After years of seeing acres of flax straw being burned near his home in rural Saskatchewan, Prairie Clean Energy founder Trevor Thomas believed he had devised a solution that could provide farmers with an economical and environmentally conscious way to use flax straw waste—and one that could also generate bioenergy while helping address any feedstock shortfalls.&nbsp;That’s according to Mahmood Ebadian, chief product and supply chain development officer for the Regina, Saskatchewan-based company. Even more importantly, Ebadian says, this solution tackled the residue management issue for flax growers. “Oilseed flax has a significant percentage of long, tough-stem fibers that decay slowly over time,” he explains. “This makes it difficult to incorporate flax straw into the soil after harvest since the fibers wrap themselves around or plug disks, wheels and seeder-shanks.”After researching the potential of flax straw as a fuel source, Thomas established Prairie Clean Energy to bridge the gap between flax farmers and those seeking clean, reliable biomass fuel and other products. Over the past four years, Prairie Clean Energy has grown into a fully realized biomass aggregation and processing business that has built partnerships with farmers and organizations across Canada and the world to deliver their densified ag residue to customers worldwide.An Evolution&nbsp; Prairie Clean Energy has transitioned from proof of concept to minimum viable product to being named by the Vienna Institute as one of the top 10 clean energy companies to watch in the world in 2023—all in rapid succession. With financial support from Innovation Saskatchewan under a Saskatchewan Advantage Innovation Fund project and a $1.1 million grant from the Mining Innovation Commercialization Accelerator, the company and its academic partners successfully developed a proprietary flax straw pellet production process, which is patent pending, and they are now working on a second patent application.&nbsp;Last year, Prairie Clean Energy evolved to purchasing flax straw from producers and producing flax pellets in 2023 at a tolled facility to test logistics, process and product readiness.Feedstock Sourcing Strategy&nbsp; Transparency and trust have been the foundation of Prairie Clean Energy’s feedstock-sourcing strategy since the beginning. “We have tried to reflect that in our communication with farmers and crop growers,” Ebadian says. “We never contact a farmer just to discuss taking their straw but also to convey the social and environmental benefits of our business for local farmers, their families and other local communities. Our key personnel live in the region and have a deep understanding of the values that farmers believe in when it comes to long-term relationships.”Additionally, the company shares a portion of the economic benefits of the business, which is a welcome part of its feedstock-sourcing strategy. &nbsp;“Although we have been mainly focusing on flax straw due to the fact that it has been a residue management issue for crop growers, we have been looking into other crop residues, byproducts and wastes from food processing facilities,” Ebadian says. “Building the capability to collect, aggregate and process multiple types of feedstock is vital to our long-term growth.”The biggest challenge has been finding the right equipment set that has the capability to process and pelletize flax straw, given its unique fiber structure. “At the early stage of our journey, we learned that we cannot use the common existing biomass processing and pelletization equipment that is available in the market and being used mainly for wood pellet and animal feed production,” Ebadian says. “I mean, you can use the off-the-shelf equipment, but it comes with the cost of low-efficiency operations and pellets with inconsistent quality, as our trials showed to us.”Therefore, Prairie Clean Energy has been working closely with original equipment manufacturers to modify their existing equipment and machineries based on the physical and chemical qualities of flax straw and is currently in the process of filing two patents—one on size reduction and the other on the pelletization of low-bulky agricultural biomass such as flax straw.Intended Customers&nbsp; In the short term, the company focuses on the bedding market for three reasons, according to Ebadian. “First, based on the recent trials we did, flax straw pellets are a high-quality horse bedding product; second it is a relatively premium and established market, which allows us to generate revenue from our first facility and also enables us to advance in all fronts of our supply chains, including fiber supply security, straw and pellet logistics and straw processing,” he says. “Third is financing, as we need solid demands to make progress in all these fronts.”However, animal bedding is a relatively small market at around $1.1 