Taking to the skies, though, might be one way to underseed a cover crop without much impact to established grain stands and without further tillage.

WHY IT MATTERS: Drones can make seeding cover crops easier and reduce the risks posed by heavy equipment.

Drone seeding cover crops

Some of the study sites used a drill, but the project, led by soil management specialist Jake Munroe of the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Agribusiness, also hoped to answer questions about drone seeding, and how the technology can be applied to cover crops.

Advantages of the drone include less interference with an already growing cash crop. Running a spreader or sprayer through a maturing crop will lower yield, but waiting to seed until harvest means the cover crop has much less chance of establishing itself or, in the case of winter cereals, survive the winter.

The trial includes three farmer co-operators and three corn and three soybean trials. One of those trials is at the farm of Brett Green near Embro, northwest of London, Ont.

“The interest in getting the drill out and competing with wheat seeding, or getting the drill back out after it’s clean, after wheat seeding, there’s a bit of a barrier there,” said Munroe.

The project is administered by the Ontario Soil and Crop Improvement Association (OSCIA) and farmer co-operators have some influence over the trials to build in experiments relevant to their farm.

Munroe said that included a request to add red clover to the trial in the first year to try to get more nitrogen fixed in the soil from the legume. It didn’t work out due to herbicide interactions, so wasn’t replicated in year two.

Munroe highlighted results from one site that provided a valuable comparison between seeding approaches, where the farmer had also drilled and broadcast cover crop the day after corn was harvested, as well as trying out seeding via drone.

All three treatments survived, with the drilled cover crop being the most uniform and the earlier-seeded drone cover crop more advanced, but more variable.

Biomass ratings taken by drone imaging in May 2025 showed the most biomass from the earlier drone seeding.

Munroe said seeding cover crops into no-till fields, whether by drone or another broadcast method often leads to poorer growth.

“No till systems can tend to pose challenges, both with the surface residue interfering with seed-to-soil contact, and potentially with slug feeding,” he said. There will be more active monitoring of slug feeding in this year’s trials.

Eyes in the sky

Andres Hurtado of Terralynx, an imagery analysis company that uses drones, talked about what he can learn from trials like the cover crop project using multi-spectral imaging. Multi-spectral drones record the light from plants, even the infrared lights we can’t see, when a plant is early in a stressful period.

Increased resolution and high-speed computer processing of images mean even more detail than ever, with the ability to see single rows and plants.

Hurtado was among the industry representatives of a recent OSCIA demonstration day, which also featured the ongoing cover crops projects. Hurtado highlighted a LiDAR drone at the event, which creates three-dimensional models of land. This can help create more accurate maps for drainage companies.

Practical applications of Hurtado’s drone image analysis include farmers who have had him create emergence maps and variable rate nitrogen maps.

Drone Spray Canada brought along some large DJI drones to the event, including the new T100, which it uses to apply fertilizer and broadcast seeds.

There are no labels approved for pesticide applications in agriculture with a drone in Canada yet, unlike the United States and Brazil, where drone spraying is mostly regulated with existing aerial approvals, explained Adrian Rivard of Drone Spray Canada.

A blanket aerial label can be a “double-edged sword,” said Rivard. It can open up the market to drone spraying, but there are limits for applications where a helicopter needs a much larger buffer zone than a drone would, but they are regulated similarly.

The drones at the OSCIA demonstration broadcast cereal rye and oats at about 65 pounds per acre on an area of a soybean field that wasn’t part of the OSCIA cover crop trial.

Vegetation determines coverage width. In standing corn, a width of 21 feet is best, but Rivard said they can cover 30 feet on bare ground.

The drones are also being used for fertilizer application, and Rivard said an applicator in the Ottawa area applied 360,000 lbs of urea this year with a DJI T50.

Rivard, a DJI drone dealer, has been experimenting with the new DJI T00; with a 100-kilogram payload, it can cover 50 acres with cereal rye seed in 45 minutes.

“It flies at 45 miles per hour. Previously, the T50 was at 23 (mph), so twice the payload, twice the speed. It’s a better rocket. It’s kind of fun.”

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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 company will purchase 3,000 to 4,000 tonnes of straw within a 75-kilometre radius of Gilbert Plains, company president and CEO Mark Cooper told the Co-operator.

