'Start becoming the disruptors': Estevan looks at big picture in energy transition

CBC's virtual road trip series Land of Living Stories explores the hidden gems across Saskatchewan. Reporter Janani Whitfield hit the road to Estevan in search of inspiring stories of community spirit. 

Negin Marashi had never considered studying computer science before coming to Estevan. The 22-year-old had studied hospitality in her home country of Iran, before moving to this city in the southeast corner of Saskatchewan that's looking at ways to create new and innovative opportunities for its young people and workforce. 

"In my age, here in this community, everyone leaves to go to university to different cities," she said, explaining why she wanted to try a computer science course offered through the local Southeast College.

But unlike other courses that can cost international students like her thousands of dollars, this one cost $500, with a $300 bursary paid back to those finishing the program. The goal was to have students use their skills to help local businesses solve real-world problems.

"I wanted to try new things, and get out of my comfort zone, and explore new things," Marashi said.

"If I'm failing, it's OK. I'm just 22 and I want to explore different things and figure out what I do with my life and my future." 

The pilot program is just one of many innovations this energy city is trying to spearhead as the world shifts away from a reliance on fossil fuels and coal-fired power —  a topic that was the focus of a September conference aimed at rural innovation, hosted in Estevan. 

Gord More, executive director of the Southeast Techhub and an organizer for the conference, said "disruption" has always been part of economies, including the disruptions to oil and gas and agriculture that have hit rural communities the hardest.

"We are experts in energy. So why are so many decisions about the disruption caused by the energy transition  happening in places outside of our community?" he said, explaining what he hoped people would take away from the three-day conference.

"We have the expertise within our community, stopping the disrupted and (to) start becoming the disruptors."

Southeast Techhub was formed to help with the city's energy transition and explore other diversification projects, including turning locally produced lignite biomass (commonly referred to as coal) into graphite for batteries, or looking at gasification efforts to turn that product into hydrogen.

'Unsettling' feel in changing world

Rod Cullen has spent a decade working through the boom and bust cycles of the oil and gas industry and another decade in the coal industry, most recently as a heavy equipment operator.

"The past probably four or five years has been the most unsettling for the coal mine," he said, referencing goals to phase out coal-fired electricity by 2030. 

Those plans have a knock-on effect not just on local coal mines but also on power stations like Shand and Boundary Dam that give local people steady employment, he said. 

"You're getting into thousands of jobs that are going to be disrupted or displaced or have to be remanufactured somehow," he said. "So that's like a lot of people in hockey, a lot of people in restaurants, a lot of people buying used vehicles or new vehicles, right?"

He's working to diversify his own career by getting into the field of drone inspections, as owner and chief pilot at Predator Inspection. He attended the rural tech conference to understand how people in the Estevan area can invest in the area in new ways.

"There's lots of opportunity. It's just trying to redirect it," Cullen said, of the coal mine that he hopes will continue to find new uses even after coal-fired power plants are shuttered. "Instead of just walking away from it, I think there's a little bit of a shift is all it would take."  

One of the people who described feeling inspired by the conference was Ray Boutin, an entrepreneur from nearby Carlyle who sits on that town's Community Futures board. 

 "I think I was still 17 when I started and I worked as a project labourer at Boundary Dam," he said.

"The coal mine, the (power) generating and the oil field service sector in Estevan is huge," he said, noting that the conference acknowledged that these industries have created several millionaires out of those that call this southeast pocket of the province home. 

But he's seen how, in the last decade, more and more talk of decarbonizing the power grid led to people's spirits sinking, thinking that their town's future was over.

The rural innovation conference gave him a glimmer of hope that his community, like Estevan, has opportunities ahead of it, harnessing the power of creative thinking. 

"We're turning the corner there," he said. "You can get educated locally and become successful locally and give back to the community and grow our communities.

"There's no reason to leave home. You can be successful right here."

Read about some of the other change-makers who call Estevan home: