Environmental improvements will be seen through improved water and air conditions, such as, reduced water run off contamination from tannins, eliminated smoke pollution including nitrous oxide and methane pollution from retirement of beehive burners, and sequestration of stored carbon instead of combusted release.
Economic benefits will be seen through the project investment of $45 million in a region supporting a population of approximately 7,000, including construction (estimated at 40,000 person hours) and long-term employment (12 full time and 3 part time positions are anticipated). The project will also provide new, high paying technical jobs that will stem into new BC Biocarbon projects.
The project will enhance existing forest operations to reduce marginal cost and diversify product manufacturing, with the potential to significantly improve forestry and sawmill viability. This will occur at the community level by maximizing the value of underutilized residuals and producing valuable new products for high value markets. The technology has many similar applications, with the impact on climate change being both repeatable and additive.
Social benefits will be seen through eliminated smoke pollution including nitrous oxide and methane pollution from retirement of beehive burners, and reduced release of stored carbon when combusted (avoided emissions). All of which have negative impacts on the health of local citizens and contributions to climate change.
First and foremost, feedstock for our Edgewood Biorefinery is sourced from Dunkley Lumber LTD who holds active certifications for sustainable forestry practices and chain of custody. These certifications are: Endorsement of Forest Certification (PEFC), Sustainable Forestry Initiative® (SFI) 2015-2019 Forest Management Standard and Fiber Sourcing Standard and it’s validation independently through the Standards Council of Canada (SCC). These certification documents can be seen in the attached files for this Pre-CORC offer.
For carbon removal validation, Puro.earth CO2 Removal Standard and the CO2 Removal Certificates (CORCs) will quantify net-removal of BC Biocarbon’s biochar, although, avoided emissions are not calculated in the emission balance in the Puro.earth Standard. Lifecycle assessment of our system will be performed as per Puro.earth CO2 Removal Standard following the methodology described in ISO 14040 and ISO 14044 standards where applicable. BC Biocarbon will also be audited within the Puro.earth Biochar Methodology where biochar production is verified for carbon negativity by one of Puro.earth’s independent audit partners, and where CORCs are issued per 1 tonne of CO2 removed.
A 2019 doctoral thesis examined an engineered hypothetical large-scale BC Biocarbon biorefinery facility and was performed by de Ruiter 2019 (Greenhouse gas lifecycle assessment of biochar and biocoal applications in British Columbia. doi:10.24124/2018/58978). Based on this work, and used as an indicator, BC Biocarbon’s pyrolysis system locks away and sequesters the equivalent of 3.1 tonnes CO2e in the form of biochar for each tonne of dry forestry residues. As mentioned above, when our Edgewood Biorefinery is completed and operational a dedicated lifecycle assessment will be performed in requirement for Puro.Earth Certification.
Although described in more detail below, the basic scenario of onsite biomass would be that all carbon would be released back to the atmosphere in form of CO2 or methane, either through combustion or biological degradation. Our Edgewood Biorefinery will change that scenario to being a net carbon removal system.
The current end-use of biomass at the future Edgewood Biorefinery site is combustion in a very low efficiency beehive burner. In these conditions smoke pollution including nitrous oxide and methane pollution are released as well as the stored biogenic carbon when combusted. It is currently in legal process to eliminate beehive burners in Saskatchewan, however there is no mandate for sequestration. The most probable outcome for future biomass residues is likely for combustion, which, based on broad carbon accounting protocols, is considered carbon neutral and not carbon negative. Thus, our project stands to be additional based on the local legislation and likely outcome of feed stock management.
I already have an online account AND I have signed the Puro.earth Platform Agreement.
LOG IN TO COMMITI would like to create a Puro.earth account and sign the Platform Agreement.
CREATE ACCOUNT