Prairie Clean Energy says it’s turning nuisance flax straw into pellets for horse bedding at a Gilbert Plains facility.

Saskatchewan company to buy flax straw in Gilbert Plains area

Prairie Clean Energy to pelletize flax straw for animal bedding

A Saskatchewan biomass company says it is buying flax straw in the Gilbert Plains area this fall for use in pellets. Prairie Clean Energy, a Regina-based company, has leased time in a Gilbert Plains plant for its initial commercial run of flax pellets, it said in an announcement posted to the Canadian Biomass website. The

(Jimfeng/iStock/Getty Images)

U.S. to boost biofuel mandates over next three years

Biofuel groups still feel shortchanged

Reuters — The Biden administration on Wednesday increased the amount of biofuels that oil refiners must blend into the United States’ fuel mix over the next three years, but the plan has angered the biofuel industry, which says mandates for corn-based ethanol and biodiesel are not high enough. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has finalized


Prince Charles (now King Charles III) visits Shane Fitzgerald’s Kil Mige Mogue farm near Waterford in southeast Ireland on March 24, 2022. (Photo: Reuters/Phil Noble/Pool)

What will King Charles’s reign mean for climate action?

Some projects may be handed to other family members

London | Thomson Reuters Foundation — As Britain’s King Charles III begins his reign after the death of his mother, Queen Elizabeth II, environmental campaigners will be watching closely to see if he continues to advocate for climate action and is able to help drive change as monarch. In his first speech to the nation


Racing an analogy for battery-powered tractors

Racing an analogy for battery-powered tractors

Producing renewable electricity from farm biomass would be the ultimate closed loop

For an analogy on the advancement of battery-powered machinery, Dennis St. George turns to car racing. Formula E is an all-electric car racing league formally known as the ABB FIA Formula E World Championship. Its first season began in 2014. Better battery technology will eventually find its way into farm equipment. Its cars bear great resemblance to


University of Winnipeg’s Brandyn Berg, who looks after energy management and special projects at the downtown university says they’re very excited about their new biomass heating system and hope it gets more thinking about using renewable 
energy sources.

University pioneering urban biomass heating

The University of Winnipeg’s new biomass heating system will be a model for other institutions, 
say proponents of alternative energy sources

When school starts this fall, the University of Winnipeg will flip the switch on a novel way to keep downtown buildings heated — with boilers that burn wood pellets. Last fall the downtown university took delivery of two 100-kilowatt biomass boilers, to provide supplementary heating a steam plant now provides for its Ashdown, Manitoba and

The Elbe River at Oberrathen, southeast of Dresden. (CIA.gov)

Germany plans to toughen conditions for insecticide use

Berlin | Reuters — Germany plans to make it more difficult for farmers to use crop insecticides in a bid to preserve biodiversity, an environment ministry document showed. “Insect biomass has fallen by more than 75 per cent in the last 27 years in Germany,” according to the paper seen by Reuters on Wednesday, saying

Cattail harvesting for fuel is just one way Manitoba could better use its available biomass for economic and environmental good.

Biomass atlas provides map for future sustainability

Manitoba could be a global leader in this sector of the bioeconomy

Biomass is a big topic, but it’s an even bigger opportunity for Manitoba, one so big the province as a whole needs to understand it. From the science to the already-established industry and future opportunities, Manitoba could be a global leader in the world’s bioeconomy. That is exactly why the International Institute for Sustainable Development


New research may be paving the way to more efficiently converting biomass like cornstalks into biofuels.

Cutting the cost of ethanol

Researchers devise a way to reduce the amount of enzymes needed to convert biomass into biofuels

Biofuels like ethanol could get cheaper if new research from Rutgers and Michigan State universities holds up. Scientists there have demonstrated how to design and genetically engineer enzyme surfaces so they bind less to cornstalks and other cellulosic biomass, reducing enzyme costs in biofuels production, according to a study published in the journal ACS Sustainable

Delegates participating in the Canadian Society for Bioengineering convention Food, Fuel and Fibre for a Sustainable Future enter the ‘Green Garage’ site at the University of Manitoba’s Alternative Village during an August tour.

U of M showcases alternative building materials

‘Hempcrete,’ soy-based roof panels and other Manitoba-grown biomass products 
are tested and evaluated at University of Manitoba’s Alternative Village

It looks like any other shipping container, but what’s inside could help boost food security in remote areas of the country one day. Biosystems engineers at the University of Manitoba are perfecting a self-contained unit which includes a biomass boiler that produces up to 56 kW of heat. The unit also has a Stirling engine