It has a one-year arrangement with the facility as it waits for its Regina facility to come online, Cooper said, but there’s possibility for extension.

Since Schweitzer Mauduit closed its flax straw processing facility near Carman, producers have had few options to dispose of flax straw. It is generally considered useless for animal feed or bedding and is often burned.

Selling flax straw wasn’t much of a revenue stream, said Dean Buchanan, a member of the Manitoba Crop Alliance’s flax committee.

“The little bit of money they paid you was just, like, thank goodness we got rid of it,” Buchanan said.

He farms near Crystal City and said he values flax as a long-term part of his crop rotation. Since losing the option to sell to Schweitzer Mauduit, he’s turned to chopping the straw and sowing straight into it.

“So far it’s worked OK,” he said.

However, having options to sell the straw would make flax a more attractive crop to growers, he added.

While Prairie Clean’s long-term focus lies with the energy market, Cooper said it has found a lucrative U.S. market for flax pellets as horse bedding, so straw purchased around Gilbert Plains will be used for that purpose.

“Through our research, we discovered that flax pellets make excellent animal bedding because they are low dust, highly absorbent, compostable, and low ammonia producing … They are a superior animal bedding product for horses, cows and small animals,” he said in the Aug. 8 news release.

Earlier this summer, the company announced it had received a $1.1 million grant from the Mining Innovation Commercialization Accelerator Network for its greenhouse gas emissions reduction project, which would use prairie biomass to generate energy and support the potash industry in lowering greenhouse gas emissions.

Prairie Clean Energy also said it had received a $180,000 grant in the spring from Innovation Saskatchewan to continue research and preparation for the 2024 opening of its Regina facility.

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The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has finalized biofuel blending volumes at 20.94 billion gallons in 2023, 21.54 billion gallons in 2024 and 22.33 billion gallons in 2025. That compares with the initial proposal announced in December of 20.82 billion in 2023, 21.87 billion in 2024, and 22.68 billion in 2025.

But the finalized volumes include just 15 billion gallons of conventional biofuels like corn-based ethanol in all three years, plus a 250 million-gallon supplemental amount for 2023. That represents a decline from the initial proposal, which included 15 billion gallons of conventional biofuels in 2023 and 15.25 billion gallons in both 2024 and 2025.

The plan also has modest increases to biomass-based diesel volumes compared with the proposal, despite a major lobbying push from groups that produce biodiesel, renewable diesel and sustainable aviation fuel to boost volumes higher.

The announcement drew strong rebukes from ethanol and biodiesel advocates.

“The industry responded to signals from the Biden administration and Congress aiming to rapidly decarbonize U.S. fuel markets, particularly aviation, marine, and heavy-duty transport, and make clean fuels available to more consumers,” said Kurt Kovarik, vice-president of federal affairs with Clean Fuels, a biodiesel group. “The volumes EPA finalized today are not high enough to support those goals.”

Iowa Secretary of Agriculture Mike Naig said the finalized mandates fail to fully support benefits that biofuels can provide to farmers and consumers.

The Renewable Fuels Association called the reductions in ethanol mandates “inexplicable” and “unwarranted.”

The final rule marks a new phase in the U.S. Renewable Fuel Standard program, which is more than a decade old and frequently pits the powerful oil and biofuel industries against each other. Under the RFS, oil refiners must blend billions of gallons of biofuels into the nation’s fuel mix, or buy tradable credits from those that do.

Ethanol producers and corn farmers like the mandates because they provide a market for their products, while the oil industry finds the requirements too pricey.

While Congress set out specific goals for the program through 2022, the law expands the EPA’s authority for 2023 and beyond to change the way the RFS is administered.

The EPA said the finalized rule would reduce reliance on foreign sources of oil by between 130,000 to 140,000 barrels per day over 2023-2025.

U.S. renewable fuel credit prices dropped eight per cent following the news, trading at $1.34 each from as much as $1.46 each the day prior, traders said (all figures US$). Biomass-based credits dropped to $1.38 each from $1.48 each the previous day.

The futures market fell sharply Wednesday in reaction to the lower-than-expected biofuel mandates, with most Chicago Board of Trade soyoil contracts locked down their daily four cent/lb. trading limit. The soyoil market had rallied to its highest in nearly 3-1/2 months last week.

