WPAC Report Educating government on biomass benefits By Gord Murray he Wood Pellet Association of Cana-da was a sponsor of the Canada Eu-rope Energy Summit that was held at Canada House in London on Nov. 22. The Alberta government and the maga-zine Alberta Oil were listed as knowledge partners. WPAC’s objective was to raise awareness amongst senior energy industry and government leaders of the benefits of using wood pellets as a coal replacement for power generation. Attendees showed a distressing lack of awareness about the many coal-to-biomass conversions that have taken place in the U.K., the rest of Europe, Asia, and Canada. The purpose of this year’s conference was supposed to be to examine the pol-icies, technologies and energy mix that will diversify energy production, meet energy security needs and climate change commitments whilst stimulating econom-ic growth. New Brunswick Premier Brian Gallant spoke at the conference, but did not mention renewable energy. Instead he focused on the importance of building the Energy East oil pipeline so that Alberta’s oil could be exported through his province. Baroness Neville Rolfe, the U.K.’s minister of state for energy and intellectual proper-ty, emphasized the need for nuclear ener-gy and carbon capture and storage. When asked about the possibility of additional coal-to-biomass conversions in the U.K., she appeared uninformed and answered incoherently. Much of the rest of the day’s conversation was about keeping oil in the energy mix and the future of nuclear en-ergy. I participated in a panel discussion re-garding diversifying Canada’s energy ex-ports and how to ensure a diverse energy mix in the U.K. and continental Europe T and was the only speaker to promote bio-energy. Here is what I said: . . . I represent the Wood Pellet Association of Canada. Our members produce wood pellets, which are used as a clean, renew-able replacement for coal in power gener-ation and as a cost-effective home heating fuel that provides substantially lower car-bon emissions than coal or heating oil. Wood pellets are biomass. Biomass is renewable and carbon neutral if sourced from sustainably managed forests. How-ever, since some fossil fuel is used in the manufacturing and transporting of wood pellets, the overall GHG savings from bio-mass when compared to coal is normally 80 to 90 per cent. In Canada, we make wood pellets from sawmill and logging residues using what used to be wasted be-fore our industry began. We began exporting pellets from Cana-da to Europe in 1998, and to the U.K. 10 years later. In 2016, Canada is on pace to ship 1.8 million tonnes to the U.K. worth $300 million. Total U.K. wood pellet im-ports this year will be about 7.3 million tonnes with a total value of about $1.7 bil-lion. Most of the rest will come from the United States. The U.K. has its own pellet produc-tion, most of which is used for residential, commercial, and institutional heating. The U.K. government has a target of 12 per cent renewable heat by 2020. The coun-try supports converting fossil heating sys-tems to renewable alternatives, including biomass systems with its Renewable Heat Incentive support scheme. From 2009 to 2014 Drax Power com-pleted the world’s largest coal to biomass conversion. Drax converted three of six – 600 MW power units to use wood pel-lets, spending about 700 million British pounds on the project. There are many other European generators that are pro-ducing power using wood pellets includ-ing Dong Energy, Engie, HOFOR, RWE, and others. Drax Power alone provides six to eight per cent of the U.K.’s electricity, about 70 per cent of which is produced from wood pellets. The project is saving about 12 million tonnes per year of GHG emissions. According to a study by Oxford Economics, Drax supports 14,000 jobs in the U.K. – direct, indirect, and induced. Drax’s project has also revitalized port fa-cilities at Hull, Immingham, Tyne and Liv-erpool. There are two new substantial biomass power projects now under way in the U.K., including the conversion of the 420 MW Lynemouth Power Station and MGT Pow-er – a new 300 MW combined heat and power project at the Port of Tyne. There are also many coal power plants in Japan and Korea that are now using wood pellets. In Canada, Ontario Power Generation has completely converted its 200 MW Atikokan power plant to wood pellets. Wood pellets are ideal for power gen-eration. At power plants, pellets are han-dled much like coal. They are milled into powder, mixed with air, and blown into a boiler for combustion to heat hot water, produce steam, turn a turbine and gener-ate electricity. The required modifications are relatively modest. They include install-ing covered storage to protect wood pellets from moisture and handling systems to transport from storage to the milling pro-cess, and modifying coal mills, burners, and ash handling. The rest of the power JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2017 8 Canadian BIOMASS
Canadian Biomass January February 2017: Page 8
