High natural gas prices are forcing producers to consider heating their barns and greenhouses with a fuel not in wide use since the Second World War.
Farmers like David Keet, who is facing distressing heating bills, are replacing their natural gas furnaces with coal boilers.
Today’s coal heating systems are cleaner burning, more efficient and more sophisticated than the relics of the past.
Keet recently bought a 3.5 million BTU coal boiler for the chicken and greenhouse operation he owns just outside Saskatoon.
“It’s going to be our primary heat for the chickens and the greenhouse because of the cost of gas.”
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The new unit, made by Decker Manufacturing of Decker, Man., is computer controlled and comes equipped with bells and whistles such as high-pressure alarms. It was also more economical than buying a new natural gas furnace.
“It’s cheaper but it’s also very efficient. With hot water, too, it’s a lot better heat. You don’t have to have your various heater units in the barns.”
Although he said he believes it’s the first coal-fired boiler of its kind in Saskatchewan, Keet isn’t a prairie anomaly. Mohyuddin Mirza, greenhouse crops specialist with Alberta Agriculture, said five of the province’s 100 greenhouse vegetable growers have switched to coal systems.
“Those were the first ones to switch over,” Mirza said. “The bedding plant growers will follow I’m sure.”
Alberta Agriculture recently held two greenhouse energy conservation workshops that covered the merits of coal-fired boilers versus conventional heating systems.
Mirza said many of the 200 participants expressed a keen interest in coal-based heat. He anticipates about one-quarter of the province’s greenhouse growers will replace their natural gas systems with coal-fired boilers in the next two years.
“Some of the figures we have seen on the efficiency of coal burning and the new boiler is that they are very efficient.”
He said they are every bit as effective as forced-air furnaces. Both systems are capable of attaining 85 percent burning efficiency.
But that’s not the burning issue for producers, who are more interested in saving money on their fuel bills.
“It’s not a question of better or not better, it’s a cheaper alternative to natural gas,” Mirza said.
Alberta has a reasonable supply of good quality coal, a commodity that hasn’t experienced substantial price fluctuations over the past 20 years.
“We don’t expect the price will increase like it did with natural gas.”
Mirza said manufacturers have also assured his department that today’s coal boiler flue gases meet current emission standards.
But one dilemma for producers could be how to dispose of the coal ashes generated by the furnaces.
Wood is another alternative to natural gas. Keet uses a 600,000 BTU wood furnace as a back-up source of heat for his greenhouse operation.
Twice a day he stokes the furnace with jack pine from Prince Albert, Sask., that has been through a forest fire. Fresh cut wood is too expensive and the “fire kill” burns well.
Keet finds the wood furnace a little too labor intensive. He has to haul wood from Prince Albert, cut the 20-foot lengths into four-foot logs and pile them u-10-P. The furnace has to be stoked in the morning and at night.
“Some days you don’t feel like it and it might run out,” Keet said.
The upside is the furnace works well and the boiler-type system provides nice heat.
There is another side benefit.
“It gives us a chance to burn up some of our scrap lumber around too, because we’re always building.”
He would recommend wood furnaces for operations that require less than one million BTUs. For anything above that, farmers should consider coal as an alternative to natural gas.
“If we just had a house and a shop, like a garage or something, a wood furnace would handle that, but not our operation here.”
