transition from traditional coal power to clean energy by 2030," she said.

With an abundance of hydroelectric power, as well as nuclear, solar and wind power, 80 percent of Canada's electricity production emits no air pollution.

McKenna said she aims to ramp that up to 90 percent by 2030. Citing National Energy Board figures, she noted that wind power-generating capacity increased twenty-fold in the past decade while solar capacity rose 125 percent.

The minister, however, added that carbon capture would be an acceptable substitute to closing a plant if Alberta, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia or Saskatchewan province wished to continue burning coal.

Saskatchewan has resisted strong climate action, which it says would harm its vast agricultural and burgeoning oil sectors.     

It is testing the world's first large-scale carbon capture and storage, built into a SaskPower coal-fired plant in the Canadian prairies.

Ottawa economics professor and energy policy expert Jean-Thomas Bernard, however, said efforts to capture and store coal have proven to be costly -- Can$1.4 billion for the SaskPower Boundary Dam pilot project to produce 115 megawatts of...