BIOMASS update SCHUTTE-BUFFALO CHANGES OWNERSHIP Effective December 29, 2014, ownership of industri-al manufacturing company, Schutte-Buffalo Hammermill, LLC has been acquired by Mr. Martin Berardi. Incoming chief executive officer Martin Berardi is a recent retiree from Moog, Inc. where in the course of 34 years he served in a variety of roles rang-ing from sales, operations and general management to senior corporate leadership. Berardi’s long-term experience in a suc-cessful manufacturing company, both domestic and internation-al, positions Schutte-Buffalo Hammermill for continued growth potential and additional avenues to explore. Ownership of Schutte-Buf-falo Hammermill has trans-ferred from Thomas Warne and James Guarino who purchased the company in 2004 following a merger with Buffalo Hammermill Corpo-ration. During their tenure Warne and Guarino brought about significant growth by maintaining a leadership role in key industries such as wood waste reduction, feed and grain processing, and mining, while broadening their reach to emerging markets including biomass processing and alter-native fuels, as well as e-scrap, asphalt, and carpet recycling. “Both Jim and I are excited to be a part of this new phase of Schutte-Buffalo Hammer-mill. We look forward to being on Marty’s team as we continue to provide the highest quality equipment to our customers”, says Tom Warne, president. DIACARBON RECEIVES GOVERNMENT FUNDING Vancouver’s Diacarbon Energy Inc. (Diacarbon) received $2 million from Export Development Canada (EDC). This financing will allow Diacarbon to complete the development of a thermal biomass refinery in the interior of British Columbia. Once completed, this plant will convert wood waste into environmentally friendly, low carbon bio-fuels ready for distribu-tion. Diacarbon is a startup cleantech company producing wood pellets and developing torrefied biocoal, both of which can be used as a replacement for fossil coal. Since 2009, Diacarbon has focused its efforts on perfecting its biocoal product made from natural wood waste and now aims to demonstrate commercial scale production and distribution. “EDC’s investment provided the working capital that allowed us to grow our business and expand our technological base,” said Jerry Ericsson, President and CEO of Diacarbon. “The export markets are very interested in both our pellets and biocoal over the near and long term.” “Cleantech is one of Canada’s highest growth sectors and more than half of the industry’s revenues come from exports,” said Carl Burlock, senior vice-president of financing and investments at EDC. “Diacarbon is an example of great innovation in clean energy technology and EDC is pleased to help close gaps in their financ-ing,” added Burlock. DUTCH SUSTAINABILITY QUESTIONS North American pellet producers are on edge, waiting for the Netherlands to define the terms that will determine whether wood pellets have been sustainably harvested. Rather than reach out to the public at large for consultations and in an effort to avoid making an unpopular decision, the government asked the NGOs (such as Greenpeace and other environmental groups) to sit down and negotiate a sustainability system with the power companies. The utilities involved were unable to reach an agreement with the environmental groups and walked away from the process, not wanting to be put in a position where they may be targeted by the NGOs in a smear campaign. The NGOs have specified that any biomass used in the Neth-erlands’ utilities will have to be FSC-certified. The problem for Canadian producers is that most forests in Canada have under-gone CSA or SFI certification, which is PEFC-endorsed rather than FSC-certified, and would not qualify under these sustain-ability terms. “From a Canadian perspective, we’ve sent in two protest letters to the WTO and then we’re also following up with the European Commission. But until the Dutch are emphatic about what they’re going to do, it’s hard to put in a complaint to the commission,” executive director of WPAC Gordon Murray explains. POINT TUPPER BOILER OFF TARGET Only half of Nova Scotia Power’ s Point Tupper owned by Nova Scotia Power biomass boiler’ s needs are being provided by waste wood. The other 335,000 green tonnes come from forests cleared to feed the boiler, Allan Eddy, associate deputy minister at the Natural Resources Department told The Chronicle Herald. “The shakeup of the province’ s forest industry over the last five years has resulted in a severe decline in the province’ s har-vesting capacity. The NewPage Port Hawkesbury bankruptcy and the closure of Liverpool’ s Bowater Mersey mill resulted in a lot of harvesting contractors jumping ship from the forest in-dustry,” the paper reports. 6 Canadian BIOMASS JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2015
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