SaskPower delays decision on carbon capture expansion

Saskatchewan's power company has pushed back a deadline on whether to expand its use of carbon capture technology.

SaskPower's president, Mike Marsh, says the company had hoped to make a decision on whether to retrofit another two units at Boundary Dam power plant by next year.

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But on Monday, Marsh told reporters that decision has been pushed back to 2017.

"You don't undertake a project in excess of $1billion without having your facts," Marsh said.

He says SaskPowermustensure Unit 3 at Boundary Dam hasbeen operating well enough for an entire year before expanding carbon capture to Units 4 and 5.

"You need that data in order to inform the next decision, because the next decision will be a big decision. [Retrofitting Units] 4 and 5 is going to be essentially twice the size. And we're not going to undertake that lightly," Marsh told reporters at the Legislature on Monday.

The Opposition's Cathy Sproule says that level of uncertainty seems to contradict the government's glowing reviews of the project as well as the money it's spending to promote it around the world.

"If they haven't figured it out yet, [then]there's a lot of concerns that we really need to start screaming about," Sproule said.