UNBC Invites Public to Tour New Bioenergy Facility

Friday, May 14, 2010 03:57 AM

Prince George, B.C.- The University of Northern B.C. will be offering free public tours of its bio-energy project tomorrow.

The tours will be offered from 11:00 am to 1 p.m. and will offer visitors a unique view of the bio energy facility’s inner workings.

Visitors will be able to park in Lot C and access the construction site via the I.K. Barber Enhanced Forestry Lab. No one under the age of 16 is permitted on the site and visitors must dress appropriately for a working construction site.

Today , UNBC will be officially announcing the awarding of a 5 year contract for the fuel supply for the biomass gasification system.

The UNBC bioenergy program is currently comprised of a wood pellet facility at the Enhanced Forestry Lab and the gasification system that is now under construction.

Funding for both projects has been provided by the Governments of BC and Canada through the Knowledge Infrastructure Program, the Innovative Clean Energy Fund, the Public Sector Energy Conservation Agreement, and the Community Economic Diversification Initiative.

Along with upgrades to the campus heating and cooling distribution system, the total value is just over $20 million. It is expected that once complete, the system will reduce the University’s dependence on natural gas by 85%.

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Posted on Friday, May 14, 2010 03:57 AM in News by 250 News

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Comments

Posted by: charles on May 14 2010 6:59 AM

Lots of fun this borrowing and spending and sending the bill off into the future.

I read an interesting article on the internet a while ago which posed the following question:

"Should one generation consume beyond its means and either expect or hope that the next generations will somehow pick up the tab?"

Posted by: lunarguy on May 14 2010 7:27 AM

Plus the classrooms will still be way too hot or too cold. In the 9 hears I have been there, this is the 4th summer that they still don't have the A/C turned on, as it is being enhanced :)

Posted by: metalman on May 14 2010 8:06 AM

A little more info for the average non construction type person as to: "dress appropriately" would probably be helpful.
I would advise at a minimum, safety boots, but a hard hat, or bump cap, and safety glasses would not be a bad idea either.
metalman.

Posted by: Resident on May 14 2010 8:13 AM

Great to burn pellets. Unfortunately pellets are far more expensive than natural gas and there are also the particulate emissions and ash issues with burning wood pellets. Many of the pellet plants in operation burn natural gas to dry the wood before manufacturing pellets. Along with the trucking of raw material, etc, this hardly makes pellets carbon neutral.

Posted by: seamutt on May 14 2010 8:36 AM

Just another money sucking scam tagging along with the money sucking C02 scam. Makes one wonder about the quality of any research from UNBC.

Posted by: lunarguy on May 14 2010 10:22 AM

In many ways all this is mandated by the government and has nothing to do with research. UNBC and all government funded bodies have to be carbon neutral this year. So either you come up with energy systems and process that meet the government's description of carbon neutral or the University has to pay $25 per tonne to a government created agency that in theory is making up the carbon footprint.

Same with the school district. I think they are paying close to $300,000 this year back to the government to offset their carbon footprint. No research, but lots of government.

Posted by: northman on May 14 2010 10:41 AM

The theory behind the concept is worth examining however..
-I saw a presentation already with UNBC's pellet heating plan.. If UNBC was a business that had to generate and protect revenue this plan would not fly and the people hatching these ideas would be fired on the spot.
This is why office buildings ect.. who have bills to pay arent adopting pellet heating.
-If you factor in all the fuel burned for grinding in the bush, trucking from the bush to pellet plant. Trucking from pellet plant to UNBC you really arent carbon neutral. Deisl emissions are more harmfull then natural gas. As well you need to store the pellets.
-The whole pellet idea is a great idea and concept but it only really is working for europe in offsetting large coal fired electricty generating operations.
-If you want to utilize wood heat cut the whole pellet out of the equation and get a large wood boiler with a decent smoke scrubber.

Posted by: metalman on May 14 2010 11:30 AM

Along with Seamutt, I too think that this carbon neutral b.s. is yet another bandwagon for the p.c. to jump on. I like the summaries provided above by northman,
a lot less carbon would be consumed if they could just burn wood waste, stumps, logs, anything else that burns, and scrub the smoke Hey Presto! an incinerator!
Don't worry though, the planet will be that much greener, because this bioenergy plant at UNBC is also a LEED project, so,
"it's all good, right?"
metalman.

Posted by: lunarguy on May 14 2010 11:47 AM

I totally agree with you about the so called benefits of this versus reality. I believe the cost of pellets was going to be $30,000 to $50,000 a year higher per year than the current cost of natural gas to feed the same buildings.

Posted by: northman on May 14 2010 1:00 PM

Just to add a few more comments.
-Pellets were never meant to be burned in "Pellet Form". Although the pellet stove carved a niche market out of this a bit of an excpetion and works for the consumer market.
The main reason for pelletizing the wood is for transportation.
Once the pellets go to a large power generating station they are pulverized into a fine powder and that wood powder is blown into a coal dust blast furnace which basicaly creates a dust explosion because of the mixture of heat fuel and oxygen.
If your not grining the pellet into wood dust your not getting 100% efficency out of it. Anyone who owns a pellet furnace knows this. Im not sure if UNBC will be pulverizing or burning the whole pellet.
-IMO UNBC would just be better off to buy existing Konus furnace technology the mills use to burn wood waste which heats dry kilns.At a fraction of the cost. Hog fuel and planer shavings cost alot less and is more readliy available then going the pellet route..As well the Konus systems have exeptionaly good emissions scrubbers.
Basiclaly my whole point is why go through the middle man (pellets) when you can get wood strait from the source and shut a beehive burner down in the process.

Posted by: metalman on May 14 2010 2:48 PM

Yeah, but the term "BIO ENERGY" sounds so natural, organic, and green, it's gotta be good for us, don't you think?
metalman.

Posted by: northman on May 14 2010 2:52 PM

You pretty much wrapped that one up metalman lol..

Posted by: Tudenom on May 14 2010 3:16 PM

There's two separate wood burning systems at UNBC. The small Forestry Lab system uses pellets but the big Biomass system uses hog fuel and both have excellent scrubber systems.

Posted by: seamutt on May 14 2010 3:42 PM

So who is behind using pellets? Is there a money trail there somewhere. As for heating and cooling, just look at all the glass. Real smart, but hey its only taxpayers money. But again who is getting this money?

Posted by: drivechain on May 14 2010 6:16 PM

I suggest that everyone who is skeptical, criticizes or thinks that it is a scam take the tour and enlighten oneself. Prince George is a forest based community and something has to be done with the waste generated by sawmills and logging, we should have been doing this 35 years ago. All of the waste is not suitable for the Pulp and Paper Industry. There is nothing wrong with burning this waste and obtaining energy from byproducts that would otherwise be left to rot in the bush or buried in a landfill releasing the same amount of carbon plus methane gas. Well maybe we should just stay with the good old proven fossil fuels and complain about the cost of natural gas or the prices at the gas station.

Drivechain

Posted by: drivechain on May 14 2010 6:26 PM

PS

We could always go back to the good old Beehive burners another old and proven method.

Posted by: gus on May 15 2010 11:18 PM

"BIO ENERGY"

It's like BioFood. Also like BioSolids.

Eat BioFood.

Create BioEnergy

And BioWaste made of BioSolids, BioLiquids, and BioGases.

Some of the BioWaste can be spread on the BioSoil to grow more BioFood.

It's the BioCircle of BioLife. :-)