Ontario Power Generation issued a call today to potential suppliers of wood pellets to the Atikokan coal plant, which the utility plans to beginning converting to 100 per cent biomass burn in 2012. OPG requests that proponents provide pricing for a minimum volume that is between 22,500 and 30,000 tonnes (a year) and pricing for the entire 90,000 tonnes (a year) requirement,” according to the company’s ” request for indicative prices.”

In other words, it expects it will need 90,000 tonnes annually but wants to break this down into three our four chunks so it can have several suppliers. The final stage of conversion will begin in June 2012 and commissioning of the new equipment will likely start in August. OPG expects full-on commercial operation will happen by December. “The wood fuel pellet supply being considered under this RFIP will have a local content requirement such that the source of the wood fibre and the location of the production facilities that will produce the wood pellets shall be within Ontario,” according to the company. “OPG will require that the wood-based fuel pellets be accompanied by Chain of Custody Certification ensuring that the wood pellets supplied to OPG are manufactured from wood fibre sourced from well managed forests.”

In the Great Lakes St. Lawrence forest region of Ontario it’s estimated that there is about 1.475 million oven dry metric tons of wood fibre available for sustainable harvesting each year, or about 1.25 million if we take into account that some of the biomass will be used as fuel to dry the biofibre. So what OPG is requesting in this initial round is roughly 6 per cent of what’s available — and let’s not forget that pellets made of grass crops are also a potential source of fuel. Let’s keep in mind these converted coal plants will be used as peakers when using biomass fuel. This means there is plenty of biomass available for several units being targeted for conversion at the massive Nanticoke coal plant.

What we’re witnessing here is the beginning of the creation of an entirely new industry in Ontario developed around the need to economically harvest, pelletize and transport biomass fuel pellets to support the province’s coal phaseout strategy. This will create many jobs in parts of the province where jobs are needed most, and will establish a made-in-Ontario biomass fuel supply chain that can support the move to more distributed forms of biomass energy generation. There is plenty of opportunity here for entrepreneurs looking to play a role.

Ontario Power Generation, the province’s power utility, issued today a “call for expressions of interest” to potential suppliers of biomass fuel, which could include agricultural residues, dedicated non-food crops, and forest waste. Read the story here. The company said it wants to find out if there’s enough biomass in the province for it to convert several of its coal-fired generating units in Ontario so they can burn 100 per cent biomass instead of coal. They also want to get a sense of how it would be collected and delivered and how much all that would cost. To assist the effort, the Ministry of Natural Resources put out its own call for interest to see what companies would be interested in harvesting biofibre — tree branches and tops, diseased and fire-damaged trees, etc. — from sustainably managed crown forests.

I wrote about the government’s coal-to-biomass power generation strategy last fall and it appears to be gaining some momentum. It’s an ambitious project. Not just from a technical perspective, in terms of the actual plant conversion, but perhaps even more so from a logistical perspective. (more…)

What’s a promising way of removing carbon from the atmosphere? Scientists attending climate talks in Poznan, Poland, are trying to sell the idea of biochar, a type of charcoal produced when biomass like agricultural and forest residue is “baked” in the absense of oxygen. This process, called pyrolysis, also produces syngas and bio-oil that can be used as a renewable fuel. But it’s the char or “black carbon” that’s capturing scientists’ imagination. The pyrolysis process locks carbon into the char, which remains stable for hundreds, potentially thousands of years. (more…)

My Clean Break column today takes a closer look at efforts by Ontario Power Generation to convert some of its coal-fired generating assets into biomass-burning power plants, including potentially several units at its Nanticoke Generating Station – North America’s largest coal plant. The provincial Liberal government has vowed to shut down the last of Ontario’s coal plants by 2014, and biomass conversion is being seriously considered as a way of partially getting there. It’s an ambitious undertaking, given the scale of such a project, but successfully making it happen would solve many problems with one solution. (more…)

The U.S. Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory will use a biomass gasification system from Vancouver-based Nexterra Energy Corp. to save on energy costs and reduce its carbon footprint. The system is being purchased by Johnson Controls Inc., which has been given an $89 million contract with Oak Ridge to deploy a number of building management and energy-conservation measures. (more…)