Nature�s first fuel – wood – is making a comeback in B.C., where companies are developing ways to turn pine beetle kill and other wood waste into high-grade biofuel.
Burnaby-based Diacarbon Energy Inc. has won $77,000 worth of innovation prizes for its mobile biomass processing plant, which turns wood waste into three forms of fuel: gas, liquid and solid.
Meanwhile, Highbury Biofuel Technologies Inc. is working on a steam gasification process that turns wood and agricultural waste into a high-grade syngas, which can then be made into other chemicals.
�The main markets would be producing methanol and ethanol, and chemical and fuel uses,� said Highbury founder and CEO Paul Watkinson, who is a professor emeritus at the University of British Columbia�s department of chemical and biological engineering.
Highbury is still in the research and development stage with a small pilot plant at UBC. Diacarbon Energy is further along. The company, which now employs seven people, has a pilot plant in Agassiz, which can process one tonne per hour of �forest residues.�
Diacarbon�s process cooks wood or agricultural waste to produce syngas, a liquid fuel and a solid called biochar. The syngas is kept and used in the cooking process. The biochar can be used either as a soil conditioner or as a fuel that�s like coal but cleaner because it has none of the heavy metals contained in coal.
Because the Diacarbon system is mobile, it can go wherever the wood waste is and produce fuel on site. Ericsson believes there�s a good market for Diacarbon�s technology in remote First Nations communities, especially in areas infested by the pine beetle.
�There are nearly 160 [First Nation] communities that are reliant on diesel right now,� Ericsson said. �Fifty-five are actually flying diesel in by helicopter. Meanwhile, they�re right in the middle of pine beetle forest and have access to a lot of biomass.�
Ericsson said there are 130-million tonnes of biomass waste available Canada-wide – 30 million tonnes of it in B.C.
�A large part of that is the pine beetle forest which, right now, is being underutilized,� Ericsson said.
But Greenpeace Canada is warning governments against allowing industrial-scale use of Canadian forests for biofuel production. The environmental organization recently launched a campaign against the growing biofuel industry.
Nicolas Mainville, biologist and forest campaigner for Greenpeace, cites a deal struck between the government of Ontario and Rentech Inc. – a California company – as an example of what can happen when forests are used for industrial-scale fuel production. Under the agreement, Rentech will get access to 1.3 million cubic metres of �unmarketable� trees in Ontario to produce jet fuel in a new $500 million plant in Sault St. Marie.
Dave Peterson, an assistant deputy minister with the Ministry of Forests, said Greenpeace is raising a valid concern, but said it�s unlikely that B.C.�s forests will become a major source of energy.
�The economics just aren�t there.�
Peterson added that most of the harvesting in forests infested with the pine beetle is for lumber production. But B.C.�s climate action policies could make biofuel more viable, because biomass is regarded as carbon neutral and therefore is not penalized with any carbon tax.
�On a tonne of coal, you�d be paying more than $50 in carbon tax on that,� Ericsson said.
Also, because biomass is classified as carbon neutral, it means 40 megatonnes of CO2 are off the books when Environment Canada calculates its national inventory of greenhouse gases, Mainville said.
�This is a serious accounting error. People don�t know that we�re burning trees for energy.�
Mainville added that Greenpeace isn�t opposed to smaller operations that use wood waste that would otherwise have to be landfilled or go to waste.
�It depends on the scale and the source of the biomass,� he said. �If it�s mill residues or a small portion of the log debris (25% or less), then it�s not a threat to the health of the forest.�
Both Diacarbon and Highbury are focused on such small-scale applications.
�There is a special case here for the beetle-kill wood,� Watkinson said. �We�re not looking at replacing coal and gigantic power generation systems. We�re not looking at processes that clearcut the province to burn it into making electricity.���
