Local company turning agricultural waste into fuel

By Alejandra Pulido-Guzman - Lethbridge Herald on August 3, 2023.

Herald photo by Alejandra Pulido-Guzman Canary Biofuels production Lethbridge facility produces oil from oilseed crushing, chemically converted into biofuel.

LETHBRIDGE HERALDapulido@lethbridgeherald.com

A local company with its headquarters in Calgary is helping reduce carbon dioxide emissions by converting agricultural waste and inedible animal fats into fuel.

Canary Biofuels, a first-of-its-kind facility, was founded in March 2021 thanks to $4.7 million funding received from the Alberta government from the TIER fund through Emissions Reduction Alberta.

CEO of Canary Biofuels, George Wadsworth said in a telephone interview Wednesday their vision is to take a million tonnes of CO2 annually off the roads, primarily through the production of high-density liquid biofuel.

“In this case the Lethbridge facility is a biodiesel facility. Part of our mandate is also to find ways to contribute back and help agricultural communities in which our facilities are located,” said Wadsworth.

He said they have a producing biofuel facility and an oilseed crushing facility in Lethbridge, as well as a biofuel terminal and biodiesel plant in Stockton, California.

“All of our facilities are predicated around being able to process vegetable and animal fats and oil waste. From the animal side, we take rendering material from the beef industry as well as poultry fats and different types of vegetable oils,” said Wadsworth.

He said they primarily try to take things that are non-food grade or off-spec, and they chemically convert those waste products into biodiesel.

“The biodiesel is then blended with petroleum diesel and that reduces the carbon intensity on a one per one basis by upwards of 75 to 80 per cent, reducing the amount emissions that come out of the transportation sector,” said Wadsworth.

He said industries that use biodiesel can include long-haul trucking, buses, all types of agriculture machinery, construction machinery, trains, and boats.

“Our target in Lethbridge, being very agriculturally focused, is to find ways to take as much animal waste as we can and convert it into fuel. We also take as much of agricultural products like canola and turn them into fuel, as well,” said Wadsworth.

He said that by having an integrated crushing facility that is not designed around food grade, they have the ability to take all spec canola, whether that’s heated or green, and there is really no limitations in terms of food quality because they are not a food processor.

“We convert that vegetable oil into fuel and the byproduct meal goes into the feedlots to feed cattle,” said Wadsworth.

He said the process is done in a way that is cost effective and they do not use solvents or heat, which in turn produces better animal meal than what comes out of a standard food processing facility, and the oil they create fits their purpose in terms of converting it into biofuel.

“Now that we have this fairly large crushing facility that we can do about 60,000 metric tonnes a year, we are now trying to work with seed developers and growers to start growing camelina which is a kind of a cross between weed and canola, but it produces a nice oil and produces an animal meal that is already CFIA (Canadian Food Inspection Agency) approved,” said Wadsworth.

He said camelina has the ability to grow in dryer land, is more frost tolerant, and has a shorter germination cycle, which provides them with different optionality and applications that do not compete with canola but enhances it, and it also enhances other products like weeds and potentially potatoes.

“It (camelina) could be a winter crop and it could be grown in dry land where typically you are seeing less and less canola growing, which is very prevalent to southern Alberta where there is lots of dry land,” said Wadsworth.

He said there are some applications they are working on with seed developers and growers to start building up some acreages.

“We already started a processing camelina through our plants and think this could be a real win-win for farmers that have dry land or for silage growers that need to generate additional cash through cash crops,” said Wadsworth.

He said they are quite excited about the prospects of camelina, and think it will be a lower carbon intensity fuel at the end of the day, as it doesn’t require as many nutrients or fertilizers, and it is not replacing any food products but rather enhancing them.

“It is really an integrated approach in terms of creating our own feedstock, working with growers to either take canola or preferentially taking off-spec, and taking camelina and converting those products into fuel and the byproduct into animal meal,” said Wadsworth.

He said essentially everything that comes out of their crush facility and bio-plant either goes into fuel or gets fed back into animals.

“It’s a full circle in terms of viability, in terms of taking those products and basically returning them into a low carbon intensity fuel or into feed products, basically not taking away from food in the industry,” said Wadsworth.

He said that is one of the negatives people hear about biofuels, as they are made to believe that they are just converting food into fuel, but their concept is more of the enhancement of that, while reducing the carbon intensity of fuel.

Wadsworth said they are constantly fine-tuning the facility, trying to find ways they can continue to build their fuel production and animal byproduct production.

“We have around 60 employees, most of them reside in Lethbridge. We have a small corporate office in Calgary and a few employees in Stockton, California but our flagship facility is in Lethbridge,” said Wadsworth.

He said most of the fuel they produce gets sold in the Unites States, but they would love to sell fuel here in Lethbridge and the rest of Alberta.

Wadsworth said that clean fuel regulation being rolled out get more established, they will continue to look at ways to keep that fuel in Alberta.

“We are currently talking to the City of Lethbridge about doing some trials with their garbage trucks and other municipal type of trucks. This is done in a lot of cities across North America, so I think there is lots of great applications where we are actually supporting farmers in the Lethbridge area, taking those products and converting them into fuel that also helps those same farmers, but in a more environmentally friendly way at the end of the day,” said Wadsworth.

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