Finland and Canada Biorefining Potential

CANADA

On an annual basis, BIOCAP estimates that Canada’s “available” renewal resource residuals are

sufficient to account for 18–27 percent of the energy that Canada derives from fossil fuels.

Given Canada’s rugged but fragile terrain and croplands, there is considerable debate over costs as well as energy-effective and environmentally friendly techniques to access available renewable resources.

The logistical conditions in Finland, Sweden and Central European countries favor the Scandinavian harvesting and forestry residuals collecting techniques. Wood and residuals from thinnings can be taken to biorefineries.

FINLAND

The rising costs of petrochemical-derived products and concerns over global warming are also
driving a re-evaluation of possibilities using new and existing methods employed elsewhere. For
instance, it is quite common in Finland to harvest significant levels of slash to produce heat and
power.

Driven by tax policies that penalize fossil fuel use, a large infrastructure of combined heat and power operations exists to utilize this material and has led the development of dedicated forestry equipment for the sorting and bundling of forestry residuals.

Harvesting of precommercial thinnings in the management of reforested areas is another possible source of biomass. Other operators are currently looking at using short-rotation, plantation-based, woody crops such as willow (Canada).