Sustainability Benefits

Stakeholder Benefits: Flax Straw Biomass Pellets

Our production pathway will create benefits for stakeholders across the value chain including crop growers, farmers, sawmills, forest communities and First Nations as biomass farmers, local harvest and transport groups, university and college students, domestic and global biomass energy farmers and local industries that seek transition from fossil fuels to sustainable, renewable and low-carbon energy sources such as the mining sector in Saskatchewan and the rest of Canada.

Our proposed flax straw processing facility in Regina with an estimated future annual capacity of 75,000 tonnes is projected to provide the following sustainability benefits:

Socio-economic benefits: The use of biomass for bioenergy and biofuels production requires several logistics operations, including harvesting, collection, storage, processing, and transportation. All these operations have the potential to add skilled positions to the economy.

The project will create around millions of dollars annually for baling, bale handling, storage, and transportation businesses.
New jobs will be created including jobs in flax straw logistics and jobs at the flax straw processing facility.
Creation of business opportunities for Saskatchewan farmers. Currently, flax straw is viewed as an agricultural waste with no economic value. This project will create a market for flax straw, generating new annual income streams for local flax growers.
Training and employment opportunities for highly skilled personnels: the processing of flax straw will create income for the operators working at the flax straw processing facility in Regina.

Climate Change and Environment Benefits: The use of underutilized flax straw as feedstock for bioenergy and biofuels production will reduce both air pollution and the GHG emissions, has no impact on the local water supply, and does not create any waste that needs to be landfilled:

Currently, the majority of flax growers burn flax straw at the field after the harvest season. Burning every tonne of flax straw generates about 80 kg CO2e of GHG emissions. Burning 50 tonnes of flax straw in the field is equivalent to the annual GHG emissions generated by a typical passenger vehicle (about 4 tonnes/yr). So, using about 85,000 tonnes of flax straw to produce 75,000 tonne of biomass pellets is equivalent to removing 1,700 passenger vehicles annually from the road network.
The use of flax straw pellets for domestic bioheat generation would result in deep decarbonization of industries that use large amounts of fossil fuels for heat and power generation (up to 90%).
No water is used in flax straw pellet production and there is no potential water contamination in the flax straw-to-bioheat value chain.
No chemicals are used in flax straw pellet production and no by-products are produced that need disposal/landfill in flax straw pellet production.