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ENERGY ROADMAPS REVIVE THE TRANSITION

Mon, 11 May 2026 08:38:46 GMT

How a breakaway climate conference refocused the future on renewables

COUNTRIES generating a third of the world’s wealth have vowed to follow roadmaps for discarding fossil fuels, after they agreed heightened concerns over energy security and climate change.

Motivated delegates from 57 nations convened in Colombia, at April’s end, to identify and agree successive moves that will ditch their dependence on oil, gas and coal.

Spurred by threats of rising energy prices, accelerating inflation, interest rate increases and spiralling unemployment, they achieved in two days what 197 nations could not in twelve at COP30.

From a five day forum comprising exploration and discussion, not negotiation, two countries stepped forward to outline precise roadmaps for energy transition.

And, observing attentively, 55 others demonstrated clear intent to follow suit at next year’s ‘Transitioning Away from Fossil Fuels’ conference on the exposed Pacific island chain of Tuvalu.

Before then, in November, the same nations will showcase their progress to attendees at COP31 in Antalya, Turkey – where it is anticipated a universal but flexible roadmap will be devised.

As with all wheels in motion, the smaller eccentric one powers the larger one towards its target.

A new start line was traced and traversed in Santa Marta city, after significant outcomes from the conference.

Chairing the talks, Colombia’s environment minister Irene Vélez Torres heralded them as “the beginning of a new global climate democracy.”

China, Russia, India and the US as well as petro-states Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the UAE weren’t invited – to elude the type of lengthy debates and deadlocks experienced at COP30.

Ms. Vélez Torres said: “There has been a growing gap between science and governments. It happens because there is a lot of denialism. There is a lot of economic and political lobbying as well.

“The true belief of the countries that are here is that we need to go back to science and base our decisions on science, and back up our decision-making, processes and pathways with science.”

The 1,900 attendees were comprised of parliamentarians, scientists and academics, policy, financial and legal experts, think tank analysts, civil society and Indigenous leaders.

Devised by co-hosts Colombia and the Netherlands, the format featured a science pre-conference attended by 400 climate scholars, before opening and closing plenaries, and closed-door break-out groups.

Science sessions on April 24 and 25 established a new ‘Science Panel for Global Energy Transition’ – to involve up to 100 brains, be based at the São Paulo University and deliver rapid analysis and guidance on transition pathways, technology solutions, policy design and financial apparatus.

The break-out meetings in Santa Marta each featured 12 ministers or envoys from different countries in an inner circle, enclosed by perfect outer circles of civil society members and Indigenous people. A designated chairperson led each discussion and all in situ were encouraged to be free-flowing with their thoughts.

Panama’s climate change envoy, Juan Carlos Monterrey Gómez described the ambiance: “We couldn’t open our computers so we had to speak from our minds and our hearts. That kind of space, I haven’t seen in my 10-year history with the UNFCCC.”

The Roadmaps

During the summit, France’s climate envoy Benoît Faraco produced his country’s new roadmap for energy transition – setting end-of-consumption targets for coal by 2030, oil by 2045 and gas by 2050.

The detailed roadmap included explicit decarbonisation milestones.

For France’s 50 largest industrial zones, 85 percent fewer oil-fired boilers by 2035. For its countrywide homes, 60 percent fewer oil-fired boilers by 2035.

For electrification of public transport, 25 percent fossil fuel-free by 2030. And for electric car sales, 66 percent of its new automobile market by 2030.

Alongside this, objectives to expand the country’s use of nuclear, hydrogen and renewable energy – including biofuel – were outlined clearly.

By the summit’s close, Colombia had the outline of a similar roadmap – despite being South America's largest coal producer and the second-largest producer of petroleum.

Drafted by Prof Piers Forster of Leeds University’s Priestley Centre for Climate Future, it showed carbon emissions from energy cut by 90 percent below 2015 levels – made possible by ambitious policies to ditch fossil fuels and electrify transport by 2050.

While costings indicated Colombia needed to increase yearly spending by $10bn to achieve that goal, contributing economists demonstrated yearly savings of $23bn by 2050 – with fossil fuel price volatility and inflation central to calculations.

Forster explained to delegates: “The biggest issues facing countries are economic and to do with the cost of living. So, that was also the focus of this work for Colombia.”

Next Steps

Almost half of the attendee nations were fossil fuel producers, pronouncing clear intentions to wind down their carbon outputs.

Petroleum is critical to Nigeria’s economy. Africa’s largest oil producer pumps almost two million barrels per day. Its ministerial envoy Abubakar Momah was first to speak at the opening plenary.

He said: “Nigeria is actively diversifying its economy away from extracting oil, which accounts for around 80 percent of our exports. Nigeria strongly believes that it is not whether extraction should decline, but how to organise it so it is manageable, fair and politically viable.”

Similarly, more than 2.3 million barrels of petroleum, gas and other liquid fuel transit the Panama Canal each day. The canal is the primary engine for Panama’s national economy.

Yet the country’s special representative on climate change, Juan Carlos Monterrey Gómez, addressed the conference with: “Economies built on fossil fuels are unravelling in real time. Fossil fuels are not just dirty. They are unreliable, they are dangerous and they must end.”

Both are sacrificing, astounding and welcoming positions.

The closing plenary of the ‘Transitioning Away from Fossil Fuels’ conference on April 29 was led by co-hosting Dutch climate minister Stientje van Veldhoven.

While inviting more nations to join the “open coalition,” she urged those present to take away and navigate three work streams – ahead of the 2027 ‘Second Conference on Transitioning Away from Fossil Fuels’ in Tuvalu.

For true transition they must eschew fossil fuel trade systems, develop national and regional roadmaps and adopt liberating financial systems around renewables – liaising with the newly establish ‘Science Panel for Global Energy Transition’.

All of the 57 countries present concurred.

The five days of unrestrained talks were heralded as “a historic breakthrough” by Tzemporah Berman, founder of the Fossil Fuel Treaty Initiative.

She surmised: “We are building a coalition of ambitious countries willing to lead and break the consensus deadlock that has paralysed concrete action on fossil fuels in the UN negotiations.

