A simple way for Alberta to enter the biomass combustion business is to use the screenings from the province’s existing grain processing plants, says an expert in the field.
“That is the low-hanging fruit,” said Roger Samson, executive director of Resource Efficient Agricultural Production Canada and author of two reports on the subject sponsored by Alberta Agriculture.
The province’s wheat and oat mills produce 207,000 tonnes of screenings, enough to provide the raw material for two commercial-scale biomass pellet plants. The fuel source coming out of those plants would be the equivalent of about 600,000 barrels of oil.
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The studies indicate that energy pellets or briquettes made from crop milling residue could be produced for about $100 per tonne and would be a competitively priced option to natural gas in commercial heating applications.
Samson said that would be a good first foray into a new value-added industry for the province that offers loads of potential.
“It could be quite a promising opportunity,” he said.
He envisions as many as 50 agricultural biomass pelleting plants if the province tapped its full potential. There are about 440 such plants operating around the world, mostly in Europe.
Alberta produces 15.8 million tonnes of cereal and canola straw annually. After deducting what is consumed by the livestock industry and to protect against soil erosion, an estimated 7.7 to 13.2 million tonnes of straw could be recovered for other purposes such as creating biomass pellets that would be burned in specially equipped heating devices.
But Samson said there are problems to overcome with heating pellets made from crop residue.
“They’re more loaded with chemicals that cause problems with combustion,” he said.
Research is needed on how to recover straw with lower quantities of chemicals like potassium and chlorine. One solution would be to use a stripper header when harvesting wheat and to treat the straw that remains in the field like a grassy energy crop. That is being investigated.
Samson said there is potential in Alberta to grow energy crops like switchgrass, prairie sandreed and big bluestem for biomass combustion. Those feedstocks have the potential to produce the best quality fuel.
He figures Alberta is suited to producing the natural gas substitute partially due to its extensive experience in the alfalfa dehy industry.
Samson said the energy pellets might find a market in Japan, just like the alfalfa pellets and cubes. Or they could be consumed within the province as part of a provincial carbon trading system.
“This could create some low-cost offsets for the province for farmers to sell to industry,” he said.
The reports concluded that Alberta could become a North American leader in one of the most economically efficient and environmentally friendly means to displace fossil fuels.
Another study conducted by Samson concluded that using biomass from energy crops in heating applications is 570 percent more efficient than corn ethanol at reducing greenhouse gases.
