Project Rationale

In recent years, biofuels have gained in prominence. Their use is being subsidized by governments as a way to wean humankind from petroleum and coal. However, recent research has exposed the subsidies required to support biofuel promotion in North America. The total subsidies required to produce ethanol or biodiesel in Canada is around $1 per litre. At this rate it costs Canadian taxpayers around $200 to reduce one tonne of greenhouse gas emissions (one tonne of carbon offsets cost around $20 on the European market). A more intelligent deployment of biofuels technology can produce much higher environmental and social benefits. This can be achieved through careful selection of feedstocks, appropriate matching to land use, and by refining feedstocks to higher value end uses.

Advanced bioproducts offer the opportunity to reduce our reliance on petroleum for fuel and chemicals. Energy products can replace fossil fuels by recycling carbon from the atmosphere. Bioplastics can permanently sequester carbon into consumer goods. This can be achieved from cellulosic biomass in advanced biorefineries. A biorefinery is a facility capable of integrating biomass conversion processes into multiple products, such as fuels, chemicals and heat. By integrating several processes, biorefineries are capable of the various constituents of feedstocks. The purpose of this project is to optimize biorefining processes through microbial genomic research.

In this analysis, only feedstocks appropriate to the Canadian prairies will be examined. Preference will be given to feedstocks not otherwise used for food, such as chaff, straw and waste. Feedstocks grown on marginal land inappropriate for intensive cultivation will also be examined. The appropriate scale of biorefinery development will be assessed. It may be possible in future to see biorefineries at nodes in the Prairie transportation network, just we see grain elevators now. It may also be feasible that modular biorefineries can exist on individual farms or in small cooperatives, in the way that energy cooperatives developed for purchasing petroleum a century ago. Small modular biorefineries can produce fuel for use on the farm, or other materials such as PLA and PHA for sale and use in manufacturing.

The development of biorefining on the Canadian Prairies offers multiple private and public benefits to Canadians. Landowners can benefit by earning income for feedstocks sustainably grown on marginal land, and for products such as chaff that otherwise have little value. The opportunity of income for feedstocks presents the possibility of new crop rotations with the potential for soil enhancement and carbon sequestration. If the process is scaled down to the local or farm level, it presents the possibility of farmers achieving energy self-sufficiency, as well as increased opportunities for value addition of agricultural products.

Essentially biofuels can produce a higher stream of ecosystem services and economic benefits. However, careful integration into public policy is required to ensure public and private benefits are maximized, and inefficiencies and negative externalities are minimized. Part of this project will examine the ideal matching of feedstock to land use and the ideal scale of developing biofuels.