Canfor Pulp Ready for Next Phase of Bio-Fuel Project
Prince George, B.C.- With $13 million dollars in grant money from the Sustainable Development Technology Canada (SDTC) fund, Canfor Pulp’s bio-crude project can take a leap forward.
“It’s going to allow us to advance the technology and really give us the means to make a full evaluation of how to implement the technology on a commercial scale” says Martin Pudlas, Canfor Pulp’s Vice President of Operations.
The project , in partnership with Licella Fibre Fuels of Australia, is attempting to make bi-crude from the waste stream of the pulp process.
Pudlas says the funds announced earlier this week, will “further de-risk the technology, we have run three revisions of pilot plants and what we need to do now is make it run on a commercial scale and to make it run 365 days a year, 24-7 versus a pilot plant that you would run for 8 hours and then shut it down. So it’s really about making the process continuous , it’s about industrialising it so you’ve got the reliability in the design that you are going to need to run it around the clock.”
Pudlas says access to fuel stock either for the pulp industry or bio-crude, is not a concern “We still see the highest value chain for a log today to make dimensional lumber from it, to make pulp and paper, to make green renewable power and then, this would be the last revenue stream, which would really close the cycle and provide us with low carbon transportation fuels to make the forest industry in B.C. carbon neutral. So we will need a strong sawmill, solid wood industry, we still need a strong pulp and paper industry, but the one thing this technology will give us the advantage on, is enhanced utilization of the forests.”
He says some of the species that may not be harvested today, may be the stock used as a potential feed stock to make the bio-crude.
Pudlas says detailed engineering on the project will continue ” We’re going to continue to work with our off-take partners, we’re going to work on the logistics, and how we’re going to transport the product when we make it so there’s a number of avenues we still need to do our engineering and due diligence on. In short, it’s really about ensuring that we can run the process on a continuous basis, that we know we have a good off-take partner who wants to buy it, and that we get the crude in a state where it’s easy to transport Those are the big three challenges we have.”
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