Website provides industrial biomass information for companies, municipalities

A website launched this week could help attract green industries to Alberta by showing them where to find wood waste, agricultural products and other raw material they require.

“They come knocking on the door and want to set up here, and the first question they ask is ‘Where is all the biomass?’ ” said Steve Price, executive director of bio-industrial services for Alberta Innovates, which spent about $1.5 million developing the new database.

An increasing variety of businesses are finding ways to use organic matter that once was often thrown away — sawdust and tree limbs can be turned into fuel pellets or fibreboard, aspen can be used for artificial sweetener, and straw, sewage sludge or garbage can produce electricity.

There’s also demand for crops that can be converted into ethanol or biodiesel, while plants such as hemp are catching the eye of entrepreneurs hoping to make them into clothes, food or industrial material.

The searchable Bio-Resource Management Information System (BRIMS) created by Edmonton’s Silvacom Ltd. makes it easier for firms to find the areas of Alberta where there’s sufficient biomass to supply whatever type of operation they’re considering.

“If you’re going to invest millions of dollars in a facility, you want to make sure you have enough material,” said Price, who thinks 100 companies from outside the province might use the free system annually in addition to smaller local operators.

“All of it, whether agricultural or forest fibre, represents an opportunity to someone.”

Chris Lang, Silvacom’s vice-president of business development, said his company spent several years creating the web application for Alberta Innovates, a provincial body that funds research and innovation.

The site incorporates such data as crop projections from the Agriculture Financial Services Corp.

Information is available at the township level. Clients who see positive signs can then give the area closer scrutiny, he said.

“You can’t build a plant in Lloydminster and haul waste (to supply it) from Hinton.”

Silvacom, which has 70 staff members in Edmonton, was started in 1983 by two University of Alberta graduates and developed Alberta’s online campground reservation system, among other projects.

Although Minnesota provides a service similar to BRIMS, Lang doesn’t know of another interactive site like it in Canada.

“If a small number of facilities get built as a result of the application, it’s obviously going to prove its worth quickly.”