· Fuel pellets can be made from a number of naturally occurring organic materials or waste products, including switch grass, hybrid willow/poplar trees and other prospective energy crops, municipal solid waste, sewage sludge, and agricultural residues.
· Municipal waste boilers must meet much stricter emission standards than other fuels like oil, gas, bunker, or coal.
(See A-7 Guidelines for more information.)
· Biomass includes all naturally occurring organic materials, including grasses, wood, paper fibres, non-synthetic textiles and any other materials that can decompose through bacterial digestion.
· Climate change is inevitable, and burning fossil fuels (such as natural gas, oil, and coal) increases the levels of CO2 in
the atmosphere. Using alternative bio-fuels is carbon neutral as it forms part of the natural carbon cycle.1
· Canadians are the largest consumers of energy in the world on a per capita basis.2
· Six per cent of primary energy in Canada is derived from bioenergy.3
· Wood waste (wood chips, sawdust and tree bark) is one of the most widely used sources of renewable energy in
Canada.4
· Municipal solid waste is 66 per cent organic material that, when decomposing in a landfill, creates gas composed of
methane and carbon dioxide. If a municipal solid waste plant exists, the gas can be collected and used to generate
electricity as well as thermal energy.5
· Coal is the single largest commodity carried by Canada's railways.6
· Worldwide, more electricity is generated from coal than from any other source.7
· Fossil fuels are being consumed 100,000 times faster than they are being formed.8