Green Inititiatives

BlueCircle likes 'green' initiatives. That's why we went to our Docu-Sign program and cut our paper use by 60%, and we'll do even more when we fully utilize EPIC, our new Broker Management System.

Of course, with a slump in the traditional energy sector, perhaps partially driven by the public's interest in reducing our carbon footprint, it's great to see some fresh ideas about how best to provide us the power we need without killing the planet.

To that end,Steeper Energy Canada Ltd. has developed a technology to turn biomass – plant matter – into heavy fuel that burns like diesel. The initiative is to produce liquid fuels and chemicals that would be equivalent to petroleum products but using this biomass, typically made up of forestry and agricultural waste, and sometimes crops which are grown specifically for use in the process.

Calgary has in recent years become a small but increasingly vibrant hub for the development of technologies that use biomass to replace fossil fuels. It can also be used as a carbon sink for removing CO2 from the atmosphere.As the oil and gas industry sheds jobs, companies and the city itself must look to innovation and research to develop more sustainable solutions that would also be in line with the province’s new climate-change policy and planned tax on carbon emissions.

The big difference between oil and biomass is that true biomass is plant matter already part of the natural carbon cycle. Trees and tall grasses, for example, remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere while they grow. Upon death, they decompose, returning some of the carbon back to the environment. As an energy source, biomass is considered carbon-neutral because its combustion adds no new carbon to the natural cycle.