“After years stuck in endless debates about whether to phase out fossil fuels, finally we are focusing on the how.”

CoAlternative Energy’s CEO David Peters monitored reports emerging from Santa Marta, and reflected on the conference.

He said: “The global energy transition is no longer a concept. It is real and happening before our eyes, in places like Santa Marta and Tuvalu.

“This breakaway group of nations deserves every commendation for working around the deadlock of COP30, and continuing to shift humanity’s relationship with energy.

“We now face the dual problem of weakening climate and economic stability. The cause of each are fossil fuels.

“The energy transition towards renewables is a route to a more secure future and CoAlternative Energy is pleased to be supporting the transition with steam treated advanced black pellets.”

Alongside the UN, countries attending the ‘Conference on Transitioning Away from Fossil Fuels’ were: Angola, Antigua and Barbuda, Australia, Austria, Bangladesh, Belgium, Brazil, Cameroon, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Denmark, Dominican Republic, the EU, the Federated States of Micronesia, Finland, France, Germany, Ghana, Guatemala, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Jamaica, Kenya, Luxembourg, Malawi, the Maldives, the Marshall Islands, México, Mongolia, the Netherlands, Nepal, Nigeria, Norway, New Zealand, Palau, Panama, Philippines, Portugal, Saint Lucia, Senegal, Singapore, Slovenia, the Solomon Islands, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Tanzania, Turkey, Tuvalu, Uganda, the UK, Uruguay, Vanuatu, the Vatican and Vietnam.

A NATURAL PRODUCTION CYCLE

Mon, 04 May 2026 17:23:45 GMT

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.

BIG DATA IN JAPAN

Sat, 18 Apr 2026 17:32:04 GMT

Why a brief energy shift won’t stop the country’s renewables-fuelled AI boom

The ripple effect of history’s largest disruption to oil and gas supplies continues to spread dread throughout the world’s energy importing nations.

A short term stranglehold on 600 miles of water has exposed the long term vulnerability of numerous economies’ energy security.

And those most reliant on Middle Eastern fuel to float their domestic markets are now darting desperately for makeshift measures to prop up national prosperity.

Globally, the greatest concerns emerged in the Asia Pacific basin – a region known well by CoAlternative’s Director of Business Development Michael Cook.

Singapore, South Korea, the Philippines and Thailand all recognised their predicament quickly, acting hastily to initiate ideas ranging from emergency rationing to expediting nuclear power plans.

Unquestionably though, the Asia Pacific nation facing the most daunting threat to its long term energy security is Japan – home to the world’s fifth largest economy.

Japan imports approximately 95 percent of its energy needs, including almost all of its oil and the majority of its gas. Around 90 percent of Japan's oil imports pass through the Strait of Hormuz.

Rebalancing that sudden energy deficit would be challenging enough without it being compounded by the country’s obligations to become a key data hub for the East’s AI boom. Japan's data centre market is mid swift expansion.

Already the second largest data centre market in the developed world, after the US according to the MSCI World Index, it has more than 200 operative data facilities, mostly in Tokyo and Osaka.

The country’s data centre market is projected to become a $30bn industry this year and it continues to surge with a compound annual growth rate of above six percent.

Just this month Microsoft committed to invest $10bn in Japan over the next four years – to build AI data centres and related infrastructure – two years after it made a $2.9bn investment to strengthen the country’s cyber defences and bolster its AI push.

Power consumed by data centres, cloud computing, AI and chip plants in Japan is expected to triple over the next eight years, rising to 57 billion kWh by fiscal 2035.

Cooling requirements will claim much of that energy supply. Japan’s data centre cooling market alone is projected to be worth $7bn by 2034.

Alongside protective policy, such irrepressible momentum and big business commitments have forced Japan into a reluctant decision to temporarily relax constraints on some power plants burning coal – the dirtiest of fossil fuels.

The country will let less-efficient coal-fired generating stations compete again in capacity market auctions from April 2026.

Such drastic actions go firmly against Japan’s steadfast commitments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from 2013 levels, by 46 percent before 2030, and 60 percent by 2035.

The country’s 6 ^th Strategic Energy Plan approved in October 2021 pledges to reach carbon neutrality by 2050. It prioritizes renewable energy as “a major power source”.

And with power delivery times for new AI-related projects reaching ten and five years in Tokyo and Osaka respectively, where competition for grid power is tight, greener national strategies are already maturing.

Establishing Fukuoka (on Kyushu island) and Tomakomai (on Hokkaido island) as dedicated AI data cities with large scale decarbonized energy infrastructure provide clearer routes towards Japan’s digital objectives.

They’re how the country plans to reach its declared climate targets, mitigate vulnerability to future energy shocks and accelerate Eastern AI growth. For all three reasons, Japan remains focused on raising its reliance on renewable energy rapidly.

So, despite re-categorizing old energy infrastructure temporarily, it is highly unlikely Japan sees coal as anything but a short term fix for countering one global energy shock.

And, as a result, the country’s need to burn and stockpile net-zero black biofuel pellets is likely to grow – a prospect acknowledged by CoAlternative’s director Michael Cook.

Having advanced a large part of his C suite career in Japanese boardrooms, Michael is positioned to appreciate and interpret the country’s business culture and rationale.

Few understand Japan’s industrial impetus and decision-making like Michael.

Speaking to CoAlternative’s communications team about Japan’s “momentary shift in energy strategy,” Michael explained: “The effects of this Middle East war are unprecedented. They’re widely accepted to surpass even the consequences of the Abadan oil crisis in the 50s.

“The conflict has resulted in a huge glitch in energy production, the full extent of which is yet to be felt in manufacturing and global supply chains.

“It is natural that, while reviewing long term energy security, many countries are putting temporary measures in place to mitigate the immediate shock to their energy supply.

“Japan’s small businesses especially are beginning to suffer from a commodity price shock, as the result of a standstill in the Hormuz Strait.

“Those businesses are either being priced out of the energy market or having to raise prices for consumers, while halting wage rises. There is genuine concern growing in Japan around factory closures in some industries.”

