and 2025, which is quite a ways away, you’re going to have to do some work on the supply chain, minimizing carbon impacts of transportation and electricity,” he warns. POWERING THE PLANT ate their dryer, which most pellet plants do) will have substantially lower GHG emissions,” says Gordon Murray. LOGISTICS Electricity is a major factor in the carbon footprint generated by wood pellets. Pow-er generation in B.C. and Quebec is pri-marily from hydro, and thus it is a clean source; but some other areas, for example Alberta and Atlantic Canada, rely on a high proportion of coal-powered electric-ity. Changing the power source can go a long way in minimizing carbon impacts in regions where the electrical grid or the pellet mill itself uses fossil fuels. “Regarding GHG emissions, probably the biggest controllable factor for pro-ducers is the chosen method of biomass drying. Generally speaking, those who operate dryers that run on fossil fuels will have a problem, but those who run dry-ers that are based on biomass (burning a portion of the incoming biomass to oper-Another way to reduce a pellet’s carbon footprint is to use less carbon in trans-portation, explains Strauss. “That might mean better diesel engines, but what many people are thinking is that because of low cost natural gas, much of the trans-portation structure is going to be chang-ing to compressed natural gas or liquefied natural gas.” Natural gas is cheaper at today’s prices and could cut transportation costs in half. On top of the pocketbook advantage, natural gas would cut the carbon foot-print by a third compared to diesel fuel. “The transportation sector is going to shift to natural gas,” Strauss predicts. “It’s going to lower the cost of wood, which means it’s going to lower the cost of pel-lets and it’s going to help.” Though ocean vessels are more effi-cient than trucks or rail, there’s room for improvement when ships are traveling great distances. This is a challenge shared by exporters in all industries that share the desire to bring down costs and con-serve fuel usage. “Ships are also getting way more effi-cient,” says Strauss. “That’s obviously in the best interest of the shipping compa-nies because they spend less money for every mile they move but there are ex-pectations of seeing fuel use cut in half in the next few years by different hull shapes, bigger ships and slower speeds. They go a little bit slower, calling it Eco-speed. If they lower their speed by just a few knots (nautical miles per hour), they cut their fuel consumption by about 20 per cent.” Gordon Murray claims that efficien-cies have already been achieved in Cana-da, though he notes that the possibility of introducing biofuels for ocean transport and switching from diesel to biodiesel for land transport would further improve GHG emissions. We’ve also been trend-ing to larger ships as the industry has Wood Hogs and Screens hammers, rotors and liners, allowing routine maintenance to be performed safely, easily and with minimal downtime. Our EZ-Access technology even lets operators remove the wood hog’s rotor without moving the feed chute. Plus, our heavy-duty rotor discs allow maximum flexibility of hammer arrangements, up to 3, 4 or 6 rows for premium efficiency on smaller products, while our Duratip ® high-alloy hammers with replaceable tips provide increased shredding action and quick change-outs. Jeffrey Rader ® EZ-Access ® Wood Hogs are designed for safe, fast and easy access to Rader ® Disc Screens (RDS) CRUSH. FEED. PROCESS. CONVEY. STORE. are the industry’s #1 scalping screens. When it comes to removing oversize rejects from unscreened wood chips, hog fuel or bark, our RDS is the undisputed workhorse of the industry. With more units in operation than all other suppliers combined, you can depend on us to select the ideal disc profile, interface openings and screen size for maximum screening efficiency. Phone: +1 (864) 476-7523 Email: [email protected] Web: www.terrasource.com/cb International Sawmilling Expo & Biomass Expo September 26-27, 2014 Montreal, Quebec Handling a World of Materials The brands comprising TerraSource Global (Gundlach Crushers, Jeffrey Rader and Pennsylvania Crusher) are wholly-owned subsidiaries of Hillenbrand, Inc. (NYSE: HI) © 2014 TerraSource Global. All Rights Reserved. 14 Canadian BIOMASS JULY/AUGUST 2014
Canadian Biomass July August 2014: Page 14