Other provisions

The EPA also set out a series of regulatory changes in the final rule, in an effort to strengthen the agency’s implementation of the RFS program.

The agency will modify provisions for biogas-derived renewable fuels to ensure that biogas is produced from renewable biomass and used as a transportation fuel, as well as to allow for the use of biogas as a biointermediate.

Absent from the rule, however, was a much-anticipated pathway for electric vehicle manufacturers to generate lucrative credits under the RFS, though it was included in the original proposal in December. Reuters previously reported that the administration was planning to abandon the scheme over worries about lawsuits.

The plan would have given EV automakers, such as Tesla, credits for charging vehicles using power generated from renewable natural gas, or methane collected from sources such as cattle or landfills.

The EPA said on Wednesday it will continue to assess stakeholder comments it received on the EV scheme, and it will work on potential paths forward for it.

The American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers said it was pleased to see the EPA abandon the EV program, saying the RFS is a liquid fuels program that should not include electric vehicles.

— Reporting for Reuters by Stephanie Kelly and Jarrett Renshaw; additional reporting by Mark Weinraub.

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In his first speech to the nation as monarch on Friday evening, Charles warned his new role will now limit his activism.

“It will no longer be possible for me to give so much of my time and energies to the charities and issues for which I care so deeply,” he said in a televised address. “But I know this important work will go on in the trusted hands of others.”

Charles has been one of the highest-profile global proponents for protecting the planet in recent decades, from writing books and making speeches about nature to working with business to mobilize private finance to combat global warming.

At the U.N. COP26 climate conference in Glasgow last year, he said the world needed a “war-like footing” to tackle the “existential threat” of climate change and biodiversity loss.

Britain’s new figurehead has called for governments to use incentives and regulations to encourage private-sector investment in climate action, and for the value of nature to be recognized on companies’ balance sheets.

However, as king under a constitutional monarchy in Britain, Charles is expected to remain politically neutral.

The Thomson Reuters Foundation spoke to several experts about what that might mean for his climate advocacy.

What did Charles do for the environment as Prince of Wales?

While heir to the throne, Charles was an active campaigner for the environment over more than five decades.

In 1970, aged 21, he gave his first major speech on the issue, warning of the dangerous effects of plastic pollution.

“He’s been talking about these issues for a long time, way before they became mainstream,” said Ed Matthew, campaigns director of think-tank E3G.

In this manner, Charles played a “vital diplomatic role” to raise awareness, Matthew added.

Along with speeches on the global stage, Charles has worked with actors from the public, private and non-profit sectors.

He established the International Sustainability Unit in 2010 to address challenges such as protecting rainforests and marine ecosystems, and last year launched a new charter of sustainable actions for companies to sign called “Terra Carta.”

“I have laboured for so many years to bring this issue to the forefront of international consciousness – not just with words, but with practical action,” said the then-prince in a speech in May in Yellowknife, N.W.T.

Back home, Matthew said Charles’ influence has been particularly valuable because — while being apolitical — he appeals to conservatives, in a similar vein to environmentalist David Attenborough, on an issue more often highlighted by the left.

“To make sure we go for really ambitious climate action in the U.K., we need the conservative case for climate change to be made,” Matthew said.

During the race to become Britain’s next prime minister — won by Liz Truss — activists criticized the lack of attention paid to climate issues by the ruling Conservatives.

What are King Charles’ views on climate change?

Environmental campaigner Tony Juniper first met Charles in the early 1990s, and has worked with him on projects including the 2010 book Harmony: A New Way of Looking at Our World.

“I think he probably has been about the most effective environmentalist in history,” said Juniper, who chairs Natural England, the government’s advisory body for the environment.

He explained that a key idea Charles has advanced is the interconnection between humans and nature, expressed in depth in the book Harmony, which Juniper helped to write.

“One of the most important unique contributions that he’s brought is this holistic perspective … the need to keep all the different pieces of the jigsaw in view,” he said.

In an interview in December 2020, Charles said humans are “a microcosm of the macrocosm” when it comes to nature.

