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Prairie Clean Energy: Fueling Change with Biomass
Above: The yearly fall event PCE aims to change; flax straw being burnt on the Canadian prairies.
PRAIRIE CLEAN ENERGY: FUELING CHANGE WITH
BIOMASS
Chris Allinotte, WRLA
For Trevor Thomas, Founder and CRO of Prairie Clean Energy, where there’s smoke, there’s potential.
Growing up in rural Saskatchewan, Thomas was familiar with the annual sights and scents of burning flax residue. “One thing you know is, coming from the prairies in the fall,” he says, “you can’t get lost because you can just follow the fires out in the fields. Flax straw has a woody-based fibre, so farmers can’t till it back from the fields, and it won’t be able to grow over the next several years—so it’s always been burnt.”
Seeing all this organic material literally go up in smoke, Thomas realized that there was a lot of potential heat energy going to waste. “Farmers are burning over a million tonnes of it a year.” And with that thought, Prairie Clean Energy was born.
Created as a start-up in 2020, Prairie Clean Energy’s model is taking unutilized flax straw and unutilized wood/forestry residue and transforming it into pelletized biomass fuel. While PCE benefits from having readily available source material to make fuel pellets, the farmers themselves get the opportunity to earn additional income from their sale of straw—not to mention the positive impact that converting this material, rather than burning it out in the field, can have on the environment.
POWERING A CLEANER ENERGY FUTURE
After researching the potential of flax straw as a fuel source, Thomas established Prairie Clean Energy to bridge the gap between flax farmers and those seeking clean, reliable biomass fuel. Since then, Prairie Clean Energy has grown into a fully realized biomass business, with three biomass fuel product lines (wood, flax straw, and ag residue), and has built partnerships with farmers and organizations across Canada and the world to deliver high-quality biomass fuel to customers across the world. In addition to satisfying a global need for biomass fuel to feed power plants, PCE is helping take on the challenges of climate change in a way that also makes great economic sense for Canadian farmers and manufacturers.
In conjunction with the government of Saskatchewan through grants, and working with University of Saskatchewan and University of British Columbia, PCE is utilizing top-tier research to explore the viability of various agricultural waste products as potential fuel sources.
The company’s vision is to be Canada’s global bioenergy leader, producing wood and flax pellets from previously unutilized sources. And from all accounts they are well on their way. As organizations and governments begin the slow-moving shift away from reliance on fossil fuels, companies like PCE are producing an energy efficient, renewable option by turning waste products into biomass.
THE THREE TYPES OF BIOMASS PELLETS
Wood Pellets
In Saskatchewan, where PCE is located, the Boreal Forest is 410,000 km2 in size—about the size of Sweden. Working with this abundant natural resource, the provincial forestry industry creates more than 700,000 tonnes of wood waste annually. This is where Prairie Clean Energy comes in, turning this refuse, which would otherwise be disposed of, into pellets ideal for burning in biomass power plants.
Ag Pellets
Canada has more than 48 million tonnes of unutilized agricultural residue every year. Crops like barley, canola, canary, hemp, wheat and more, produce organic waste that can’t be utilized and would typically be discarded or burned. This residue can be densified and transformed into clean, renewable biomass pellets. PCE is the leader in this space.
Flax Straw Pellets
With their patent-pending process, PCE is the only company in the world that is producing biomass pellets from a portion of the 750,000 tonnes of flax straw produced on the Canadian prairies each year. Taking into account the farms in the US prairies, there are over 1,000,000 tonnes of flax straw that would otherwise go to waste. Pellets created from flax straw burn cleanly and hotly, generating very low ash content and a high net calorific value.
Above: PCE's patent-pending flax straw biomass pellets that burn cleanly and have a high net calorific value. Left and right: A Canadian producer bulldozing flax straw into piles for burning in the fall.
FLAX TO THE FUTURE
In January of this year, PCE announced the opening of a dedicated flax pellet production plant in 2023. As 2022 progresses, the company is figuring out supply chain logistics and conducting due diligence on the highly specialized equipment required to meet customer needs. PCE is doing the proper footwork now in order to be ready to deliver to customers waiting for flax biomass pellets around the world, including RENOVA, the only Japanese publicly-traded power generation company exclusively focused on renewable energy.
While biofuel power plants seem to be ramping up around the globe, particularly in Asia, Europe, and South America, there is still much untapped potential here in Canada to start using this abundant and renewable resource.
“I think there’s an opportunity there,” says Thomas, “to keep some of the coal plants running, but using pellets as an alternative fuel source.”
As the company expands, it’s only a matter of time before PCE’s attractive value proposition, trading dollars for agricultural and wood waste catches the eye of farmers in Manitoba and Alberta. Thomas speaks optimistically about the potential for growth.
“Down the road, we hope there’s opportunity to open up in Manitoba and Alberta. We’re building relationships in those provinces. I don’t look at it as a single province—I think of the Prairies as a whole.”
Beyond expanding their relationships and territory, PCE is also busy researching additional fuel alternatives.
“One thing we want to make sure of, we always look at waste as a fuel source. That’s one of our main criteria. Flax straw is a woody fibre and that makes it easier to explain around the world—what it is that we have, and what we’re offering.”
BIOMASS: FUEL FOR THOUGHT
What does biomass production have to do with the lumber industry?
For Trevor and PCE, they are looking at working within the lumber industry to educate manufacturers and wood product producers about putting their waste products to work.
“It’s an opportunity to start a recycling program, or even processing that fuel right on site. It doesn’t have to go to landfill. It’s a product that’s needed and wanted.”
For Prairie Clean Energy the future is bright. While there are undeniable environmental benefits to diverting agricultural waste, the real benefit is an alternative energy fuel source that is only going to grow more important as the world looks for ways to shift away from its reliance on fossil fuels.
In considering the future of the biomass fuel industry Thomas remarked, “It’s not a replacement, but I believe the bio-side has a place in the energy sector.”
For Trevor Thomas, and the team at Prairie Clean Energy, the future is burning brightly (and hotter than wood!)
If you’re interested in learning more, or partnering with Prairie Clean Energy, you can contact them at info@prairiecleanenergy.com, or visit their website at www.prairiecleanenergy.com.
MADE IN CANADA
MADE IN CANADA
