and machinery need to be stainless steel or fibreglass, which isn’t a problem, but of course it takes time and money to switch over to those,” he says. The location of the feedstock also is an issue because of the cost of transporting biomass long distances. “If you build too large of a plant for the biomass you have available, you have to start trucking in biomass from a long distance,” says Good- fellow. “This starts costing too much, both economically and environmentally.” Bouchard agrees. “If you have custom- ers and plants where the biomass is, you can develop a local market. There’s poten- tial, but it takes time.” MacDonald, Goodfellow, and Bouchard all concur that there’s significant potential for foresters to provide feedstock for the production of bio-oil. “Residual materials, bark, and sawdust are great feedstocks,” Goodfellow says. “The other part of the for- estry sector most people don’t think about is the end-of-life materials, meaning con- struction and demolition materials. There are more and more jurisdictions globally that are making the forestry sector respon- sible for the end-of-life materials, and that is good feedstock for the process.” How- ever, because the market is in its infancy, there is no established economy for bio-oil, and the potential goes unfulfilled. Despite the challenges, bio-oil propo- nents stress the benefits of bio-oil. “It has 50% of the nitrogen oxide compounds that are found in fossil fuels,” says Mac- Donald. It also has low sulphur content. Then there are the improved econom- ics of transporting bio-oil rather than raw biomass. “We feel it’s an economical way of concentrating a natural source of en- ergy,” says Bouchard. “You’d have to have about five trucks of sawdust to get the equivalent BTUs as two trucks of bio-oil,” he says. “We believe the bio-oil process is a good way of getting the energy in as small of a package as possible from nature to the industrial application.” Goodfellow is optimistic about market development. “We have many different market applications and market timings. There are a lot of uses for pyrolysis oil that are yet to be developed,” he says, not- ing that Ensyn’s current market includes specialty chemicals and stationary fuels. “The demand is growing,” he adds. “We’re deploying with companies that have their own biomass and have their own thermal or electrical needs.” MacDonald is also optimistic. She thinks that developing a market for bio- oil will be a task to embrace because of the benefits. “I don’t think it’s going to be a huge challenge to place the bio-oil and biochar,” says MacDonald. “It’s all begin- ning, and it’s very exciting.” • Instead of trucking biomass to the pyrolysis plant, Agri- Therm’s mobile pyrolysis unit goes to the biomass. Because biomass is bulky and costly to transport, this process is more cost effective, says Jennifer MacDonald, chief operating officer of Agri-Therm. 10 CanadianBIOMASS MAY/JUNE 2010 Photo: Agri-Therm
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