A NATURAL PRODUCTION CYCLE
How CoAlternative’s alignment with nature creates the perfect circular economy
In nature, nothing is wasted and everything has value.
Each output from one natural process becomes an input for another, whether as food, fertilizer or a natural building fabric.
This frugal recycling process is what enables nature to constantly regulate itself and grow.
And when humans weave their work into nature’s own circular economy they too experience the benefits of correction and progression.
This is precisely the principle on which CoAlternative has based its clean energy production model.
CoAlternative’s production model is circular. It harvests dead wood, damaged by wildfires, and uses a carbon neutral process of pressure and steam to turn it into a sustainable replacement for coal.
A renewable biofuel is burned instead of a finite fossil fuel, and in doing so it reduces its forerunner’s carbon footprint by more than 94 percent.
Advanced steam treated black pellets subsequently create a cleaner atmosphere, a cooler climate and fewer electrical storms that ignite the wildfires consuming earth’s forest carbon sinks.
As in nature, CoAlternative’s output corrects the balance of our environment and supports the health and evolution of our species.
The company’s green energy pellets provide a vital input for humanity’s security, prosperity and advancement.
CoAlternative’s circular economy is what first attracted its non-executive director Karen Wordsworth to the project.
Formerly KPMG’s Director of Climate Change and Sustainability, Karen now partners with sustainable mining, chemical extraction and clean energy companies to enhance their circularity.
She also advises Cambridge University’s Cambridge Centre for Climate Change Mitigation Research on the economics of low-carbon pathways.
Expressed broadly by Karen: “The whole ethos of CoAlternative’s project is around opening our eyes, seeing the wonder of what can be done with a little imagination and the resources in front of us.
“It is a fantastic way to work purely and truly with Mother Nature in that respect, and to be wholly aligned with her own cycle.”
In the process of working with wildfire-damaged waste deadwood, CoAlternative also produces naturally carbon-rich, remedial biochar soil substrate – a powerful natural fertilizer for replenishing the goodness of arable land.
The same residual soil product is used to fill mineshafts, preventing and absorbing the release of deadly greenhouse gases.
From CoAlternative’s forest fringe steam explosion facilities, which rupture woody biomass at cellular level, also comes the biochemical furfural from natural sugars.
Furfural replaces petrochemicals in paints, plastics, resins, bricks, ceramics, pharmaceuticals and engine fuels. Products made with it are typically biodegradable and climate-friendly.
And all of CoAlternative’s fossil fuel displacement occurs while ancient old-growth forests are left standing, to act as colossal carbon sinks for drawing down harmful atmospheric carbon.
Karen Wordsworth explained: “CoAlternative Energy is doing something with fire-damaged timber, which has very little other use.
“It would otherwise lay dormant for 20 to 25 years as it rots down and plant life starts to grow again as the ground recovers. And while all of that deadwood degenerates and decomposes it would let out enormous amounts of carbon and other greenhouse gases.
“By taking that waste with no apparent residual use or value, repurposing it into a natural, energy-dense fuel product, it becomes circular.
“The company clears woodland debris and displaces carbon-heavy fossil fuels that create the conditions for forest wildfires. And, in doing so, it opens up the environment for reforestation and helps the forest, making the circularity even stronger.
“It also provides important jobs and security for local, often Indigenous, people along the supply chain.”
But the circular benefits of CoAlternative’s project spread beyond its production cycle. Its full gamut of advantages are easily clarified.
Karen said: “The project also prevents the decommissioning of power stations that exist, and their replacement with high carbon footprint wind and solar infrastructure.
“You've got the carbon footprint of creating and shipping those set-ups. You've got the problems with the mineral resources needed to keep them going. And you've got what happens to the panels and turbines at the end of their life cycle.
“Wind turbine blades have to be replaced every 10, 15 or 20 years. In America they literally take them out into a field, plough a furrow and bury them because they can't be recycled.
“CoAlternative’s project has none of these issues. It has a carbon neutral plant creating raw materials with megawatt power equal to many turbines or solar panels. It uses energy infrastructure that is already there, whether in Japan, China, India or elsewhere around the world.
“And collectively we already know how to deal with burning a fuel and, importantly, how to put its energy into the grid at scale because we've done it for years.”
CoAlternative’s circular economy is made possible by innovative steam explosion technology that is fuelled on-site by bark and wood chippings.
Reflecting on the potential that can be unleashed by the new biofuel production process, Karen added: “We are trailblazing a way to look at forestry differently because forests should be carbon sinks but when they catch fire they aren't carbon sinks, they release carbon.
“We've now got a solution through steam explosion where Mother Nature is providing energy for us, if only we would open our eyes. And, through the technology, we're helping Mother Nature to recover.
“There is a lot of fire-damaged timber around the world that emits greenhouse gases while it decays. There are similar problems to Canada’s in Australia, the West Coast of the United States, in Portugal, Spain and elsewhere.
“Wildfire deadwood in each of these places can provide renewable energy with a miniscule carbon footprint. And by clearing the land, we're allowing new forests to grow.
“This production process, circular in many ways, provides a highly transferable global opportunity that corrects balance in our habitat and provides a financial opportunity. It's hugely valuable.”
CoAlternative’s Circular Economy Elements
1. ELECTRICAL STORM ENERGY
Extreme electrical storm conditions caused by manmade global warming ignite wildfires across Canada and other global regions.
2. FOREST RANGE WILDFIRES
Forest ranges burn for weeks releasing megatons of CO₂ into the air, and leaving behind vast areas of decaying waste deadwood.
3. RAW DEADWOOD HARVESTS
Charred tree trunks are harvested by CoAlternative as feedstock for black pellets, inhibiting the escape of decomposition methane.
4. FOREST RANGE RECOVERY
Ranges of newly cleared land are recovered, revitalized and reforested naturally to replenish Canada’s boreal carbon sink.
5. NET-ZERO CONVERSION
Harvested fire-damaged deadwood is exploded in high temperature steam using nearby carbon neutral production processes.
6. BIOFUEL PELLET PRODUCE
Energy-rich granular powder is compressed into dense, robust, waterproof next-gen pellets for use in coal-fired power stations.
7. CURATIVE SUBSTRATE PRODUCE
Carbon-rich, remedial soil substrate helps farmers to replenish the vitality of arable land, reducing use of oil-based fertilizers.
8. BIOCHEMICAL PRODUCE
Organic furfural is sold locally to replace harmful petrochemicals in paints, plastics, resins, bricks, ceramics, pharmaceuticals and fuels.
9. INT. SHIPMENT VOLUMES
CoAlternative’s climate-friendly black pellets are shipped as bulk freight to displace coal burned in generating stations worldwide.
10. FOSSIL FUEL DISPLACEMENT
CoAlternative’s biofuel pellets, made from decaying deadwood, are burned with a net-zero carbon footprint in place of coal.
11. NO INFRASTRUCTURE WASTE
Energy generating stations are kept in operation, mitigating the carbon footprint of new infrastructure and grid adaptations.
12. GREENHOUSE GAS REDUCTION
Decreasing levels of greenhouse gas emissions stabilise the climate, reduce global warming and diminish the power of wildfires.
