Pellet Power!
Each year, more than one million tonnes of wood pellets – made of waste wood from B.C. forests – are shipped to Europe to meet a growing demand for a clean-burning biofuel. Composed entirely of compressed sawdust or forest residues, wood pellets generate far fewer emissions than conventional firewood and are the subject of a unique research effort within UBC’s Clean Energy Research Centre.
“The forest industry in B.C. has supported the sale of wood pellets to Europe for some time,” says Dr. Xiaotao (Tony) Bi, a member of the Biomass and Bioenergy Research Group (BBRG) and a professor in UBC Vancouver’s Department of Chemical & Biological Engineering. “They are widely used for home and district heating and power generation and they are an important future feedstock for biorefineries. But they also incur some major storage and transportation problems.”
For full story, click here: http://www.sustain.ubc.ca/story-package/pellet-power