“If we go on exploiting the way we are, whatever we do to nature – however much we pollute her — we do to ourselves. It is insanity,” he told the BBC.

However, Charles has been accused of hypocrisy due to his use of private jets and helicopters, whose planet-heating emissions are much higher than other forms of transport and significantly more per passenger than commercial flights.

During the 2021-22 financial year as Prince of Wales, he took regular private flights domestically, as shown by royal financial statements.

Will Charles be able to advocate for the climate as monarch?

While Queen Elizabeth II strictly guarded her personal views, Charles has faced criticism for expressing political opinions – and analysts say he will have to be more careful now.

In the view of the media, Elizabeth was “untouchable”, and it is “unknown territory” how they will react to King Charles, said Richard Black, a former BBC environment correspondent and founder of the non-profit Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit.

Black said Charles will be restricted by two main things: the pressures on his time due to the ceremonial duties of a king, and the likely scrutiny of his political neutrality.

This will make more hands-on work with businesses and in politics harder, but there are some environmental actions with little potential for controversy, he said.

For example, to mark Elizabeth’s 2022 Platinum Jubilee celebrations after 70 years on the throne, the Queen’s Green Canopy initiative was launched to encourage people to plant trees.

Black added that, in many ways, Charles has already done his bit in helping to build public awareness around climate and nature issues — which is now well-established.

“One thing you have to praise him for has been his courage and consistency,” he said.

“Whatever he does during his time as king, there’s no doubt in my view that he’s made quite a contribution already.”

How could Charles make a difference given the obstacles?

As king, Charles could have an even larger influence — whether through speeches and behind-the-scenes meetings with world leaders, or private audiences with the UK prime minister.

On a personal level, he could lead by example, such as with his efforts to make the royal household greener.

Charles has been tracking and publishing his carbon footprint since 2007, making several changes such as installing biomass boilers and solar panels at his homes and converting his Aston Martin to run on surplus wine and whey from cheesemaking.

And to help avoid controversy, King Charles could pass some projects onto family members, with his son Prince William also expressing a keen interest in environmental issues.

How to execute the role of monarch is up to the individual, said Juniper, the environmental campaigner, so Charles might need some time to figure it out.

“As far as I know, there is no job description for king.”

— Reporting by Jack Graham for the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, that covers the lives of people around the world who struggle to live freely or fairly.

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With about 90 per cent of world trade transported by sea, global shipping accounts for nearly three per cent of the world’s CO2 emissions. Maersk needs to have a carbon-neutral fleet by 2030 to meet its target of net-zero emissions by 2050.

“Yes, it’s one vessel, but it’s a prototype for a scalable carbon-neutral solution for shipping,” Morten Bo Christiansen, Maersk’s head of decarbonization, told Reuters.

Maersk said it had signed its first deal with Denmark’s REintegrate to produce roughly 10,000 tonnes of carbon neutral e-methanol, which the vessel will need to operate each year.

The company is also working on tackling challenges in securing the supply of fuel, which Christiansen pegged it at 20 million tonnes for the entire fleet. As the name suggests, green methanol is produced by using renewable sources such as biomass and solar energy.

“Let’s stop talking about fossil fuels and instead focus on scaling this prototype because it’s actually solving the problem,” he said, while declining to give a time frame for when such a market would be realistic.

Future vessels fitted with engines that can run on green methanol will be 10-15 per cent more expensive for the first years, while the cost of the fuel would cost more than twice as much as conventional bunker fuel, Christiansen said.

“The good news is that because of the amount of oil we consume we can actually start shaping a market just on our demand,” Christiansen said.

He said while Maersk would carry the costlier vessels on its balance sheets, the additional fuel cost would be shared with its customers.

“But it’s actually not that much more expensive, because even if we double our fuel cost, the impact on a pair of sneakers is less than five cents,” Christiansen added.

— Reporting for Reuters by Stine Jacobsen.

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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 the low, Batmobile-esque Formula 1 racer, but (based on YouTube videos) their engines whine like Star Wars’ TIE fighters. The cars are a little slower than their conventionally powered counterparts — topping out at 174 m.p.h. instead of 230 m.p.h., according to a Forbes article from 2019.

St. George is an agricultural engineer and principal of SANDGEO, which provides development services around sustainable technology.