Reflecting on the Japanese government’s response, Michael added: “Japan has implemented emergency measures. It has released significant oil reserves. It has relaxed constraints on burning coal, for now.

“It is also one of a few countries to have successfully extricated tankers from the Hormuz Strait.

“Prime Minister Takaichi has promised whatever it takes to ease cost of living pressures and these are her responses to a crisis. They aren’t long term policies. They are a momentary shift in energy strategy.

“Japan is one of the world’s most committed nations to reaching carbon neutrality and nothing will have changed in that respect. Its unwavering commitment to renewable energy will remain as it was.

A NEW FORESTRY MODEL

Tue, 14 Apr 2026 18:37:29 GMT

How CoAlternative and federal tax credits can refocus Canada’s forest industries

The impact of successive blows to Canada’s forestry industry has left hardworking communities across the nation feeling as if they have been put through the mill.

First pine beetle infestations ravaged 18 million hectares of boreal forest on which thousands of livelihoods depend. Then record-breaking wildfire seasons decimated 24 million more.

Each climate-fuelled phenomenon rendered landscapes of sellable raw material for construction and manufacturing redundant.

More recently, US trade tariffs have made Canada’s remaining softwood resources unaffordable in a nearby marketplace that was buying C$11bn of timber from Canada every year.

In little time, saw and paper mills which dominated the country’s forestry industry for decades have been forced to close or curtail operations.

The effect on Canada’s rural communities and economies has been demoralising.

As the full bite of US duties hit at the end of 2025 major lumber companies closed multiple mills, and hundreds of forestry jobs vanished in weeks.

When a pulp mill in Crofton, British Columbia, closed last December more than 360 people in a town of 1500 residents were made unemployed in one day, as C$6m in taxes fell out of the local purse.

The previous month witnessed timber production at a mill in BC’s 100 Mile House end with 165 direct jobs and 500 indirect jobs affected. It was the latest of three sizeable mill closures in the town of 2000 residents.

Numerous other companies have recently announced curtailments to their timber operations.

But, despite difficulties and despair experienced by communities entwined with Canada’s forestry industries for decades, a new model for the country’s revered forestry practices is emerging.

Canada needs an immediate solution to its forestry problems – to save the remaining 400,000 jobs, valuable skills bases and existing infrastructure within it.

And in March, the country’s federal government gave its clearest indication of a designated new direction for the forestry industry – suggesting diversification must go beyond new global timber markets and into more innovative commercial areas.

Legislation for Canada’s Clean Electricity Investment Tax Credit was given Royal Assent on March 26, officially enacting 15 percent refundable tax credits designed to accelerate clean electricity generation, storage and transmission.

Energy projects made eligible for the tax relief specifically included waste biomass, to support Canada’s struggling forestry economy. That single inclusion in the legislation showed inspiration and initiative by a government tasked with salvaging Canada’s forest fortunes.

After recognising latent potential lying in Canada’s boreal forest some years ago, CoAlternative Energy is already in pre-construction phases for two steam explosion biofuel pellet production facilities in Northern Alberta – with further plants planned in other provinces.

Each will turn fire-damaged and beetle-ravaged deadwood into energy-dense, durable black biofuel pellets – as a replacement for coal burned worldwide.

Original plans tabled by the company in 2022 seem more farsighted now in light of Canada’s new legislation under Bill C-15 (Budget 2025 Implementation Act, No. 1).

And Canada’s Clean Electricity Investment Tax Credits follow federal government’s release of C$1.2bn in financial support for the softwood lumber industry.

Ottawa has made a further C$1.7bn available to other forestry subsectors in loans and loan guarantees, and put a further C$50m in a pot for reskilling displaced workers.

Combined, these measures help to shape a new model for Canada’s forestry industry – one based on innovative largescale biofuel production.

It will mean workers skilled in logging, haulage, milling, manufacturing, logistics and other downstream services are able to repurpose their talents and resurrect their rural economies and communities.

The global wood pellet fuel market is estimated to be worth more than C$20bn, and it will welcome CoAlternative’s newer, more energy-dense steam treated advanced black pellets.

CoAlternative Energy’s CEO David Peters described the transition from timber to biofuel production as an “easy pivot” for Canada’s forestry industry.

He explained: “A new focus is needed for Canada’s forestry industries to preserve the jobs, skills and infrastructure that exist within it, before they are lost.

“Black pellet biofuel made from waste biomass in the form of burned and beetle-infested lumber is a logical and easy pivot for the industry.

“External forces unfortunately brought Canada to this turning point but all of the foundations and cornerstones needed to remodel the forestry industry are in place.

“Now both federal and provincial governments are acting with determination to facilitate forestry’s transition to sustainable biomass production which will play a central role in the industry’s future.

“CoAlternative’s biofuel business model is viable without any kind of subsidy, but government support and initiatives like tax credits for investors only serves to raise their interest and confidence in long term production.”

A NEW RUSH FOR RENEWABLES

Tue, 24 Mar 2026 08:28:19 GMT

How black pellets provide energy security against future fossil fuel shocks

The war in Iran has sent oil and gas prices soaring, as refineries and fields remain closed in many Middle Eastern countries.

With tankers stranded in the Strait of Hormuz and no viable strategy tabled to unlock the flow of energy, the economic impact of relying on fossil fuel is being felt profoundly around the world.

Households could soon face another cost of living shock, just four years after the last. Prices at the pump, home heating bills and the cost of a daily shop could climb again.

A sense of deja vu has prompted politicians to repeat their resolve to create energy independence for their respective nations. And renewables are viewed as the way out.

As problems escalated, Canadian PM Mark Carney agreed a strategic energy partnership with India’s Prime Minister Navendra Modi, including initiatives to increase their use of renewables.

Seven EU energy ministers — from Finland, Denmark, Portugal, the Netherlands, Latvia and Luxembourg — called for more investment in clean power.

This week Kier Starmer told the UK: “What gives us control is homegrown energy, which is why we should go further in relation to renewables.”

Fatefully, growing fallouts and fractures between oil states have raised the value of renewable energy.

