conference in the world. Smallman was part of a 42-strong delegation organized by the Canadian Bioenergy Association that went to Sweden with a mission: to learn from the best, network and turn the experience into a viable renewable energy business back home. “The wood and for- estry sector is going broke by relying on conventional markets. I want to set up a small pellet plant, and use large wood burning furnaces to make renewable heat and power and sell it here, in PEI, to local people,” Small- man said after the trip. While Smallman is relying on local markets, many Canadian compa- nies interested in developing pellet plants are relying initially on a guaran- teed EU market as a driver. However, in future I expect sales will increas- ingly go to domestic users. One of the initiatives we’re taking is GoPellets, a combined project of CANBIO and the Wood Pellet Association of Cana- da, which we expect to announce at our annual conference Oct. 6-8. The initiative aims to develop the domestic pellet markets by lobbying for the right incentives and working with government to bring down barriers. Heating with wood pellets offers substantial cost-savings – and replacing a conventional boiler with a pellet or wood chip boiler in a large, centrally heated facility like a hospital or university, is a no-brainer. The La Sarre Hospital in the Abitibi region of Quebec has been using a biomass boiler for over 50 years – and it estimates cost savings of $12,000,000 in energy costs compared to conventional fuels during that time. Even in situations requiring an infrastructure overhaul, there is plenty of opportunity to introduce biomass heating. District heating can be in- stalled quickly via a central heat source connected to a mini-grid that encompasses a small local area, like a hospital, some houses and an indus- trial application. Common in Scandinavia, district heating is a bigger job here because it requires new infrastructure. However if a community is re-paving its streets or laying new pipes for water, it’s a perfect opportunity to lay the piping for district heating. CANBIO is encouraging communi- ties to consider district heating as part of their infrastructure renewal pro- cess. Piping infrastructure already exists in many places, such as Queen’s University in Kingston, which heats university buildings and Kingston General Hospital from a central source. MUTUAL SUCCESS Another way companies are getting projects online faster is by partner- ing with advanced technology companies either in Canada or in Europe, where the bioenergy market and industry has been thriving for the last two decades. Europeans see only opportunity when they look at Can- ada’s rich biomass supply – and interest in buying Canadian biomass or partnering with Canadians in joint ventures, consultancy or technology- supply is high. Recently, VisionPower, a bioenergy project developer from Austria, partnered with an Ontario-based consultancy, Suthey Holler Associates, to create VisionPower Canada and has started marketing its solutions across Canada. And a Canada side-event at the World Bioenergy Confer- ence in Sweden last month attracted almost 90 participants from 17 dif- ferent countries including Russia, Finland, Sweden, Germany, Spain, the Netherlands, Brazil and Colombia. Jamie Bakos, CEO of Titan Clean Energy Projects in Saskatchewan, attended the event. He sees teaming up with either Canadian or Scan- dinavian business partners as the only way to ensure bioenergy takes off. “We need to look at bioenergy as a worldwide industry.We’re up against a long-entrenched fossil fuel industry and chemical giants, and if we think of ourselves as independent competitors, we’ll all lose. We need to think of the biomass industry as one big market and work together to make impacts.” The Canadian Bioenergy Association’s annual conference is organized around creating bioenergy business opportunities. “Bioenergy: From Words to Action,” a two-day conference and one-day study tour, is taking place in Ottawa on Oct. 6-8 and promises to bring developers, investors, municipalities, entrepreneurs and industry from around the world to- gether to develop new bioenergy projects. It’s the biggest bioenergy event in central Canada and one of the main aims is to fi nd package solutions for communities to use biomass for energy and strengthen their econo- mies. A trade show will showcase the latest technologies from Finland, Austria and Canada and other biomass equipment and project develop- ers. Following the two-day conference, a fi eld tour is planned to visit the world’s longest-running fast pyrolysis plant, (a 100 tonne-per day facility in Renfrew, ON), a biomass co-generation plant at Abitibi-Bowater’s pulp mill in Gatineau and Les Broyeurs à Bois harvest waste operation. For more on the conference, visit, www.canbio.ca/events.html. ACTION NEEDED But for Canadian bioenergy to catch up with its Scandinavian and Austrian counterparts – and for the Canadian forest industry to profi t – a number of key barriers warrant removal. One of the most visible problems facing small and medium-scale biomass heating projects is the requirement that any steam installation have a steam engineer on site 24 hours per day. The high staffi ng cost simply craters the economics of most projects under 17 megawatts in Canada. In Europe, different guidelines exist for smaller power plants, and this has helped small and medium-scale biomass heating to thrive. Other bar- riers that exist for small and medium-scale projects are high capital equip- ment costs, where a government subsidy of around 25% is sorely needed to make a strong business case for potential investors. Such an incentive would help government achieve GHG emission targets. CANBIO is creat- ing an alternative proposal to the 24-hour-a-day requirement, and work- ing with governments to propose better solutions. Finally, the Ontario and Quebec Government’s announcement of an emission cap and trade system is a step in the right direction, but only a strong, nation-wide carbon-trading system can have a real impact on bioenergy development. All of these actions are part of CANBIO’s nine-point mandate, where we work for our members to lobby government on: 1. Favourable bioenergy-specifi c policies and mandates nationally and provincially. 2. A strong, rapidly-developing domestic bioenergy market. 3. Implementation of Canada-wide carbon trading system. 4. Economically viable and sustainable biomass supply chains. 5. Removal of regulatory barriers to bioenergy development. 6. More favourable tax treatment and incentives for bioenergy and biofuels. 7. Clear and simple access to bioenergy feedstocks on public lands. 8. Easier, fair access to the provincial electricity grids with stronger pricing incentives. 9. Biomass co-fi ring in power plants. Bioenergy can provide lucrative solutions to our current forest crisis, but clearly there is much work to be done to develop favourable market conditions in Canada. This is CANBIO’s mandate, so watch this space, and please consider joining our association – there is power in numbers as well as wood. • Douglas Bradley is president of the Canadian Bioenergy Association, and was recently nominated to the board of the newly formed World Bioenergy Association. CanadianBIOMASS 23
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