During ManSEA’s (Manitoba Sustainable Energy Association) virtual conference on April 6, St. George told his audience that its inaugural season, ‘Gen 1’ Formula E cars had an output of 200 kilowatts and had to be swapped out mid-race before their batteries died.

The second generation of Formula E cars have an output of 250 kilowatts and could last the entire 45-minute race. ‘Gen 3’ cars, still in development, will have an output of 350 kilowatts and can also last the full race.

This seems analogous to the possibilities for battery-powered machines on farms, said St. George. There’s been a lot of investment and working going into batteries, he said. Battery management software is becoming more sophisticated. Price is going down while availability goes up.

And equipment manufacturers are going electric, St. George said.

“It’s primarily from performance characteristics. It’s getting better performance, better power, better load distribution,” he said.

As autonomous vehicles and artificial intelligence progress in farm equipment, electric drives makes more and more sense, St. George added. It’s easier for a computer to drive an electric engine than a diesel one.

“This is going to be a game changer now because once you go to an electric drive then the question is, ‘Well, what are you using to power that drive with?’”

Renewable energy can fit in nicely, St. George said.

Formula E uses generators that run on glycerin, which its website says is a byproduct of biodiesel production. St. George said he’s not aware of glycerin being used in other sectors like agriculture.

“I believe it will be moreso a niche fuel source in the future,” St. George told the Co-operator. “Biodiesel hasn’t taken off, partially due to the cost of commodities like canola being higher than fossil fuel equivalents or emerging alternatives as waste biomass resources to useful energy. The glycerin supply is ultimately tied to the biodiesel supply.

“The firm energy capacity of the renewable energy source has to match the effective field capacity of the farm equipment,” said St. George. Some renewable sources can produce a lot of power over a long time, but with agricultural producers are often packing a lot of use into a short time.

Batteries could be charged by renewable grid-supplied power, said St. George. However, in some cases grid service isn’t very strong in rural areas. Farmers might be limited to small tractors or limited use time.

St. George said he’s been focusing on farm-generated, renewable electric power from sustainable biomass — ideally the biomass produced on the farm.

“In terms of closing the loop, I see it as the ultimate for the farm,” he said.

SANDGEO is involved in a project related to bringing biomass-fuelled, energy-producing technology to Canada, but the project is still in its early stages.

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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 Lockhart Halls.

The system, which became commissioned and operational this spring, is also intended as a demonstration project, to give a nudge to others considering switching to a bioenergy source.

“We are going to be the first in Winnipeg to deploy a system such as this,” said Brandyn Berg, with controls, energy management and special projects at the university.

This project is being undertaken in a partnership with Manitoba Hydro’s Bioenergy Optimization Program that helps facilities wean off fossil fuel use, save energy costs and make sound environmental choices.

This will showcase how a biomass system can be used in the heart of a large urban centre, said the university’s executive director of facilities Kyle MacDonald.

“Essentially our goal here is to figure out if we can make this work in a dense urban environment where traditionally biomass wouldn’t be considered,” he said.

The addition of biomass will also help the university reduce its greenhouse gas emissions because biomass has no net GHG impact.

The university’s sustainability strategy includes a goal of five per cent of total campus energy usage coming from renewable sources by 2025 and they’re currently looking at all options including geothermal and solar, MacDonald said.

Adoption of the biomass for supplementary heating will get them halfway to that goal.

Ultimately, they expect a shift to using locally sourced renewable energy will eventually help cut utility bills too.

This is being done in recognition that the cost of hydro is only going up, said MacDonald.

“We use electricity for quite a bit of heat on our campus and that is no longer an economical choice, although it’s renewable,” he said.

“So we’re trying to see what the impact is for environmental purposes, and how it can help us to reduce emissions and potentially save on energy costs in the long term.”

They expect the system to use about 170 tonnes’ worth of pellets a year purchased within 100 km from the university, keeping the transportation footprint low. This link to rural Manitoba and helping to build the biomass market for the farming economy is a very important aspect, added MacDonald.

There has been much interest sparked both from a research perspective and the curious passerby.

It’s not every day you see a hopper bin, which stores the fuel pellets that feed the boiler system, in downtown Winnipeg.