The focus has inevitably fallen on solar and wind. But, with global demand for energy expected to double by 2050, the question to ask now is perhaps, ‘how can those intermittent, capital-intensive sources of power do the heavy lifting?’

It’s a quandary that has been considered fully by sustainability expert and CoAlternative Energy non-executive director Karen Wordsworth.

Karen was head of International Business at the Met Office – the UK’s national weather service for governments, business and public – for eight years. Then KPMG’s Director of Climate Change and Sustainability from 2011 to 2016.

As Chief Executive Officer of X-Met Ltd Karen now partners with sustainable mining, chemical extraction and clean energy companies. She also advises Cambridge University’s Cambridge Centre for Climate Change Mitigation Research on the economics of low-carbon pathways.

Describing herself ardently as “not a tree-hugger for the sake of being environmentally friendly,” Karen urges the importance of renewable energy projects making sound financial sense.

There’s little she doesn’t know about applying the right renewable energy to problems faced by nations switching to modern sources of power.

“We're in a changing world and it's very volatile,” she insists. “We need to find a way of protecting ourselves and our family, because it always comes down to me and mine. That’s how people think.

“They have had enough of sustainability and being woke. The people in my space, who live this every day, understand that.

“Demand that's coming from datacentres and AI produces an enormous challenge for sustainability to take a key role in energy production. How are we going to power them?

“When the wind is blowing and the sun shines, we can create power. When the wind doesn't blow or we have snow, they’re not the base load.

“Are we going to have periods of time where we can't use things at home because other things are using grid power? Are we going to have blackouts? If you're looking for sustainability, you need reliability.

“The French have nuclear. The UK turns to gas, although Mr Miliband wants to turn that off within five to ten years. China is opening two or three coal-fired power stations a day. India is doing the same.

“If you're looking at a resilient, renewable, sustainable, traceable product, then you've got one in black pellets from Canada.

“With black pellets, we have that base load. The product can be stored outside without worrying about infiltration of water. There’s no need to create big silos. So, as a resource, it can be stockpiled for emergencies like this one.”

But biofuel pellets have so far been overlooked in intensified conversations about future renewable energy mixes and security.

Asked why politicians and energy agency officials aren’t bringing them to the fore, Karen Wordsworth has a straight answer.

“Biomass has had a lot of bad press, and deservedly so. The waters have been muddied by shipping virgin timber, pelletised, from Canada to burn in power stations.

“And while energy companies are subsidised to do that, it isn’t ethical or economical.

“We are doing something with fire-damaged timber that has very little other use. It's an issue all around the world and we’ve now got a solution for it with steam explosion.

“From it, we are creating natural, energy-dense fuel that prevents pollution from coal, and we aren’t changing what we're doing already too much.

“The raw materials are there. We're using infrastructure that's already there, whether it's in Japan, the UK or wherever. It’s a model that doesn’t need subsidies, so it’s highly transferable.

“We're not reliant on the wind blowing. We're not reliant on the sun shining. We're not reliant on massive subsidies. And we can provide that reliability and resilience.

“Steam explosion black pellets have a real role to play.”

WILDFIRE SEASON 2026 BEGINS

Fri, 20 Mar 2026 18:39:29 GMT

Why forest areas near CoAlternative’s pellet plant sites are in the spotlight

Wildfire season has formally begun in Alberta where CoAlternative will construct two black pellet biofuel plants over the coming 18 months.

This year’s wildfire season is considered ‘high risk’ by authorities after the Province experienced a notably warm and dry winter.

Record-low levels of rain and snow, and above average temperatures – driven by a warm Chinook wind descending the Rockies and elongated areas of high pressure – have provided forestry officials and fire crews with cause for concern.

Weather patterns in the weeks ahead will determine exactly how severe this year’s season will prove to be.

According to Government of Alberta information, since the start of the year 36 new wildfires have already taken hold in the Province, to add to the 15 still burning from 2025. All are under control for now.

Three of them are burning in the Peace River Forest Area close to where CoAlternative will situate production facilities on the outskirts of the towns of both La Crete and High Level.

The area is “under scrutiny” from several bodies responsible for managing Alberta’s fire risks.

Christie Tucker, Information Unit Manager with Alberta Wildfire, cited a swath of central boreal forest from Peace River to Lac La Biche as particularly concerning.

Ms. Tucker said: “That whole area was very dry last year. It was a ‘one-in-50 years’ lack of rain in that area. So, starting off the season with dry conditions, that is certainly going to be an area that’s under scrutiny.

“We’ve seen a lot of dry conditions in the south. We’ve already had a couple of wildfires down there, and we are anticipating some warmer, long-term trends.

“The point of the year where we’re at the highest risk of wildfire is really that part of the spring where the snow has melted but we haven’t got any green grass yet.”

Alberta’s Forestry and Park Minister Todd Loewen added: “If we have some timely rain in May, we’ll have a good year ahead of us. And if we don’t, then it could be tough.”

Wildfire season in Alberta officially began on March 1st and Rocky Mountain towns like Canmore and Hinton have made early starts on mitigating the worst of the predicted wildfire season ahead.

Haunted by the fate of Jasper town in 2024, two hundred miles away Canmore is creating a natural fireguard by clearing three enormous strips of land on different sides of the town.

In Hinton, foresters are building a five-kilometre firebreak around the community to prevent oncoming blazes from reaching residents’ homes.

The thinking is sound. Fires that encounter intermittent fuel sources spread more gradually, and become much easier to tackle for firefighters.

This is one reason why CoAlternative Energy has made it its business to clear standing and fallen dead wood from previous wildfires, and protect Canada’s boreal forest in the process.

That lack of fuel continuity gives fire crews a greater chance of stemming future forest blazes.

But the risk of leaving partially-burned deadwood strewn in forest areas extends beyond providing fuel for the next big fire. Decaying wood is a long-term threat to the atmosphere from the decomposition gasses it releases, including methane.

So CoAlternative Energy uses this fire-damaged deadwood, as well as beetle-infested lumber, to create third generation biofuel pellets.

Burned in place of coal at generating stations around the world, for their comparable calorific value to the fossil fuel, black pellets leave less than six percent on the carbon footprint of coal.

