Evidence of meeting #15 for Natural Resources in the 40th Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was electricity.
A recording is available from Parliament.
10:25 a.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Leon Benoit
If you could get it to the clerk, that would be very helpful, if it's possible. Thank you very much.
We'll have one final question from Mr. Anderson. Go ahead, please.
10:25 a.m.
Conservative
David Anderson Conservative Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK
Because biomass is so important to both of you in terms of both energy and heating, I wanted to ask you what types of systems are prevalent in your countries, and of those, what percentage are a non-polluting closed loop? Also, what percentage of them would have some of the issues, such as dealing with the by-products?
10:25 a.m.
Arepo Consult, As an Individual
I couldn't tell you the percentages of the different types. Germany has almost everything: biocombustion in power plants, biocombustion in smaller plants, heat plants combustion, single ovens of solid biomass, combustion of liquid biomass in stationary plants, combustion of liquid biomass in mobile units, and transportation. But Germany also has a specific avenue, which is biogas production in anaerobic fermentation combined with local CHP. This is something that is supported both through the CHP support system and through the renewable energy support system. These two incentive systems make it very attractive, and the largest part of the electricity we generate from biomass comes from this type of technology. Most of the plants are located on the farms, so farmers take very well to that.
But I couldn't give you the numbers, because it's always difficult to add up all these different types of biomass and forms of bioenergy.
10:30 a.m.
Conservative
David Anderson Conservative Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK
Are you saying that 45% of your energy comes from biomass, but most of it is produced in small locations?
10:30 a.m.
Ortelius Management AB, As an Individual
I don't have the figures or the percentages for different types of plants right here, but we could probably get it pretty easily, so we'll hand it over. We use biomass in huge cogeneration plants--producing some 300 megawatts of heat and so on and maybe 120 to 150 megawatts of electricity--down to the smallest boilers, all sizes.
10:30 a.m.
Arepo Consult, As an Individual
Germany covers only 5.1% of its primary energy with biomass.
10:30 a.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Leon Benoit
Thank you very much to all three of you for being with us by teleconference today, Dr. Wörlen from Germany, and Mr. Sandin and Mr. Öhrström from Sweden. We do appreciate it, and this information will be very useful as we write the report for this study on integrated energy systems. So thank you very much.
We will briefly suspend the meeting and come back in about two minutes.
[Proceedings continue in camera]