Sask. government promises $550K in funding to help Coronach, RM of Hart Butte in coal transition | CBC News

The Saskatchewan government announced $550,000 in funding on Tuesday to help the Town of Coronach and the Rural Municipality of Hart Butte manage the transition away from the use of coal-fired power plants, including research into alternative uses of coal. 

The new funding is in response to a federal government’s regulation that will require all coal-fired power stations to be closed down after 50 years of operation, or by 2030, whichever comes first, the province said Tuesday.

However, the details on the coal transition program remain unclear.

The federal regulation is expected to impact three power stations, two mines, and hundreds of jobs in southern Saskatchewan, according to the provincial Ministry of Agriculture. 

The Coronach area is home to the Poplar River coal mine and the coal-fired Poplar River power station.

Coronach Mayor Calvin Martin says the impending move away from coal could potentially be a breaking point for the town. Tuesday’s announcement is a positive one, he said — a first in a long time. 

“It’s 600 jobs. That’s two-thirds of my population if they closed it down. That’s what it means. It would be a total devastation. We go from a community of 700 to 300. What can you do? Not much,” Martin said. 

The Town of Coronach will be sitting on stranded reserves of coal once the Poplar River plant shuts down at the end of the decade under the federal regulations. 

Videre Energy, a Hart Butte-based company, will lead a pilot project that will be supported with the funding announced Tuesday. Nathan Campbell, the president of Videre, is leading the research project.

“Through this project, we’re looking to convert the lignite coal into various byproducts, some of which would be agricultural,” Campbell said.

When asked about the byproducts, Campbell said he wasn’t sure what they’d be. Campbell also couldn’t put a timeline on how long the research might take.

The latest funding is an addition to a $10-million investment into a similar project announced in February 2020. That project, the province said, was to support Estevan and Coronach in their transition away from coal-based industries to other economic opportunities.

Martin says Coronach had received some $2 million out of that pool, based on its population. Some of that money, he says, went into small businesses and Videre. 

Martin said he can’t speak to the decision to have Videre lead the transition, since he wasn’t there when that decision was made.

“I’ve only lived there, like I said, [since] shortly after this was all decided,” he said. 

South Saskatchewan Ready — an economic alliance of nine rural communities in south-central Saskatchewan — identified Videre’s pilot project as a priority economic driver for the area in the coal transition.

In January 2022, Videre was the recipient of a $250,000 award from SSR for work on a similar initiative. When asked about what came of research from that previous funding, Campbell said that information is confidential and can’t be shared. 

The previous funding “has created some of the background information that has got us to today and enabled us to make the request to move from preliminary to these next steps,” he said.

The background information, he said, is also confidential. 

Campbell says Videre has been pursuing the project for the last five years, including going to the federal government to ask for funding.

Saskatchewan Minister of Agriculture David Marit says the impact of the clampdown on coal plants will not be limited to communities that have these plants, but will also extend to areas around them as well.

“These are good, high-paying jobs, good skilled labour, and it’s important that we try and do everything we can to keep those jobs in that community,” Marit said. 

As for how the funding announced Tuesday is going to be used, Marit said that will be a question for representatives from Videre. 

“It was a request that came from them for the next step to move it forward, so that’s where the province has come forward,” he said.