CoAlternative Energy’s CEO David Peters explained: “Significant fires ravaged forest areas in Peace Country last year, most notably north and east of Manning which is just 120 miles from our High Level site.

“It’s therefore unsurprising to read that a wider area in northern Alberta is on high alert this year, after a particularly warm and dry winter season punctuated only by a short cold snap in February.

“CoAlternative Energy monitors fire activity around its pellet production sites and will be ready to remove deadwood left in the wake of wildfires which emerge in the area this year.

“While this harvesting and clearing work will hopefully create fuel breaks and help to stem the spread of future wildfires, CoAlternative also operates reforestation programmes to replace trees lost to fires in the Province.”

PELLETS FROM PEACE COUNTRY

Wed, 18 Mar 2026 19:41:52 GMT

How collaborating with Indigenous communities brings balance to business

On the vast plains of northern Alberta, close-knit communities have worked together to share in the land’s natural bounty for centuries.

Meadows, creeks and wetlands fill the wilderness in Mackenzie County and stretch to the treeline – where boreal forests provide natural cover for some of the region’s most iconic animals.

Caribou, bison, black bears, deer and wolves roam between the two habitats. Their furs provided early income for Indigenous Dene Tha’ and Métis families who first inhabited western Canada.

Sold to European traders, pelts provided returns that supplemented the Native bands’ natural lifestyles – sustained mainly by fishing, farming and foraging.

Today, the county – known locally as Peace Country – remains sparsely populated with about 12,000 inhabitants spread between small settlements on its pristine prairies.

The town of High Level and hamlet of La Crete are the largest communities in Mackenzie County, each with a population of about 4,000. The remaining 4,000 inhabitants are spread out across the county, inhabiting dozens of different homesteads and reserves.

At the heart of this location CoAlternative Energy will build its first steam explosion production facility to manufacture advanced black pellets.

By collecting the remnants of regional wildfires it will turn fire-damaged dead wood into a sustainable ‘drop in’ replacement for coal and ship it to energy companies worldwide.

The production process will provide a fresh trade and new employment for the area.

Lightning strikes are the leading cause of large wildfires in this remote northern region.

In May 2019 one of the most significant fires in Mackenzie County's history burned through more than 350,000 hectares of local woodland . Remembered as the ‘Chuckegg Creek Wildfire’, it forced the evacuation of High Level residents and the nearby Paddle Prairie Métis Settlement for several weeks.

The same month the ‘Jackpot Creek Wildfire’ burned a further 80,000 hectares of boreal forest in the county.

Then, at the beginning of Canada’s record-breaking fire season, the Paskwa Wildfire burned 95,000 hectares of boreal forest in May 2023. It took with it 300 buildings, of which 190 were homes in Fox Lake and Garden River on the Little Red River Cree Nation’s reservation.

That fire spread along the south side of the Peace River and merged with other nearby fires to form a larger wildfire complex that scorched protected forest on First Nations’ land within the national park.

It left huge swathes of fallen and standing deadwood in its wake.

By working with First Nations and Métis communities the deadwood from these fires will become feedstock for producing advanced black pellets at CoAlternative’s ‘Peace River’ plant, near La Crete.

The forest debris stands to provide a new revenue stream for Indigenous Peoples who will be offered employment and other ways to invest in CoAlternative’s project. Sustaining these descendants of the land’s original keepers is central to CoAlternative’s mission and ethics.

CoAlternative Energy’s CEO David Peters said: “CoAlternative has liaised at length with representatives from Northern Alberta’s Indigenous communities and will do so for the duration of its long-term pellet projects in the region.

“All staff in the company remain acutely aware of the difficulties faced by both First Nations and Métis Peoples and together seek to identify ways to alleviate those challenges through mutually beneficial partnerships.

“In working with our Indigenous friends living near La Crete and High Level we make it our business to support their livelihoods and their health, building greater resilience into their communities.

“It is our intention that they prosper from our projects set up on what has been their land long before European settlers arrived in this part of the world.”

RAIL HEAD DEAL SPURS PELLET PROGRES

Wed, 04 Mar 2026 18:41:32 GMT

Why a $1.1m land deal in Mackenzie County marks a milestone moment for CoAlternative Energy

CoAlternative Energy recently agreed the purchase of land in northern Alberta ahead of commencing construction on the first of two advanced biofuel pellet plants.

The company remains on schedule to begin building its inaugural steam explosion manufacturing facility in late spring and acquired the land to add a rail head to its Mackenzie County infrastructure.

The plot, located near High Level in Mackenzie Highway Industrial Area, will be key to sending advanced black biofuel pellets to Canada's maritime ports for export.

The planned rail spur incorporates loading and locomotive depots built around 3.5km of looped track, which engineers will join to Canada’s main freight rail system.

The offtake system will accommodate up to 100 open-top carriage units for transferring advanced black pellets to tidewater in freight trains that exceed 1.8km in length.

CoAlternative Energy agreed its CAD$1.1M land acquisition from Mackenzie County in late December 2025, through its Canadian subsidiary corporation Power Wood Canada. It will break ground on its 'Peace River' pellet plant, east of La Crete, in the coming months. A second pellet plant is planned for installation on the newly acquired parcel of land, near to High Level, in 2027.

When fully operational, each pellet plant will be capable of producing 400,000 tons of advanced biofuel by steam explosion every year. They will be Canada’s first to use innovative hydrothermal tech to produce the latest leading-edge pellets for utility-scale global energy infrastructure.

CoAlternative Energy’s CEO David Peters, satisfied with securing the 175 acres to advance company operations, said: “We are delighted to have purchased this land from Mackenzie County and thank all at the Council who have helped to facilitate its acquisition.

“The purchase enables us to integrate an essential rail spur into the development of our black pellet production facilities in the county. It will connect to Alberta’s freight railway system and Canada’s coastal ports.

“Securing this integral parcel of land gives us confidence to commence the construction of our first biofuel plant, to be located close to Peace River, in the first half of 2026.

