Biomass
Nova Scotia Power and Biomass
Nova Scotia makes great use of biomass. Large and medium-sized pulp and paper companies use wood chips to create electricity to run their mills. Some companies sell excess power to Nova Scotia Power where it contributes to the power we use everyday. There are 75 megawatts of electricity generated from biomass in the province.
Biomass is wood, woodwaste, peat and plants which contain energy and can be burned to create heat or electricity. Biomass is renewable as living plants can be replaced through new growth and is another source of energy which can be used to generate electricity. Biogas is a bi-product of biomass; an example of biogas is methane gas derived from solid waste landfills.
If you have a fireplace, the wood you burn is a biomass fuel. It is still used widely around the world in developing and developed countries alike. In fact, in countries like Finland, USA and Sweden the per capita biomass energy used is higher than it is in India, China or in Asia.
Biomass does not add carbon dioxide to the atmosphere as it absorbs the same amount of carbon in growing as it releases when consumed as a fuel.
Biomass - Thermal Conversion
Biomass refers to energy resources derived from organic matter, including wood, wood waste, agricultural waste, and other living-cell material that can be burned to produce heat. It also includes algae, sewage, and other organic substances that can be used to make energy through chemical processes.
Biomass use in Nova Scotia includes firewood in over 100,000 homes, a 22 MW biomass electrical co-generation facility in Brooklyn, Hants County, pulp and paper plants, two sawmills producing electricity, two pellet manufacturing plants, numerous greenhouse operations, sawmill lumber drying kilns and wood-related industries that power their facilities with production waste. Institutional users include the
The exact amount of wood used in the province for energy is difficult to estimate because so many individual users produce their own and there is also no data collection system in place to track consumption.
Biogas - Biological Conversion
When bacteria digest nutrients in an anaerobic environment, a burnable gas containing between 60 and 70 percent methane is produced. Anaerobic digestion is becoming a key method for both waste reduction and recovery of a renewable fuel - biogas - and other valuable co-products. Biogas can be used in factory boilers and engine generator sets to produce electricity and heat. In 2004, Nova Scotia Power contracted with Highland Energy Inc. to supply two megawatts of electricity to the provincial power grid from landfill gas produced at Halifax's former Sackville Regional Landfill site.
For more information about bioenergy, click here to visit the Natural Resources Canada - Discover the Production and Uses of Biogas webpage or click here to visit the CANBIO - Canadian Bioenergy Association website.
If you have additional information relevant to this page please send it to info@energyconsultant.ca noting that it will be reviewed for content prior to any posting.
We acknowledge the NS Department of Energy & Nova Scotia Power for contributing information to this page. Their websites are www.gov.ns.ca/energy/AbsPage.aspx and www.nspower.ca.
Related Articles
N.S. To Invest $14.8 Million More To Keep Newpage Idling
PORT HAWKESBURY — With $14.8 million Friday, Premier Darrell Dexter bought the Strait area more time. Union, civic and woods industry leaders anxiously awaiting confirmation of a sale and operating agreement for the former NewPage pulp and paper mill in Point Tupper breathed a collective sigh of relief upon hearing the premier’s announcement. The money includes $5.8 million to keep the plant in a hot-idle state until September and $9 million to continue buying and stockpiling wood from contractors who supply the financially insolvent mill. In total, the province has now chipped in $27.3 million since last fall to keep the plant sale-ready and protect its wood supply while negotiations continue with potential buyer Pacific West Commercial Corp, an affiliate of Stern Partners Inc. of Vancouver. When asked whether the province may be throwing good money after bad, Dexter said the alternative would be to see the plant torn down and trucked to some other jurisdiction, denuding northern Nova Scotia of hundreds of direct jobs and hundreds of millions of dollars of annual economic activity. “Although negotiations with Stern (Partners) are taking longer than hoped, I am optimistic that we will secure a deal that will see the mill back in business in this community and sustainable for years to come,” Dexter told community members gathered at the Port Hawkesbury Civic Centre.
