It wasn’t quite as flashy as the Dragons’ Den, the television program in which entrepreneurs pitch their investment and business ideas to a panel of experts.
But for Jamie Bakos, it was close to the same thing.
The president and chief executive officer of Titan Clean Energy Projects, which operates an energy-related manufacturing plant in Craik, Sask., appeared at last week’s Sask. INC Innovation Forum in Saskatoon
The biochar-manufacturing facility, which set up shop up in the town between Regina and Saskatoon in May 2009, is looking for some new capital to finance Phase 2 of the operation.
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“It was definitely a Dragons’ Den-like pitch,” Bakos said after the three-minute presentation. “We’re up and running with Phase 1 of implementation and we are processing. Now we’re seeking expansion capital to build the next phase.”
Titan has constructed Saskatchewan’s first advanced biomass recycling facility, using new commercial technology, including thermal extrusion and pyrolysis, to recycle products like waste wood, flax fibre and food waste into compost and dense, charcoal-like heating cubes called biochar.
Bakos said biochar is essentially “carbon in a bag,” the cheapest and fastest way to sequester carbon from the atmosphere and generate carbon credits.
The initial products being produced by Titan are topsoil and heating cubes.
The plant has a capacity of about 20 tonnes a day, although Bakos said that could approach 100 tonnes in future.
“We are ramping up slowly and we’ll continue to ramp up our production hours over the next few months,” he said. There are typically four to six employees on site.
The biggest challenge is raising private-sector capital and keeping on budget.
“The technology and markets are there and we can solve those kinds of questions with our excellent people and high-tech team,” he said. “Raising capital is definitely the most challenging.
“We’re comfortable and happy with our position but there have been lots of ups and downs along the way,” he said. “We’ve had our wins and frustrations and lots of ups and downs.”
Facts about Biochar
- Biochar is a high-carbon, fine-grained residue produced through pyrolysis. Pyrolysis is the direct thermal decomposition of biomass in the absence of oxygen to obtain an array of solid (biochar), liquid (bio-oil) and gas (syngas) products.
- Biochar can sequester carbon in the soil for hundreds to thousands of years.
- The specific yield from the pyrolysis is dependent on process conditions and can be adjusted to produce either energy or biochar. Even when optimized to produce char rather than energy, the energy produced per unit of energy input is higher than for corn ethanol.
- Instead of allowing plant matter to decompose, pyrolysis can be used to sequester the carbon in a much more stable form. Biochar removes circulating CO2 from the atmosphere and stores it in virtually permanent soil carbon pools, making it a carbon-negative process.
- In addition to its potential for carbon sequestration, biochar has numerous benefits when added to soil. It can prevent the leaching of nutrients, increase the available nutrients for plant growth, increase water retention and reduce the amount of fertilizer required.It can also decrease nitrous oxide and methane emissions from soil and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
