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SWIFT CURRENT — Plumes of white mist waft up from a 160-foot stack, before disappearing on an almost-windless winter morning.

Invisible, but present amid that mist, is carbon dioxide.

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This carbon has been on a journey. No one here knows where it came from, exactly, except that it arrived in a pipe.

As natural gas, it flowed into a turbine that Justin Lacelle, director of field services for SaskPower, described as “kind of like a jet engine.”

It burned at about 600 C. As exhaust, it rushed into a five-storey unit Lacelle called “basically a boiler.” The exhaust, still hot, warmed up the metal like “an element on your stove.” The element boiled purified water into steam.

The steam spun another two turbines. That means every carbon atom did double duty before heading up the stack, generating 50 per cent more power before entering the atmosphere.

According to SaskPower CEO Marsh, that process is the key to a greener power grid. SaskPower has a target. It wants to reduce its emissions by 40 per cent, compared to 2005 levels, by 2030.