“It kind of turns heads. It’s an eye-catcher and it gets people asking, “what’s that about?” said MacDonald.

You just don’t expect to see such a thing in downtown Winnipeg, he said.

“It’s an eye-catcher and it makes a statement,” he said. “We’re getting lots of interest from the public and other researchers. It gets people asking questions about what its use is.”

University of Winnipeg’s move towards adoption of biomass heating follows the example set by Providence College and Seminary at Otterburne.

When they were doing a large expansion on campus they were keen to explore all forms of alternative energy, said Bruce Duggan, associate professor of business management at the school.

They looked at all the costs and benefits, and ultimately installed both geothermal and biomass heating systems.

The latter was a cue taken from this province’s Hutterite colonies, said Duggan.

“We knew they’d been doing this for years,” he said. “The leaders in this right now are the Hutterite colonies.”

Currently, over 40 Hutterite colonies and about a half-dozen greenhouses utilize biomass to heat their facilities in Manitoba and there are numerous other examples of small “district loop” installations on farms.

Duggan is also president of Boke Consulting, a small company that helps communities pursue environmental projects that also nurture economic development and has been working with northern communities now making dramatic shifts towards alternative energy adoption.

The Northlands Denesuline First Nation, located on the shore of Lac Brochet will be one of the leading alternative-energy communities in Canada in 2020, he said.

There a project known as the Environmental Remediation And Alternative Energy Systems (ERAAES) is underway and making major progress towards weaning communities that have until now been entirely dependent on diesel for their power source.

Northlands is embracing all forms of renewable energy, having installed not only a 1.5-MW biomass district heating system, but 140 kW of lake-based geothermal heating and a 282-kW solar PV park of nearly 1,000 panels and by next year will be replacing about 300,000 litres of diesel or one-third of its power source with renewables. That’s also reducing their GHG emissions by about 18 per cent or 800 tonnes in the process, Duggan notes on his website.

“These are communities that understand local energy very well and are extremely frustrated with their current energy systems,” he said. “It has been just a matter of finding ways and funding for them to be able to do what they know what is the right thing to do.”

Duggan says he sees positive steps being taken throughout Manitoba towards adopting all forms of alternative energy, but we’re only at the beginning.

The farm community and the agribusiness community has been playing an important role in that, Duggan said.

“My overall take on this is that rural farms, businesses and individuals are at the forefront of adopting alternative energy in Manitoba,” he said.

“They think long term, and value self-reliance — both of which fit exactly with adopting renewable energy.”

Currently, Manitoba’s energy imports of gasoline, natural gas, propane and diesel total $4 billion — so there’s plenty of room for all renewables on the provincial landscape, speakers told this past spring’s annual meeting of the Manitoba Alternative Energy Association (MANSEA).

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“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 the main factor was the disproportionate use of herbicides and pesticides.

The ministry, led by the Social Democrats (SPD) who share power with Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservatives, also said it planned to increase the proportion of farmed land that would have to adhere to environmental stipulations.

Conditions for fertilizer use should be extended, including making subsidies dependent on using insect-friendly chemicals, the ministry paper said.

The move to make it more difficult to get a permit to use agrochemicals follows plans drawn up by conservative Agriculture Minister Julia Kloeckner to limit the use of glyphosate herbicide.

Germany has also backed EU plans to ban neonicotinoids, insecticides that studies show can harm honey bees.

— Reporting for Reuters by Hans-Edzard Busemann; writing by Madeline Chambers.

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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 (IISD) has recently released the Manitoba Bioeconomy Atlas, to help Manitobans of all walks and stripes to understand and benefit from an easy-to-access web-based planning tool that drills down and helps map our province’s ample supply of biomass.

“There are over five million tonnes of available biomass produced in our province every year from agriculture, forestry residue, marginal lands and roadside ditches,” said Geoffrey Gunn, who led the project. “Some of this biomass is already being put to good use as livestock bedding and compost, but much of it is wasted and could be used as fuel.”

Biomass ranges from wood and crops to cattails and grasses, and they are a viable and abundant source of renewable energy in the province. They offer a whole host of environmental and economic benefits. Using biomass for energy in place of fossil fuels immediately reduces greenhouse gas emissions.

