Biomass Secure Power to minimize carbon footprint of pellet plant to be built at Cowichan Lake, British Columbia, through efficiencies in fiber collection and shipping, energy consumption, and preconditioning of woodchips

Lorena Madrigal

ABBOTSFORD, British Columbia , November 15, 2011 (press release) – Biomass Secure Power Inc. (OTC:QB: BMSPF) (the "Company") is pleased to provide shareholders with an update on the future of the biomass pellet marketplace. On November 3, 2011, APX-Endex successfully launched the world's first exchange for biomass renewable energy. This allows biomass fuel to be traded as a commodity, similar to oil and other commodities. This is a key milestone and an acknowledgement of the importance of this new market.

Many countries around the world are embracing renewable energy as a method of reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The European Union has a policy of 20-20-20. This EU policy is intended to reduce greenhouse gases by 20% below 1990 levels; 20% of energy must be produced by renewable sources and primary energy use must be reduced by 20%, all by 2020.

South Korea has passed a Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS) which mandates increased use of renewable energy. Failure to meet mandated reductions will result in substantial penalty fees. Biomass Secure Power Inc. is uniquely positioned to take advantage of this growing market trend.

Even without the benefit of incentives and penalties, bio-fuel pellets used for utility power generation are very price competitive with the current traded value of oil. The market has experienced an exponential growth of demand of the last few years and this trend will continue. The challenge will be to secure enough biomass fiber from sustainable sources to meet this demand. 1 tonne of pellets is the equivalent to about 2.75 barrels of oil. With Oil trading at $95/barrel the equivalent biomass cost is about $55/barrel equivalent.

The engineering department at BSPI has been challenged to make sure that the design for the Cowachin Lake plant minimizes the carbon footprint for producing pellets. There will be a number of technologies which will reduce the cost of fiber collection and shipping. For example we intend to condition wood chips prior to transfer to the plant taking advantage of natural processes to achieve a reduction in the received moisture content. Likewise at the plant there will be space for storage of the raw material and the extensive use of low-grade heat from operations to make sure that the moisture content at the drier is as low as it can be.

We are looking at a number of unique features that will be used to minimize the energy required to produce pellets. The wood chips will be sized to be efficiently dried in the drier and will be fine shredded to be efficiently processed in the mills without increasing the front end energy demand. The drier will feature recirculation systems for pollution control and will minimize the fiber required for drying.

Major power companies around the world are looking to biomass as a fuel to be co-fired with coal as a means of reducing CO2 emissions. This increases the demand for biomass pellets from today's levels of approximately 10 million tonnes per year to 130 million tonnes per year by 2022.

* All content is copyrighted by Industry Intelligence, or the original respective author or source. You may not recirculate, redistrubte or publish the analysis and presentation included in the service without Industry Intelligence's prior written consent. Please review our terms of use.