Project to Commercialize Agricultural Biomass for Combustion Energy
Steering Committee - January 11, 2010 Facilitated Session Notes

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Note: These notes are the result of a facilitated brainstorming session held as part of the Jan. 11, 2010 Steering Committee meeting. The facilitators – Kim DeKlein and Carolyn Puterbough, OMAFRA – asked committee members to identify and then prioritize activities that must be undertaken to assess the feasibility of a commercial agricultural biomass industry in Ontario. This was the first step in Steering Committee work plan development.

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1. What are the core priorities that will need to be examined to develop a biomass value chain in Ontario?

Communicating/Marketing

• Food vs alternative uses
• Promotion to growers
• Investor attraction
• Economic benefits to Ontario
  • Residents
  • Rural community development
• Lessons learned from corn ethanol

Policy and Regulations

• Transportation
• Finance
• Provincial and federal government regulations (including pest management)
• Environmental regulations (e.g. definition of 'waste')
• Trade
• Food vs alternative uses
• Optimizing on-farm opportunities
• Land use planning
• Rural economic development opportunities
• Link to First Nations energy development ( MEI priority)

Infrastructure

• Existing supply
• Infrastructure synergies
• On-farm storage
• Centralized storage (co-op structure/framework)
• Opportunities to modify existing infrastructure
• Transportation from farm to aggregator
• Private investment
• Aggregation – where to start?
• How it operates – business structure

Environmental

• Environmental/community impacts of transportation (e.g. truck traffic)
• Carbon credits
• Sustainability standards/certification
• Long-term unintended consequences
• Environmental benefits
• Ash end product
  • Co-product
  • Land application
• Environmental impacts of various crops – sustainability of farm unit
• Life cycle analysis/assessment

Agronomics

• Rotational cycles
• Cultivar selection
• Establishment cost
• Pest management
• Harvesting
• Soil stewardship/sustainability
• Growing regions and yields
• Land base type used for best yield

Economics

• Risk management
• Financing
• Achieving maximum return to the farm sector – max on-farm value-added
• Other end users beyond OPG
• Competing uses/alternative uses
• Price and margin – up and down the value chain
• Regional and provincial economic impacts
• Job creation
• Economics of potential co-benefits
• Carbon credits
• Business model feasibility for aggregator (co-op, company, not-for-profit etc.)

Research

• Risk management for new technologies
• Development of co-products
• Impacts of storage on characteristics/specs of biomass
• Fuel specs/combustion research for OPG and other end users
• Definition of sustainability
• Research re: feasibility
• Moving to distributed energy – alternative to OPG
• Co-firing ag biomass with wood
• Co-firing ag biomass with natural gas

Human Resources

• Labour/training
• Establishment of green jobs
• Health and safety (transportation, storage, combustion)

Implementation

• Staging/developing timelines
• How to operationalize
• Demonstrations: on–farm; pelletizing plant

2. What Activities Should the Steering Committee Start With?

1. Technical feasibility – burning/tech specs
2. Identify crop priorities
3. Power Purchase Agreement (with Ontario Power Authority)
4. Determining adequate aggregator process
5. Coordinating research results (pulling in missing data)
6. Identifying other research needs, identifying sustainability standards / certification
7. Working group – share information with stakeholders

Workplan Priority 1: Major Research Proposal

Working group needs to be established for major research proposal

• Feb 15 deadline for submission of application to Agricultural Adaptation Council (AAC) – matching funds from OPG
• Gathering what is known, what is needed (research)
• Need to look at risk management at farm and aggregator level

Working Group

• Annette Anderson (OMAFRA)
• Gord Surgenor (OAFT)
• Nicolle Butcher (OPG)
• David Armitage (OFA)
• John Kelly (Erie Innovations and Commercialization)
• Helma Geerts (OMAFRA)
• Barry Hill (OSCIA and First Nations Agrigroup)
• Rene Van Acker (U of G)

On which crops should research be focused?

• Poplar
• Miscanthus
• Sorghum
• Willow
• Switchgrass
• Prairie polyculture (big bluestem, switchgrass, Indian grass)

Research Project Outcomes

• Economics/feasibility analysis
• Life cycle analysis (including below ground biomass, organic matter analysis)
• Sustainability (definition)
• Risk management model
• On-farm applied research
  • Polycultures
  • Rotational strategies
  • Research would involve large sized plots
• Burn characteristics/combustion analysis
• Aggregator study – using existing infrastructure

Workplan Priority 2: Infrastructure Issues

Identify the infrastructure gaps and look for solutions

• Harvesting equipment
• Storage
• Transport
• Processing
• Aggregating
  • Specific or variable inputs
  • Establish BTU consistency, grindability, chemical specs
• Consider adapting existing infrastructure
• Learn from US biomass system
• OPG volume requirements: up to 2 million tonnes of biomass per year from all sources

Workplan Priority 3: Economics

Calculate cost of production (crops) and assess economic feasibility of biomass value chain

• Competing land uses re: price/net return
• Economic opportunities for First Nations lands
• Research economics of production and aggregation
• Rural economic development and job creation opportunities;, could help to leverage funds
• Identify thresholds/milestones for determining commercialization feasibility
• Net profitability models

Action Items

1. Research Working Group established (Gord Surgeoner, Nicolle Butcher, John Kelly, Barry Hill, Rene Van Acker, David Armitage, Helma Geerts, Annette Anderson) to prepare a proposal for addressing key research gaps, for application to the Agricultural Adaptation Council (application deadline: Feb. 15/10), with matching funding from OPG. Gord Surgeoner will lead the working group. The proposal will be submitted through the Ontario Soil and Crop Improvement Association.

2. Helma Geerts to prepare 1-page summary of existing research to include with proposal.

3. Proposal to be circulated to full Steering Committee and discussed at next Steering Committee meeting.

4. Beyond this research proposal, the working group is to identify additional research needs (e.g. those identified in the facilitation session).

5. Work plan development to be continued at next meeting.