Bioenergy Research Northern Biomass Yukon delivers a strategy for increasing bioenergy use By Taylor Fredericks I f the first half of 2016 is any indi-cation, it’s shaping up to be a big year for biomass in the Yukon. Fresh off the Government of Yukon’s announcement of the Yukon Biomass En-ergy Strategy, which will guide the devel-opment of a biomass energy sector in the territory, a group of partners used Cold Climate Innovation’s (CCI) recent Yukon Biomass Forum to publicly announce the initiative’s first funded project. The project – a partnership between the Yukon government’s Energy Branch, CCI, ACS Mechanical, and Raven Re-cycling – saw the installation of a Har-gassner wood chip boiler at Raven, a not-for-profit recycling centre based in Whitehorse. Going forward, the staff there will collect and share data with local stakeholders in an effort to educate the public about the effectiveness of biomass heating. The real excitement, though, lies in the nature of the fuel source: all the wood chips used to fuel the boiler will be de-rived from waste wood, including pallets, construction waste, and fire kill. “As a recycling plant, Raven has ac-cess to a huge amount of waste wood that would otherwise be going to landfill,” explains Eoin Sheridan, a project inno-vation officer at Cold Climate Innovation (CCI), a branch of the Yukon Research Centre at Yukon College. “It’s a big plus point for this project in terms of benefit to the territory.” Based on the sheer volume of such wood at their disposal, Sheridan believes the prospect of installing more biomass boilers across the territory looks promising. “They have a huge multiple of the amount of chips they will need coming from this waste wood stream, so there’s potential fuel for the future for another five or six installations just from that one source,” he says. “If we can divert waste wood from landfills and use it, then it’s a win-win situation.” The project was initiated by Chris Schmidt of ACS Mechanical, who was always troubled by the amount of wood waste he witnessed in the territory. “I never understood why we couldn’t find a better use for it,” he says. “The ABOVE: Raven Recycling’s new biomass boiler is part of a recent initiative designed to increase the amount of bioenergy in the Yukon. 14 Canadian BIOMASS MAY/JUNE 2016
Canadian Biomass June 2016: Page 14
