Wood Flooring Producer Converts Waste to “Bio-Oil”
West Lorne, Ontario, October 10, 2005-- It sounds almost too good to be true: The notion that somehow industrial wood waste could be converted into a source of reliable, environmentally friendly energy with the ability to power an entire town, according to CTV News.
But it's a new reality in West Lorne, Ontario, where a century-old flooring company has joined with an energy leader in an environmentally friendly partnership.
Erie Flooring and Wood Products has been producing truckloads of wood scraps and sawdust, 70 tons a day, for decades, with little choice but to burn or transport the waste. Neither option has been good for the environment.
Now, thanks to Canadian technology and a partnership with Vancouver's DynaMotive, the waste is ground into fine sawdust, vaporized, and converted to "bio oil." The company uses the oil to power a new turbine generator that produces 2,500 kilowatts of electricity, enough to power 1,400 homes.
"Instead of transporting this wood waste or burning them and making pollution, we produce clean energy," explained Gholam Yavari, of DynaMotive. "And it's clean, environmentally friendly and pollution-free and greenhouse-gas neutral."
DynaMotive has built a $20 million plant in West Lorne. It's the first of its kind in the world, but will be the first of many if DynaMotive's plan takes effect. The company is hoping to expand as the technology catches on.
"We're looking to build a number of plants across Canada and supply industry, supply houses, supply district heating systems," explained Andrew Kingston, company president.
For now, DynaMotive will supply energy to run Erie Flooring, and generate electricity to be sold back into the grid that powers West Lorne.
Erie Flooring doesn't have a spotless record when it comes to the environment, but this new partnership provides an opportunity to make up for some of the mistakes of the past, explained the company's Alan Vandenbrick.
"It wasn't done on purpose, it was done through ignorance," said Vandenbrick, of pollution created in the past. "We didn't know. But this gives us the chance to put a mark on the right side of the paper toward the environment."