“CoAlternative Energy is making a substantial long-term investment into Mackenzie County, which will create significant boosts to the economy and employment in the region over a sustained period.

“Everyone associated with our company is looking forward to working closely with those living in and around La Crete and High Level, so all can benefit from our company’s contribution to the local area.”

The site will process durable, water-resistant, energy-dense black pellets made from fire-damaged dead trees harvested in northern Alberta’s forest. Both pellet plants will supply the rail head with offtake.

CoAlternative’s locomotive will undertake the manoeuvring of open-top cars, to be loaded in four groups of 25, before a CN Railway Company locomotive will take all 100 of them across national rail infrastructure. Plans show offtake joining Canadian National Railway Company track on the Hay River Line between Hay River, NWT and Roma JCT, AB.

Supporting CoAlternative’s advanced pellet project, Mackenzie County Reeve Josh Knelsen said: “This is a leading-edge, first-of-its-kind project in Canada that turns wildfire-damaged wood into clean energy and helps reduce reliance on coal.

“These two facilities represent hundreds of millions of dollars in private investment and the potential for up to 300 direct jobs, with many more across forestry, construction, transportation, and local businesses.

“One site, east of La Crete along the Highway 88 connector, is shovel-ready with services already in place and is expected to move toward construction by mid-2026. A second site, south of High Level along Highway 35, is to be used for shipping finished product by rail as well as a second production facility.

“I also know this announcement comes at a time of uncertainty for some in our region. This project is encouraging news and a step toward diversification and long-term resilience in our forestry economy.”

When fully operational, CoAlternative’s two pellet production facilities will support more than 500 new jobs across their supply chains. They will use only wildfire-damaged dead wood and diseased timber as feedstock for manufacturing advanced biofuel at industrial facilities located on the fringes of Albertan forest.

The company will also operate extensive reforestation programs in cleared areas to repair Canada's boreal carbon sink. Much of its work will engage available workforce, as well as Indigenous communities, in the region.

CoAlternative Energy’s Mackenzie County production facilities will largely manufacture premium black biofuel pellets for energy markets in the Far East.

However, they will also produce bio-based chemical furfural for the North American market as an alternative to petrochemicals.

A third product of nutrient-dense, carbon-based soil substrate will offer an alternative to peat-based substrates in both North American and EU markets.

News of Power Wood’s land deal with Mackenzie County was reported in North American media recently with Biomass Magazine reporting its importance to the company’s green energy project.

Farms Magazine paid particular interest to the land deal. Canadian Manufacturing Magazine highlighted the imminent construction of the Peace River pellet plant near La Crete.

Canada’s Financial Post focused on the land’s purchase value, while Bioenergy Insight reported the deal’s benefits for Mackenzie County.

AN INCONTROVERTIBLE TRUTH

Fri, 20 Feb 2026 18:30:33 GMT

How advanced black pellets slash carbon emissions by 98.7 percent.

Steam treated advanced black pellets are the most viable replacement for coal in a future global energy mix.

Their durability, bulk density and water-resistance ensure they behave like coal.

Storable outdoors, they can be burned in coal-fired generating stations with minimal minor modifications.

While bituminous coal releases 28 MJ of energy per kilo burned in plant furnaces, by using steam explosion, CoAlternative Energy manufactures black pellets with up to 23 MJ of energy per kilo and at least 21.

Advanced black pellets have an energy value that compares to the fossil fuel. But at this point the similarities end as the impact that each fuel has on the environment couldn’t be more different.

Steam treated advanced black pellets look, act and burn like coal but without the catastrophic carbon footprint.

They reduce the volume of carbon dioxide injected into earth’s atmosphere by almost 99 percent – when burned in place of coal – as this article will show.

A single 50 MW generating station can prevent 284.5 kilotons of CO₂ from entering earth’s atmosphere every year, when it switches from coal to advanced black pellets.

Examine both fuels’ lifecycle as a five phase value chain – from extracted raw material through product process to furnace fire – and these extraordinary reductions in deadly greenhouse gases are clear.

A Model for Carbon Comparison

A 50 MW generating station can be fuelled for 8000 hours per year using either black pellets or coal.

It will burn either 51.4 kilotons of coal or 68.6 kilotons of advanced black pellets, using our lower 21 MJ energy value, to do so.

The journey that each fuel takes to the point of incineration is different.

Coal is mined and excavated from the earth before it is processed and transferred to a generating station. Advanced pellets are made from forest fire dead wood, harvested to undergo hydrolysis, cellular explosion and pelleting before being incinerated.

And it takes 1.7 tons of organic feedstock to make a ton of advanced pellets. So, 116.6 kilotons or 225,000m³ of predominantly aspen waste wood is collected as feedstock for our production process.

The Catastrophe of Coal Extraction

Coal mining is heavy, carbon-intensive industry. It releases vast amounts of methane and carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, to the extent that extracting the fossil fuel produces more CO₂ emissions than burning it.

According to SINTEF data – Europe’s largest independent research organisation – mining 51.4 kilotons of coal releases 160.1 kilotons of carbon dioxide.

But CoAlternative Energy’s foresters clear, cut and grind fire-damaged wood at source with diesel-powered chainsaws and auxiliary machinery. Their work’s only attributable emissions come from the 450,000 litres of diesel they use annually for harvesting.

As diesel releases 2.65kg of CO₂ per litre burned, sourcing a year of biomass for a 50 MW generating station, releases less than 1.2 kilotons of carbon dioxide.

Moving Raw Material the Minimum Distance

CoAlternative Energy then moves its biomass in bulk, from forest floor to pellet plant 70km away. Articulated ‘walking floor’ trucks take 36 ton batches of wildfire wood on the return legs of 140km trips.

And as big rigs transfer all 116.6 kt to pressurized steam reactors in northern Alberta, they clock up 453,460 km on 3,239 trips while consuming 181,378 litres of diesel. They generate 0.48 kilotons of CO₂ each year.

Over the same distance coal’s higher energy index shows its value. Coal trucks carry 32 ton batches but need just 1,602 trips to haul their entire consignment.

