Case Study Canada

National level: Canada has the largest forest estates in the world with 397.3 million hectares of forest and is one of the leading exporters of forest products globally. In rural areas the forestry sector is dominant with entire towns depending on it. Biomass is currently not utilized in large quantities for energy production. With large parts of the country not suitable for agriculture, liquid biofuels will have to be produced from wood products. The Case Study in Canada focuses on British Columbia situated on the western coast of Canada bordering the United States. British Columbia is the most important forestry province in Canada in terms of resource base and forestry industry. The Global-Bio-Pact Case Study includes one study on a lignocellulosic ethanol refinery and one on a pyrolysis refinery.

Lignocellulosic ethanol refinery: Lignol is a company based in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. The company is currently developing a pilot plant with a daily dry biomass input of 200 t. The plant is based on the Accell technology combining pre-treatment and lignin / hemicellulose removal in one process. Lignin and ethanol are the main products and extraction of other products is currently under research. Feedstock used for lignocellulosic biofuel production may come from different sources and have usually been co-products from various wood processing activities, like mill residues and logging residues. Lignol’s pilot plant in Burnaby has been using pulping chips – with a moisture content of 50% - obtained from debarked whole log chippings and chips from lumber mill residues such as slabs and trim ends of logs. The costs of the chips range between 50 and 70 $/t. Generally, chips from sawmills tend to be lowest cost while chips from logs harvested from hillsides invariably tend to have the highest costs. A hypothetical commercial plant located in British Columbia would most likely have its own cutting rights or source feedstock from contractors on Crown lands provided under provincial cutting rights. Native Indian tribes might provide cutting rights on their territory or supply the chips directly to the company. The investment cost of the plant is unknown yet, but for the business case to be valid the lignin utilization is essential. The employment generation of the plant can be compared to a normal paper mill. The installation can employ around 45 workers in total. On management level 3 direct jobs are created and for every shift (4 shifts a day) 5 people can be employed. The remaining jobs are created in the harvesting and supply sector.

Pyrolysis refinery: The Global-Bio-Pact Case Study for pyrolysis in Canada is fictitious and based on the long experience of BTG Biomass Technology Group in developing the flash pyrolysis technology. In BTG’s pyrolysis process woody biomass is transformed by a rotating cone reactor to pyrolysis oil, coal and gas. Pyrolysis oil – which has a larger energy density than raw biomass – can, for example, be used in a boiler, furnace, gas turbine or diesel engine (under development) to replace domestic fuel oil. Current research focuses on the extraction/fractionation of chemicals and the use as automotive fuel. The plant is assumed to have an input of 120 t of dry biomass per day. The investment cost – including biomass pre-treatment, biomass & pyrolysis oil storage and utilization of the heat – lies between 10 and 15 million Euro. In Canada there are a lot of abandoned pulp and paper mills, which are perfect locations for pyrolysis plants. Such pyrolysis plants can give a boost to the local and regional economy. Instead of exporting raw biomass, high-end biofuels are produced which have a higher added value for the region. The plant will also create around 45 jobs of which 17 jobs are direct. The other jobs are created in wood harvesting, transportation of pyrolysis oil and plant maintenance.

The following Global-Bio-Pact report has been published:

VAN SLEEN P., VIS M., ABBAN-MENSAH I., BOTTRIEL K. (2011)
Global-Bio-Pact Case Study: Socio-economic impacts of second generation conversion technologies in Canada
BTG, PROFOREST; Report of the FP7 Global-Bio-Pact Project (FP7-245085) [download]