While cost control through repurposing mass-manufactured parts is one niche for the business, Osborne says the real focus for Balance BioGas is in getting the best use of the energy for each customer. Osborne says there’s a common under-standing in the digester world that scal-ing up is the solution to make the project valuable. “My challenge to that is that they’re not being clever enough with how efficient they are with the energy that they are capturing,” he says. Rather than offer-ing customers a standard model focussed on either heat or electricity, losing energy from either process to optimize the oth-er, Balance BioGas’ vision is to burn the methane in a method that offers the fullest value to each customer. The methane is collected, scrubbed and then burned in an incinerator first, then the waste heat from this process is used in a, boiler or a com-bined heat and power generator depending on the best use for the energy. “We’re really focused on waste man-agement and reducing the volume of what’s going to the landfill,” he says. “Closed-loop waste management approach has the largest spin-off effect and the larg-est value for the energy that you collect.” With the working pilot project done and dusted, Balance BioGas is full-speed ahead on introducing biodigesters to Northern communities and camps. The company has a joint contract for a feasibility study to introduce their closed-loop waste man-agement process to a proposed 700-person mining project in Northern Yukon. “Our focus right now is this scale of opportunity. It’s incredibly valuable to the Yukon territory and the government of Yu-kon. The field up here is wide open, we’re just trying to be the first to move into the space to start implementing existing tech-nology with a northern innovation ap-proach,” Osborne says. MAKING OF A DASHBOARD TOOL The dashboard will also spit out the project-ed carbon reduction and energy savings. “The vision of the tool is to be able to produce a high-level go-no-go based on the number of people that your system would be serving,” Osborne says. The dashboard is being developed by Kaitlin Halickman, a business adminis-tration student at Yukon University. Her initial involvement with Balance BioGas began with a statistics class project that partnered students with local business. “I wanted to calculate how much it would cost in electricity to run their pro-totype throughout the winter. It was very basic. I did that project and after that they asked if I wanted to do another project with them,” Halickman says. The project ballooned into the vision for the dashboard tool, and Halickman was hired by Balance BioGas though a Mitacs internship program. She and Osborne are continuing to fine-tune the dashboard. “It started off as an idea and we rolled with it and have been adding on more,” Halickman says. “Even taking all the En-vironment Canada weather stats and put-ting that into the tool are small learning experiences along the way.” The team expects with a bit more tweaking they will have the tool ready for customizable use in the coming months. In the coming years, Balance BioGas will be looking to launch a communi-ty-scale pilot project to introduce their closed-loop waste processing system de-signed around a biodigester and incinera-tor. The next phase of the business will be to attract private sector investment to start rolling out these systems in communities and resource camps throughout northern Canada. While this is happening, they will be fine-tuning their desktop digester de -sign, securing patents and getting it mar-ket-ready for households. “There’s a huge amount of momentum behind us right now, which is really excit-ing,” Osborne says. “It’s a big space to fill, but if we use innovative thinking, there’s a lot we can do with it.” • Combustible Dust Specialists NFPA68 NFPA69 NFPA77 NFPA91 NFPA499 NFPA654 NFPA664 Allied brings 49 years experience to help you meet current NFPA Standards with: system design/documentation, spark detection, isolation, grounding, PLC, venting, blast path management, clean-up systems and duct audits — CWB certified and member SMACNA. Sawmill – Biomass – Boardplants – Pulp & Paper – Power Generation – Mining Initial costs of the investigation into bio-digesters can be cost-prohibitive for some communities. An integral component of Balance BioGas’s sales pitch is a first-of-its-kind dashboard tool that can quickly deter-mine a community’s waste needs and what size and cost of digester would be required. 49 years of Industrial Air Systems www.alliedblower.com Phone: 800-576-3611 Surrey,BC Vernon,BC WilliamsLake,BC Edmonton,Alberta PrinceAlbert,Sask Mobile, Alabama Canadian BIOMASS CFI_AlliedBlower_MarApr23_CSA.indd 1 2023-03-22 8:57 AM 11
Canadian Biomass Spring 2023: Page 11