They drink 89,712 litres of diesel to cover 224,280 km each year and generate just 0.24 kilotons, half of the carbon dioxide.

A Processing Plus for Black Pellets

All 51.4 kilotons of coal will be crushed, sized, washed and dried at preparation plants – causing the release of more methane.

Thermal drum dryers and plant pump systems are energy-intensive. It takes 39kWh of electricity to process one ton of coal; and 2GWh of energy to process 51.4 kt.

According to IEA calculations, this generates 0.9 kilotons of CO₂ with a further 0.1 kt released as methane.

But producing 68.6 kilotons of advanced black pellets is a wholly net-zero event.

Wildfires strip dead wood of their outer shells, leaving no need for debarking, before CoAlternative Energy fuels reactors with waste wood burned in their integrated combined heat and power units.

Shipping Fuel to Market

Advanced black pellets look, act and burn like coal, so they ship like coal too. Rail networks, freight companies and ports handle the biofuel as they do the fossil fuel.

Ultramax bulk carriers cross 7600 km of ocean from Vancouver to Tokyo swiftly, although the heavier weight of black pellets creates a 27% greater carbon footprint.

Our 68.6 kilotons of durable, energy-rich pellets still ship easily thanks to their enhanced bulk density, all-weather resistance and homogenous form.

Each dry cargo ship emits 3.94 grams of carbon dioxide per kilometre, multiplied by its consignment weight.

So, dockside to dockside across northern Pacific waves, our 68.6 kilotons of pellets spawn 2.05 kilotons of carbon dioxide each year while 51.4 kilotons of coal generates 1.5 kt.

Counting the Cost of Combustion

The key carbon benefits of burning black pellets come at the point of combustion.

Coal releases carbon from stores that have been underground for millennia. Every ton burned injects 2,325 new kilos of CO₂ into the air, while 51.4 kilotons infuses our atmosphere with 125,400,000kg – according to US EIA data.

Coal’s 125.4 kilotons of carbon emissions look lethal beside black pellets which are deemed net-zero at the point of combustion.

CoAlternative Energy reforests the areas it clears of deadwood with native seedlings and saplings.

And the dead wildfire wood it uses for pellets simply returns CO₂ to a natural cycle, having drawn it down in the last century – giving steam treated advanced black pellets a net-zero carbon footprint.

The total amount of carbon dioxide prevented from entering earth’s atmosphere each year, by switching from coal to CoAlternative’s black pellets, can be seen in the table below.

These calculations, using a low energy value (21MJ/kg), reveal the beneficial impact that burning advanced black pellets has on our environment, over burning coal.

When energy companies fuel power plants with them, in place of coal, they can reduce the generating station’s carbon footprint by 98.7 percent.

CoAlternative often uses a figure of 94 percent to be conservative and certain in its claims, but reductions in CO₂ are closer to 100 percent – and they’re the reason why advanced black pellets have a huge role to play in a greener energy future.

To learn more about CoAlternative Energy’s advanced black pellets, and why they are a viable replacement for coal, please use the contact details available on this website.

THE PRECURSOR TO BLACK BIOFUEL PELLETS

Mon, 09 Feb 2026 19:18:20 GMT

Why white wood pellets failed as a viable green alternative to coal.

The lauded benefits of burning white wood pellets in power stations instead of coal have come under increasing scrutiny in recent years, and for good reason.

A primitive biofuel – in essence highly compressed sawdust and wood shavings – white pellets were once seen as a suitable replacement for the fossil fuel.

First brought into the global energy mix two decades ago, after climate policies incentivised switching from coal, they were regarded as a renewable source of energy because the trees felled to produce them could be replaced.

White pellets appeared to cut some carbon emissions from large utility-scale power plants, but their greater service was to clean up the image of many energy companies operating them.

But as the white pellet industry expanded and more power stations underwent extensive modifications to burn them, questions about their viability began to arise.

White pellets presented environmental, technical, logistical and economic problems at multiple points of their supply chain.

Then, more recently, they were succeeded by steam explosion advanced black pellets – an economically viable and logistics-friendly biofuel which behaves more like coal and emits much less carbon dioxide than white pellets do.

Combined, these emerging challenges inevitably led to the closure of many white wood pellet plants. The most recent to end production was Williams Lake plant in British Columbia, Canada, shut down in November 2025.

The end of a generation of biofuel, which led to the development of advanced black pellets, is near if not at hand.

So, in this article, we take a look at the five core reasons why white pellets were never destined to be a sustainable long-term alternative to coal.

1. Their Diminutive Energy Density

As a fossil fuel, coal is a highly concentrated form of ancient energy. Its matter has been compressed over millions of years. And, as a result, it provides an average 27 megajoules of energy per kilo.

Raw wood feedstock is much less energy dense than coal, producing just 16 megajoules of energy per kilo. This means that energy companies must burn, ship and source much greater volumes of white pellets to achieve the same megawatt outputs at their power stations.

Steam explosion advanced black pellets have much more bulk density than white pellets. They have undergone their own compression and release up to 23 megajoules of energy per kilo.

This is a key reason why steam explosion advanced black pellets have succeeded white pellets in the marketplace as the preferred choice of energy companies switching from coal.

2. Their Moisture Vulnerability

Coal is recognisably resilient. Piled in yards around the world, it can be exposed to the elements indefinitely. Rain nor snow will permeate it. The sun does not parch it. Wind cannot diminish it.

White wood pellets are highly absorbent. They soak up moisture from humid environments and disintegrate when immersed in water. Once dry again, they create dust explosion safety risks. This inherent drawback necessitates expensive, airtight, climate-controlled storage silos as well as sophisticated dust-suppression and spark-detection systems in generating stations.

Advanced black pellets are wholly water-resistant, due to natural lignin dispersed throughout them. In the same way as coal, they can be exposed to all weathers without deterioration or concern.

The emergence of more practical green alternatives to coal is another reason why white pellets have become obsolete in the marketplace.

3. Boiler Fouling and Slagging

Coal-fired boilers in power stations and steel mills are specialised appliances, calibrated for the chemical signature of coal. Their combustion chamber membranes are made from high-grade carbon steel tubes.

