Wasted energy There’s a ready-made solution to many of our problems. BIOMASS CANADIAN Volume 14 No. 4 Editor -Amie Silverwood (289) 221-8946 [email protected] Associate Editor -Andrew Macklin (519) 429-5181 [email protected] Contributors -Gordon Murray, Christopher Rees, Ken Shields Editorial Director/Group Publisher -Scott Jamieson (519) 429-3966 ext 244 [email protected] Market Production Manager Josée Crevier Ph: (514) 425-0025 Fax: (514) 425-0068 [email protected] National Sales Manager Ross Anderson Ph: (519) 429-5188 Fax: (519) 429-3094 [email protected] Quebec Sales Josée Crevier Ph: (514) 425-0025 Fax: (514) 425-0068 [email protected] Western Sales Manager Tim Shaddick [email protected] Ph: (604) 264-1158 Fax: (604) 264-1367 Media Designer -Brooke Shaw Canadian Biomass is published six times a year: February, April, June, August, October, and December. Published and printed by Annex Business Media. Printed in Canada ISSN 2290-3097 Circulation Carol Nixon email: [email protected] P.O. Box 51058 Pincourt, QC J7V 9T3 Subscription Rates: Canada -1 Yr $49.50; 2 Yr $87.50; 3 Yr $118.50 Single Copy -$9.00 (Canadian prices do not include applicable taxes) USA – 1 Yr $60 US; Foreign – 1 Yr $77 US Occasionally, Canadian Biomass magazine will mail information on behalf of industry-re-lated groups whose products and services we believe may be of interest to you. If you prefer not to receive this information, please contact our circulation department in any of the four ways listed above. No part of the editorial content of this publica-tion may be reprinted without the publisher’s written permission ©2014 Annex Business Media, All rights reserved. Opinions expressed in this magazine are not necessarily those of the editor or publisher. No liability is assumed for errors or omissions. All advertising is subject to the publisher’s approval. Such approval does not imply any endorsement of the products or services ad-vertised. Publisher reserves the right to refuse advertising that does not meet the standards of the publication. www.canadianbiomassmagazine.ca C anadian Biomass joined a group of Canadian delegates at World Bioener-gy in Sweden. We gathered in Stock-holm, taking a scenic route with stops at a CHP plant and logging site before arriving in the host city. The Con-ference’s theme was “Tak-ing you from know how to show how” and our group was interested in finding solutions that could be ad-opted in Canada. After the conference was over, we visited a neighbourhood in Stockholm where many of the conference’s principles have been in practice. We saw that there isn’t one answer to our depen-dence on fossil fuels but a myriad of solu-tions that have been proven to be profit-able in Sweden. Rather than looking for one solution that could solve emission and waste problems, there is a diversity of an-swers as unique as our municipalities. In Sweden, the focus of legislation was on increasing the cost of all kinds of fossil fuels rather than providing subsidies di-rectly to renewable energies. This allowed all emerging technologies to compete on a level playing field while giving them a leg up on heavy polluters rather than having politicians pick and choose favourites. Clustering biomass businesses together is a practice that we’ve found quite interest-ing at Canadian Biomass , and it has been a strong focus of our magazine this year. But in Sweden, this idea has been taken further through legislation that forbids the dis-posal of organic materials in landfills. This means industries that use organic material must find a solution for the disposal of their waste and this requirement has provided a driver for industries to invest in solutions and partner with bioenergy companies. We saw great examples of how tradition-al manufacturers have found viable solu-tions to their waste problems. Researchers at a Swedish university have turned pulp and paper mill sludge into biogas through co-digestion with municipal sludge under thermophilic conditions. Since the sludge has a high moisture con-tent, it is expensive to dry and burn, but when mixed with municipal waste, it can be a great source of biogas, which then has many uses. What was once a waste product and a liability can be a new source of revenue. The technology has been in use in Europe for decades in some cases. Any of these ideas could be adopted in Canada with the support of legislation but politicians won’t put their necks out and propose these ideas until the gener-al public demands better solutions. With an economy so reliant on fossil fuels from our oil sands and natural gas, and blessed with vast hydroelectric resources, the con-versation in Canada has stagnated around pipelines to get our fuels to new markets as traditional markets shift away from this source of energy. A turnaround in our focus on produc-ing fossil fuels to supporting the production and use of biofuels in Canada won’t happen overnight but it is nice to know a sustain-able future is attainable and has been a prof-itable investment for the Swedish economy. It would pay off to add more diversity to our energy mix, reducing our reliance on landfills would be a bonus. 6 Canadian BIOMASS
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