“An added benefit of harvesting non-traditional biomass such as cattails is the removal of nutrients such as phosphorus, which contribute to algal blooms,” said Gunn. “For example, if we were to remove 22 per cent of crop residue from agricultural fields and 25 per cent of harvestable cattail biomass, we could remove 2,000 to 5,000 tonnes of phosphorus from our landscape — a huge boon for the health of our lakes.”

Through the work and research of IISD experts such as Dr. Richard Grosshans at locations across the province, the organization has studied the ubiquitous cattail plant for nutrient removal and as an energy source that can be mixed with wood to create pellets that heat buildings and barns.

Where there are cattail plants, there tends to be water nearby. The water, at some time, is moving as part of the watershed and the cattails absorb toxic or problem-causing chemicals flowing by.

By definition, biomass includes the earth’s living matter, plants and animals, and the remains of this living matter. Plants store the sun’s energy, providing a simple, renewable energy source. Better yet, the carbon in plants is captured from the atmosphere which reduces our carbon footprint. Unlike coal, which takes millions of years to form, biomass can be grown and replenished like a crop, once or twice in a season.

According to Gunn, the bioeconomy is the segment of the provincial economy that uses renewable products and services from our natural environment. Advances in biofuels, biochemistry and materials science have shown that we can use waste products from agriculture or forestry to supply new industries. These supplies are spread across the Manitoba landscape.

The Manitoba Bioeconomy Atlas presents logistical and economic analysis of the sources that could supply large processing operations in the biofuel, biochemical or biomaterial industries and attract high-tech investment to Manitoba. Gunn says that he has done presentations to key stakeholders and decision makers with the Bioeconomy Atlas to inform people about Manitoba’s large biomass resources, particularly crop residues, marsh plants (such as cattail), and unused limbs and bark from the provincial logging industry. But he also says the atlas has a vital mainstream role to play and he wants to get it into the hands of producers and is brainstorming the best way to do that. Workshops, seminars and webinars are all in the works.

“The Manitoba Bioeconomy Atlas is an online tool, which means it is fully accessible free of charge for the public right now,” said Gunn. “I think we really need to connect with producers at the grassroots level to ensure they understand how this tool can help them benefit with planning and future decisions that they may be faced with around their biomass resources.”

Gunn admits that things in Manitoba are not quite at the stage where producers and land managers can load trucks with biomass and take them off to market as they do with a commodity crop or livestock. The limitations are twofold: 1) limited infrastructure and the few processing facilities that are unable to meet demand for 50,000 tonnes of biomass annually; and 2) minimal mechanisms to link producers to suppliers, and suppliers to consumers.

“Manitoba has tremendous potential to incorporate bioenergy in its growing renewable energy portfolio, as Canada strives to lower greenhouse gas emissions. There’s a big opportunity to reduce energy costs, particularly for rural businesses,” said Gunn. “We want to help people make the right decision for their own situation. Thanks to Growing Forward 2 funding and support from the provincial biomass community, we’ve developed a really powerful, exciting tool to help biomass work for Manitobans and grow a healthy and sustainable economy.”

To access the atlas, and to learn more, visit iisd.org/bioeconomy-atlas.

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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 Chemistry & Engineering.

“The bottom line is we can cut down the cost of converting biomass into biofuels,” said Shishir P.S. Chundawat, senior author of the study and an assistant professor in the department of chemical and biochemical engineering at Rutgers University.

Typically, the enzymes tapped to help turn switchgrass, corn stover and poplar into biofuels amount to about 20 per cent of production costs, said Chundawat. Enzymes cost about 50 cents per gallon of ethanol, so recycling or using fewer enzymes would make biofuels more inexpensive.

“The challenge is breaking down cellulose (plant) material, using enzymes, into sugars that can be fermented into ethanol,” he said. “So any advances on making the enzyme processing step cheaper will make the cost of biofuel cheaper. This is a fairly intractable problem that requires you to attack it from various perspectives, so it does take time.”

Biomass contains lignin, an organic polymer that binds to and strengthens plant fibres. But lignin inactivates enzymes that bind to it, hampering efforts to reduce enzyme use and costs, according to Chundawat.

The researchers showed how specially designed enzymes can limit their binding to and inactivation by lignin.

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