Penned by research director Staffan Melin, Development of the Bulk Pellet Market in Canada is an in depth look at the potential Canadian market for bulk wood pellets. The 27-page report includes information from across Canada on opportunities to use wood pellets to replace coal in power generating plants.

The report concludes that a large scale conversion of the coal burning power plants in Canada to co-firing at the 30% level would have a major impact on national CO2 emissions. A gradual introduction would potentially eliminate in the range of 50 million tonne, or 40% of the targeted 607 million tonne GHG annually by 2020 requiring about 14 million tonne of wood pellets or 11 million tonne of torrefied pellets. Aside from aiding Canada in meeting its obligation to reduce CO2 emissions, this would obviously create tremendous growth opportunities for the wood pellet sector and employment growth in many of Canada's remote forested regions.

Report topics include a summary of Canadian energy policy, a review of climate change policy and Canada's commitments, mitigation options for electricity producers, current electricity generating capacity in each province, conversion options, including natural gas and biomass, co-firing with biomass, woody biomass supply, agro-biomass supply, research underway, and torrefaction. Download the entire report, including graphs and tables, from WPAC's new website.