| | Pilot testing is a crucial step in moving innovative bioenergy technologies from lab prototypes to farm businesses. Two national programs are helping the agricultural industry to take this step.
The programs are: the Energy Co-generation from Agricultural and Municipal Wastes Program (ECoAMu), and the Environmental Technology Assessment for Agriculture Program (ETAA). All the projects supported under these two programs are taking place on farms. The project sites are located across Canada so people can see how the technologies perform in their own area.
“The focus for both programs is to demonstrate and evaluate the environmental and economic performance of advanced prototypes of technologies or management systems that could be used by farmers and commercialized by industry in the next five or six years,” says Dr. Carlos Monreal of Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada. He is the lead and scientific authority for both programs.
“The main objective of the ECoAMu program is to demonstrate advanced co-generation pilot plants that could help us to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and to progress toward a more sustainable agriculture industry,” says Monreal. He explains, “Cogeneration is the production of electrical and thermal energy from the biological and thermochemical conversion of biomass. Biomass, in this case, can mean livestock manures, municipal solid waste or straw, for example.”
Between 2001 and 2006, the ECoAMu program allocated a total of $970,000 toward the construction of five pilot plants. Four involve anaerobic digesters using manure to produce biogas, electricity and heat, and one involves gasification of a mixture of wheat straw and municipal wastes to produce synthetic gas and methanol.
The ETAA program’s objective is to assess innovative and sustainable technologies for adoption by farmers. This $10-million program, operating from 2003 to 2008, is providing funding for 13 projects, which are all underway. Each project involves two or more environmental technologies that relate to one or more of the following areas: animal wastes and manures; animal production; crop nutrients; pest management; and renewable energy.
Several ETAA projects have a bioenergy component. For instance, one project is using pyrolysis to convert chicken manure into a bioliquid. The bioliquid can be used as a biofuel or as a source of chemicals for the pharmaceutical or chemical industries. Another project is using a portable pilot plant, which can be moved from farm to farm, to produce biodiesel from distressed canola seed.
Monreal notes, “With the ETAA program, we tried to create some synergies between industry, farmer organizations and scientists from Agriculture Canada and universities so that we would have a multi-disciplinary, multi-organization team implementing [and evaluating] each project.”
The researchers are measuring 11 environmental indicators (e.g. net energy use, pathogen hazard) to compare the new technologies with conventional technologies. They are also using life cycle analysis to calculate the energy, economic and environmental impact of the new technologies at the point where the technology is being used as well as upstream and downstream in the technology’s life cycle.
The project results from both programs will help farmers and others to make decisions on adopting the new technologies and could help policy makers to develop policies and programs to encourage adoption. The results will be disseminated in various ways, including technical reports, presentations to farm organizations, and web-based documents.
Monreal emphasizes that the new technologies offer significant long-term benefits to farmers and society. “For example, there is a tremendous potential with manures. Provincial regulations about loading rates of manure on land are causing producers to look for other ways to use their manure. And excess manure application rates can cause water and air quality problems. The technologies that add value to manure, like producing bioenergy and biofertilizer, also reduce agriculture’s environmental footprint…. [As well] the technologies contribute to rural development, for example, by providing jobs in designing, constructing and maintaining the facilities and in packaging and selling products like biofertilizer.”
He adds, “From the technology side I don’t see many impediments [to adoption]. The technologies are there. They just need to be fine-tuned a little bit for the different regions, and that’s what is being done right now.”
Perhaps the major barrier to adoption will be the high capital costs for some of the innovative technologies. Monreal says, “One of the key challenges is the uncertainty with respect to the return on the capital investment…. A farmer is going to make a decision whether or not to go along with technologies based on the economics. If the economics make sense, then farmers will adopt them. Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada is now conducting an economic analysis of these technologies.” |
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