Power Play Ontario’s long-term energy plan involves substituting natural gas for coal. BIOMASS CANADIAN Volume 14 Editor -Heather Hager (519) 429-3966 ext 261 [email protected] Group Publisher/Editorial Director -Scott Jamieson (519) 429-3966 ext 244 [email protected] Contributors -Bruce Barker, Colleen Cross, Gordon Murray, Reg Renner Market Production Manager Josée Crevier Ph: (514) 425-0025 Fax: (514) 425-0068 [email protected] National Sales Managers Tim Tolton [email protected] Ph: (514) 237-6614 Guy Fortin [email protected] Ph: (514) 237-6615 Fax: (514) 425-0068 P.O. Box 51058 Pincourt, QC J7V 9T3 Western Sales Manager Tim Shaddick [email protected] 1660 West 75th Ave Vancouver, B.C. V6P 6G2 Ph: (604) 264-1158 Fax: (604) 264-1367 Production Artist -Kate Patchell Canadian Biomass is published six times a year: February, April, June, August, October, and December. Published and printed by Annex Publishing & Printing Inc. Printed in Canada ISSN 0318-4277 Circulation e-mail: [email protected] P.O. Box 51058 Pincourt, QC J7V 9T3 Subscription Rates: Canada -1 Yr $49.50; 2 Yr $87.50; 3 Yr $118.50 Single Copy -$9.00 (Canadian prices do not include applicable taxes) USA – 1 Yr $60 US; Foreign – 1 Yr $77 US Occasionally, Canadian Biomass magazine will mail information on behalf of industry-related groups whose products and services we believe may be of interest to you. If you prefer not to receive this information, please contact our circulation department in any of the four ways listed above.. No part of the editorial content of this publica-tion may be reprinted without the publisher’ s written permission ©2011 Annex Publishing & Printing Inc. All rights reserved. Opinions expressed in this magazine are not necessarily those of the editor or publisher. No liability is assumed for errors or omissions. All advertising is subject to the publisher’ s approval. Such approval does not imply any endorsement of the products or services advertised. Publisher reserves the right to refuse advertising that does not meet the standards of the publication. www.canadianbiomassmagazine.com ntario is phasing out coal-fired pow-er generation by the end of 2014. The options are to close these plants prematurely (wasting taxpayer capital ex-penditure) or to use alternative fuel. The province touts its Green Energy Act as “…expedit-ing the growth of clean, renewable sources of ener-gy, like wind, solar, hydro, biomass, and biogas...” So why is it replacing coal with another fossil fuel? The feasibility of con-verting the province’s four coal-fired power plants to biomass has been ex-plored. Plans are under way to convert Atikokan to wood pellets, with some new infrastruc-ture required, such as pellet storage facili-ties and modifications to pulverizers and burners. Although there was talk of con-verting the other plants to biomass, they now face different plans. The Ontario Ministry of Energy an-nounced in late November 2010 that the Thunder Bay plant will convert to natural gas, requiring new infrastructure such as a pipeline to feed the boiler. Ontario’s Long-Term Energy Plan, released by the same Ministry on the same day, says that in ad-dition to the Thunder Bay conversion, the remaining coal-fired units at Lambton and Nanticoke will be shuttered or possibly converted to natural gas “if required for system reliability.” It also says, “Ontario will continue to explore opportunities for co-firing of biomass with natural gas…” Deci-sions will depend on “the ability to bring in fuel supply and the cost of conversion.” On the supply front, no large-scale pellet plants are producing yet in Ontario, partly because they’re still waiting on the prov-ince’s wood supply competition. However, Biomass cover_janfeb2011.indd 1 O pellet producers from the rest of Canada are actively pursuing additional markets for their more than two million tonnes/year ca-pacity because of depressed export markets. On the cost side, it appears the plan is first to spend the money to put in natural gas infra-structure, and later, to con-sider the additional cost of replacing handling systems similar to those used for coal to co-fire biomass. This seems strange, given that a study of Nanticoke and Atikokan conversions, led by a University of To-ronto researcher, estimated higher initial capital costs of conversion to natural gas than to 100% pellets. Why not convert to pellets and skip the additional cost of the natural gas intermediary stage? European utilities co-fire pellets with coal or use 100% biomass. An exception is Denmark-based Dong Energy’s Avedøre plant, which co-fires wood pellets with natural gas and oil. However, a 2009 docu-ment by Foster Wheeler researchers states, “The difficult properties of the biomass fu-els and their ashes are better compensated when wood is co-fired with coal instead of oil or gas...” The wisdom of eliminating coal and replacing it with natural gas in Ontario is far from clear. A more practical solution might be to co-fire coal with biomass until the plants are obsolete. The poor transpar-ency of the decision-making process has left the northern Ontario forest industry, the Canadian pellet industry, Ontario tax-payers, and other affected stakeholders in the dark. 11-02-07 9:58 AM Heather Hager, Editor [email protected] 4 Canadian BIOMASS
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