New school to heat with pellets An elementary school scheduled to be built on Fredericton’s north side will be the first in New Brunswick to be heated by wood pellets. The wood pellet-fired hot water heating boiler was included in the new school’s tender package that was issued in the spring. The hot water boiler plant will use wood pellets as the base fuel, supplemented by a natural gas boiler for extreme weather. The 500-kW biomass boiler will use about 300 tonnes of pellets annually. Most construction is expected to be completed by October 2012. “We are committed to implementing provincial policies that encourage the use of wood pellets and other biofuels to heat provincial buildings,” says Transportation and Infrastructure Minister Claude Williams. “The Department of Supply and Services is reviewing provincially owned buildings to identify viable opportunities for conversion to biomass energy. We are also encouraging the installation of biomass boilers to cover base heating requirements on new construction projects, particularly in areas of the province where natural gas is not available.” Biofuels funds available Sustainable Development Technology Canada (SDTC) has issued its annual call for applications under the federal NextGen Biofuels Fund. The fund was created to support the establishment of first-ofkind large demonstration-scale facilities (biorefineries) for the production of next-generation renewable fuels and co-products. The NextGen Biofuels Fund supports up to 40% of eligible project costs, with the contribution repayable based on free cash flow over a period of 10 years after project completion. See the SDTC website (www.sdtc.ca). Bc awards $8 million for renewable energy projects British Columbia’s Innovative Clean Energy (ICE) Fund recently awarded a total of $8 million to twelve new projects that support the development of new clean energy technologies. The ICE Fund helps project developers demonstrate the viability of their precommercial clean technologies. Three of the twelve proponents were awarded $1 million each towards woody biomass projects. Nations Energy is planning a commercial-scale torrefaction plant. Pytrade Canada will build a fast-pyrolysis plant to produce pyrolysis oil, which could be used to generate electricity for the grid. The Tsay Keh Dene First Nation will produce heat and electricity from wood waste to reduce its reliance on diesel energy. Nations energy secures site for Biomass projects Vancouver, British Columbia-based Nations Energy Corporation has entered into a 15- year lease agreement with Biosource Power Ltd. Concomitant to its purchase of land, buildings, and a pellet manufacturing facility currently located in Kamloops, British Columbia. Under the agreement, its subsidiary, Cedarhurst Forestry Products, will lease a portion of the property as the permanent site for its planned biomass power project pursuant to Nations Energy’s selection by BC Hydro under its community-based biomass power program for Kamloops. Both Biosource and Cedarhurst plan to cooperate with respect to the use of the facilities, including potential arrangements on fibre supply for pellet production, and distribution via shared use of rail transport facilities. The company was also recently awarded $1 million from British Columbia’s Innovative Clean Energy fund to develop a commercial- scale torrefied pellet plant. U.S. pellet exporters expaNd Several southeastern U.S. wood pellet manufacturers who export to European utilities are undertaking expansion plans. Fram Renewable Fuels has entered into an agreement to build a new 125,000-tonnes/ year pellet plant in south-central Georgia. Green Circle Bio Energy is looking at possible expansion locations in the U.S. southeast to add to its production capacity. It currently makes 560,000 tons/year of pellets from its plant in Florida. Enviva plans to build a second wood pellet manufacturing facility in northeastern North Carolina, which could be operational as early as October 2012. The plant, designed to produce 400,000 tonnes/year of pellets, would be Enviva’s fourth pellet plant in the southeastern United States, and would ship out of Enviva’s Chesapeake, Virginia, deep water port facilities. Canada to regulate coal emissions Canada is moving forward with regulations for the coal-fired electricity sector. The proposed regulations will apply a stringent performance standard to new coal-fired electricity generation units and those coalfired units that have reached the end of their economic life. “We are taking action in the electricity sector because we recognize the potential for significant emissions reductions,” stated Environment Minister Peter Kent in a recent Environment Canada release. Since the Canadian government first announced its intention to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the electricity sector in June 2010, consultations have been ongoing with key stakeholders. The regulations were published in the Canada Gazette Part I on August 27, 2011, for a 60-day public consultation period. Final regulations should be published in 2012 and should come into effect on July 1, 2015. For more information, visit www.ec.gc.ca. Correction In the article Grow your own feedstock, July/August 2011, the willow plantation is estimated to produce on average 200 dry tons of wood chips annually beginning three years after planting, and not 1500 tons of chips over a three-year period, as was indicated. IN Brief... Quebec offers biomass for harvest The Quebec Ministry of Natural Resources and Wildlife has issued a request for proposals to allocate available forest biomass in the Abitibi- Témiscamingue region. Documents are available at www.mrnf.gouv.qc.ca/ forests/business/companies-transformation- biomasse.jsp. Beetle moves into New Brunswick The Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) has confirmed the presence of the brown spruce longhorn beetle (BSLB) near a campground within the Kouchibouguac National Park in New Brunswick. This is the first find of BSLB outside Nova Scotia. CFIA suspects that the pest was transported on firewood. This new find is nearly 165 km away from the closest BSLB site, located in Westchester Station, Nova Scotia. Since its discovery in Nova Scotia in 1999, the beetle has killed thousands of spruce trees there, and it has the potential to spread through the spruce forests of North America. The most important way to limit its spread is to avoid transporting spruce materials such as spruce firewood.