billion, so based on other experiments the company has done, flax straw pellets are the right feedstock for low-carbon bioenergy, biofuels and biomaterials, and the energy and materials markets will be its long-term focus, as that is already a $119.8 billion market. &nbsp;Prairie Clean Energy has already signed MOU and off-take agreements with a few major bioenergy users and is promoting the use of biomass for bioheat, biogas and renewable natural gas (RNG) production in Saskatchewan. Additionally, it is in discussions with a global trading company regarding the use of flax straw for RNG, biochar and biocoal production. &nbsp;As of the first week of February, the company has a pending patent on flax straw processing and is filing another patent on the process in the next few months. “We have been able to secure flax straw from local producers for our 2024 production, and we’re at the final stage of our capital raising, so we should be able to place the order to purchase the flax straw processing equipment in late February or early March,” Ebadian says. That equipment will be housed in an existing building in Regina that the company bought in 2022. “Also, with the support from government research funding programs, including Saskatchewan Innovation and Mining Innovation Commercialization Accelerator, we are demonstrating the use of flax straw pellets for bioheat generation using a modern biomass boiler in collaboration with Saskatchewan Polytechnic.”Comparison to Wood Pellets&nbsp; Overall, the company does not view its product as being in competition with wood pellets, instead seeing flax straw pellets as supplementary.“As the global demand for biomass pellets is expected to grow and with the rising concerns over biomass sustainability, we will expect more use of agricultural-based pellets such as flax straw pellets,” Ebadian says. “Our product has been tested by major users of wood pellets, and we have not run into any major setbacks to stop these facilities from using large quantities of flax straw pellets.”Not that there aren’t some concerns with higher ash, nitrogen and chlorine contents of ag-based pellets compared to wood pellets. However, the bioenergy industry has figured out different ways to cope with lower-quality biomass. “We have done several quality assessments by ISO-certified labs, and the results showed superior quality of flax straw compared to other common agricultural biomass such as wheat straw and corn stover in particular energy content and ash content, and it is comparable with industrial wood pellets,” Ebadian says.Some believe flax straw shouldn’t be planted more than three years in any rotation, but the company has factored that into its equation. “Similar to any other crop, flaxseed is part of a crop rotation routine, but it does not mean that a crop grower won’t plant flaxseed in a year at all,” Ebadian says. “To mitigate the market risks, many crop growers divide their cropland into subdivided sections and grow different crops in each section, rotating crops between these sections. So, many farmers who have been planting flaxseed will do it annually, but the land size may change. That is why we have seen commercial production of flaxseed and straw in the prairies annually for many years.”Looking Ahead&nbsp; As a start-up company, Prairie Clean Energy has been focusing on building relationships with as many crop growers in the region as possible despite the distance from its first facility in Regina. “A deep understanding of cropland distribution in the region is the key for us for the optimal location of our future facilities,” Ebadian says. “And as we grow, we will optimize our logistics to minimize the transportation distances given the location of our facility and the availability of crop residues in the supply area.”The company is also looking at other crop residues to be added to its feedstock basket to minimize the risk of feedstock shortage given the nature of agricultural crop production. &nbsp; &nbsp;Prairie Clean Energy’s business aspiration is to become the major biomass aggregator and processor in the Canadian and U.S. prairies that supplies affordable feedstock with consistent quality to its clients, Ebadian adds. “We won’t stop at supplying only the existing markets such as animal bedding and bioenergy markets—we are already pursuing other high-value markets such as industrial absorbents, biochar, RNG, sustainable aviation fuels and hydrogen.” Contact: Anna Simet&nbsp; asimet@bbiinternational.com&nbsp; &nbsp;

2024-03-04 - Fueled by Flax Straw (Biomass Magazine)

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Prairie Clean Energy is finding success in its pursuit of an environmentally sustainable solution to burning agricultural waste, beginning with flax straw waste pellets.

Fueled by Flax Straw

Fueled by Flax Straw

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