The province will also allow the mill to access another $10 million from a May 2006 agreement it had with former operator Stora Enso, compensating the company for not being able to provide a previously agreed upon amount of wood fibre from Crown land.For the owner of Delaney and Son Pulpwood Ltd. near Cheticamp, Friday’s announcement meant he can call five employees working in Western Canada and offer them employment back home once the logging roads open this spring. “If they had not announced this, more workers would have gone because of the uncertainty,” said Paul Delaney, who employs 17 people in his logging operation. “It must mean that they are getting somewhere close to striking a deal with the Stern group.” Stern Partners remains in negotiations with the union representing most of the plant’s roughly 600 workers and is also talking with the province about other possible subsidies and access to fibre on Crown land, and with Nova Scotia Power regarding energy rates. A Stern spokesperson declined to comment while talks are ongoing. On Tuesday, Stern Partners notified the provincial Utility and Review Board that it will be seeking a reduced power rate through negotiations with Nova Scotia Power.
For at least one of the mill’s employees, none of the developments have changed his plans to head west for work. The man, in his late 40s, spoke on condition of anonymity. “I have 30-plus years in there, and the way it is now, there’s not much of my pension left,” he said. “I don’t blame Stern (Partners) for not wanting to take over the pension shortfall, they’re not responsible for it. But if I want to retire at 58, while I still got some health left, I’m going to have to go to Alberta and work.” The man said the underfunded pension plan has been paying out to its retired members throughout the shutdown but very little money has been put back in. He estimated his pension is now about 40 per cent underfunded. Archie MacLachlan, vice-president of Local 972 of the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union, which represents most of the plant’s workforce, welcomed the announced funding. He declined to comment on whether concessions in pay or benefits are being offered or if Stern is seeking them. Stern has expressed interest in operating only the newer supercalendered paper machine at the mill. It is expected that employment would be less than half of what it was, but harvesting operations could remain fairly stable. A large percentage of the mill’s wood fibre used to be brought in from outside the province.
According to documents in NewPage Port Hawkesbury’s creditor protection filing before the mill was idled last September, the company employed about 600 people in the plant and 400 through its woods operations, and it directly contributed over $200 million a year to the Nova Scotia economy. Two weeks ago, court-appointed monitor Mathew Harris, managing partner of Ernst & Young in Halifax, said claims against the former mill operator are much higher than originally estimated, with guarantor claimants owed almost $3 billion, pension deficiencies of roughly $140 million and unsecured creditors owed about $20 million.
http://thechronicleherald.ca/business/74398-ns-invest-148-million-more-keep-newpage-idling
Viridis buys closed Upper Musquodoboit mill
Viridis Energy Inc. has completed its purchase of the assets of the Enligna wood pellet mill in Upper Musquodoboit.
Enligna Canada went into receivership last August owing Nova Scotia taxpayers $ 2.7 million. Fifty people lost their jobs.
Vancouver-based Viridis said Monday it bought 20 buildings on four properties with a total of 157 acres and a separate 22-acre wood lot. The facilities house five pellet presses.
Enligna took over the mill from MacTara Ltd. It was the largest wood pellet manufacturer in Atlantic Canada with the capacity to produce 110,000 tonnes of wood pellets annually.
Viridis said it has created a subsidiary — 3260526 NS Limited — to handle the purchase, which will be financed through a $2.5-million short-term loan.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scotia/story/2012/02/07/ns-viridis-wood-pellet.html
NSP MOVING AHEAD WITH BIOMASS PLANT
The prospective new ownership of the NewPage Port Hawkesbury paper mill doesn’t change Nova Scotia Power Inc.’s plans to operate a 60-megawatt biomass co-generation facility there.
“We’re in the process of figuring out how it will be operated,” utility spokeswoman Neera Ritcey said in an interview Thursday.
“It has the ability to be operated as a stand-alone.”
On Wednesday, NewPage monitor Ernst & Young Inc. and New York investment bank Sanabe & Associates, LLC announced they will negotiate the sale of the money-losing mill exclusively with Pacific West Commercial Corp., an affiliate of Stern Partners Inc. of Vancouver.
The mill has been idle since September, when it and its U.S. parent company, NewPage Corp., applied for creditor protection.
The $200-million biomass plan, which has been criticized by environmentalists as unsustainable, was approved by the provincial Utility and Review board in 2010.
The plant, scheduled to be in service in 2013, could supply three per cent of the province’s electricity requirement, enough to power 30,000 homes.
