LEFT: Bruce Elliott with the pellet boiler Arctic Green En-ergy uses to heat the North Slave Correctional Facility. The boiler was the first in Yellowknife and opened the eyes of the city and territorial government to the pos-sibilities of biomass fuel. RIGHT: Gordon Van Tighem is proud to be the mayor of Yellowknife, which possesses the largest number of wood pellet boilers of any community on the continent. “La Crete is struggling because of its dis-tance from major markets. We’re relatively close to them competing with other south-ern manufacturers.” Elliott says he is looking at a cheaper product, but won’t disclose what that is and is also promoting combined heat and power projects for smaller communities that rely on diesel generators. “We can do that cheaper than oil,” he said. “We’ve done a proposal for the govern-ment. The communities can use feedstock they have on hand – fire-burned trees and quick-growing willows to generate sustain-able biomass and portable chippers. Boilers will burn chips, not pellets.” • 22 Canadian BIOMASS MARCH/APRIL 2012
Canadian Biomass March/April 2012: Page 22