The initial plan called for Nova Scotia Power to fund the project, which would be built and operated by NewPage.
But the agreement included provisions allowing the utility to take over the project in the event the mill closed.
Ritcey said Thursday that all biomass plant construction activities planned for 2011 was completed and it is on schedule.
Nova Scotia Power was pleased that Stern plans to operate the mill, she said.
“It’s great news for the community.”
But she said exactly how the biomass plant will be operated will be determined in the course of discussions with Stern.
Stern is negotiating with several groups, through the monitor, to satisfy a number of conditions before the sale is finalized and is brought to the court for approval.
Mathew Harris of Ernst & Young said Wednesday those conditions include labour, fibre supply and energy agreements satisfactory to Stern, which plans to shut down the mill’s newsprint line and focus on its high-grade, supercalendered paper line.
Ritcey said Nova Scotia Power remains committed to the biomass project as part of its efforts to meet the government’s renewable energy standards compliance plan, and new ownership of the mill doesn’t change that commitment.
http://thechronicleherald.ca/business/49079-nsp-moving-ahead-biomass-plant
N.S. MILL SOLD TO VANCOUVER ENERGY FIRM
The former Enligna Canada Inc. wood pellet mill in Middle Musquodoboit is being sold to Viridis Energy Inc. of Vancouver, subject to court approval.
“The receiver is going to recommend that the court approve the sale,” Philip Clarke of PricewaterhouseCoopers Inc., Enlinga’s receiver, said in an interview Thursday.
Clarke said he expected the recommendation will go to the court sometime in January.
Enligna was placed in receivership in August, owing Nova Scotia Business Inc., the province’s business development agency, almost $3 million.
Unsecured creditors are owed almost $1 million.
Clarke wouldn’t discuss details of the sale pending court approval but said Nova Scotia Business Inc. didn’t oppose the receiver’s recommendation.
Viridis, which announced on its website in December that the receiver had accepted it bid, plans to reopen the mill, he said.
The assets acquired by Viridis include 20 buildings on four properties, with a total of 63 hectares, and a separate 8.8-hectare woodlot.
The facilities house five pellet presses, with the capacity to produce 110,000 tonnes of wood pellets annually.
Viridis is a publicly traded alternative energy company specializing in agricultural and wood waste biomass.
Its holdings include Cypress Pacific Marketing and Okanagan Pellet Co.
(berskine@herald.ca)
http://thechronicleherald.ca/business/49075-ns-mill-sold-vancouver-energy-firm
N.S. POWER GIVEN RIGHTS TO CROWN WOOD
BIOMASS PLANT WILL OPERATE EVEN IF NEWPAGE FAILS
A critic of Nova Scotia Power's biomass plant under construction in Point Tupper said the utility has been given the right to harvest 175,000 tonnes of biomass on Crown land if the NewPage mill goes out of business.
Neal Livingston, a small hydro producer and an environmentalist, said most ratepayers don't realize that if NewPage goes out of business, the province has agreed to give Nova Scotia Power access to the wood needed for the plant.
"Well, it's like a corporate takeover. They have been given first dibs on a million acres of Crown land and NSP is effectively in the controlling position," he said.
Nova Scotia Power has said it intends to finish the $200-million biomass plant, even if the NewPage pulp and paper mill shuts down permanently.
Livingston said the power utility has no experience in forestry, but his strongest criticism is reserved for the government's decision to handover a big chunk of the province's wood supply with no public discussion.
"This should be a complete scandal that the government gave them this right to Crown land," he said.
"I mean, anybody who would want to buy NewPage is suddenly buying them without their biomass supply and without the ability to generate their own power if they want to do that. So, effectively, it's a much diminished asset."
A Natural Resources Department spokesman said the province has agreed to supply wood from its Crown land to keep the mill's boiler running if it does cease operations.
Premier Darrell Dexter said the province is working with NewPage to try and ensure the mill stays in business.
Late Tuesday, Dexter confirmed the company has filed for bankruptcy.
The biomass plant is being built to meet new provincial rules that say 25 per cent of the province's electricity must come from renewable sources by 2015.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scotia/story/2011/09/07/ns-biomass-nova-scotia-power.html
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