Virgin wood has a different ash chemistry to coal because it contains high amounts of alkali metals like potassium, magnesium and sodium. When burned in furnaces these elements vaporise and deposit onto boiler tubes as a sticky, glass-like substance known as foul or slag.

This build-up causes pitting and corrosion of the metal and reduces heat transfer. Boilers designed for burning coal can see their lifespan halved or their maintenance costs tripled when run on white wood pellets without a full, expensive redesign.

Steam-exploded black pellets contain no harmful elements or particulates. They produce negligible ash or slag, and can be burned in coal-fired boilers without any costly modifications or maintenance.

4. The Carbon Dioxide Challenge

Coal is correctly castigated for emitting high quantities of carbon, as well as other toxic gases, that have been locked in fossil form for millennia. Burning it greatly increases the amount of greenhouse gases in our atmosphere.

Virgin wood is considered renewable because trees can be replaced, and they draw down atmospheric carbon as they grow. But wood burns with an inherently higher carbon output per unit of energy than coal – producing between 20 and 150 percent more CO ₂ depending on efficiency.

Because white wood pellets are less energy-dense and often wet, more of them must be burned to create equal heat.

Advanced black pellets made by steam explosion release up to 94 percent less COշ than coal, and therefore are the only truly green direct drop in replacement for the fossil fuel burning in generating stations.

5. The CapEx Cost

Retrofitting a coal-fired generating station to burn white wood pellets is an extensive and expensive engineering operation. It typically comes at a significant cost of several hundred million dollars.

Power plants that switch from burning coal to white wood pellets must integrate a dedicated weatherproof unloading depot. This sealed reception area for handling the biofuel, alongside several airtight, climate-controlled storage silos and new air-driven conveyor belts constitute approximately half of the capital expenditure needed.

Elsewhere the generating station’s grinding mills require new pulverizers and motors and its furnaces need upgraded burners and new membranes. In addition, the entire transfer chain must mitigate explosion and fire risks with dust suppression and spark detection equipment.

Burning advanced black pellets made by steam explosion doesn’t incur any of these costs. They require minimal modifications to plant infrastructure because they possess many physical similarities to coal.

While white wood pellets proved an unsuitable replacement for coal they did pave the way for later generations of biofuel pellet that are a viable alternative. To learn more about CoAlternative Energy Ltd’s advanced black pellets, please use the contact details available on this website.

TECHNOLOGY TO TURN THE CLIMATE TIDE

Sun, 25 Jan 2026 07:11:56 GMT

Why Valmet’s BioTrac is the Vanguard of Biofuel Pellet Production

Technologies used to manufacture early biofuel pellets placed limitations on their use in blast furnaces and power stations.

Traditional white pellets were characterised by poor moisture resistance, low energy density and high production costs.

Then torrefied pellets offered some promise but exhibited little product consistency caused by an intermittent production process. They also generated dangerous levels of flammable dust.

In recent years, Valmet’s BioTrac™ steam explosion system has emerged as the industry’s best method for producing advanced black pellets, a method that presents none of these issues.

BioTrac™ is now accepted as the gold standard in manufacturing high-performance black pellet biofuel for energy producers.

And CoAlternative Energy Ltd is leveraging Valmet’s engineering expertise to bring its leading-edge technology to the forefront of the North American energy market. This year it will commence the construction of two Valmet steam explosion pellet plants in Alberta.

Working with local and Indigenous communities in the quiet of Mackenzie County, CoAlternative will harness BioTrac™ to produce millions of tons of an effective, scalable and sustainable drop-in replacement for coal – and support global net-zero targets.

Valmet’s BioTrac™ system is rightly lauded in much more effusive terms than these, because its design and development are made unique by many emending qualities.

When compiled, Valmet’s system advantages make clear why steam explosion is the long-awaited and ultimate answer to ending humanity’s reliance on fossil coal as a source of energy.

This article looks at BioTrac’s five most significant gains on previous pellet technologies:

BioTrac’s Superior Science

White pellets are made by compressing sawdust while torrefaction is a dry roasting process. It batch-heats biomass gradually in the absence of oxygen to create char that is pressed into pellets using chemical binders.

Valmet’s BioTrac™ system primes biomass for transformation with hydrothermal pre-treatment. Fire-damaged dead wood, fed continuously into a pressurized reactor, is penetrated uniformly with 18 bar, 240°C steam – causing all plant cell wall hemicellulose to hydrolyze, and its lignin to soften.

Sudden discharge to atmospheric pressure vaporizes all moisture in cells to explode them into a chemically-altered and activated uniform, granular powder. This is then bound into compact, energy-dense, waterproof pellets using the biomass’ resident lignin.

BioTrac’s Superior Product Quality

White wood pellets disintegrate on contact with water while torrefied pellets offer partial water-resistance, due to their brittle form. Torrefied pellets crumble easily, more so after contact with water, and create quantities of dangerous, volatile dust.

Steam explosion advanced black pellets are bound tightly by lignin, a natural polymer that makes plant life water-resistant. They can be pelleted with much greater bulk density than torrefied or white pellets. And, once pelleted, their lignin glaze renders them entirely waterproof – and storable outdoors.

Most importantly, they pack much more energy per unit shipped – greatly reducing logistics, handling and storage costs for downstream users. And they burn with up to 30 percent more volumetric energy than white pellets, and up to 24 percent more than torrefied ones.

BioTrac’s Superior Product Safety

Valmet’s BioTrac™ system produces viscous granular powder that is easily controlled before it is pelleted into transportable biofuel, and after when as it is ground for firing in furnaces. In pellet form it is robust and resilient, and doesn’t fragment or create dust.

Steam explosion advanced black pellets are an encouragingly safe biofuel to process at all points of the supply chain. Power stations that switch to them from burning coal need not make upgrades to storage, handling or processing infrastructure.

Torrefied and white pellets present dust and explosion risks in proximity to station furnaces and generators – necessitating complex and expensive safety systems that include dry silo storage, conveyor modifications, and multiple humidifier, dust extraction and fire detection units.

BioTrac’s Superior Industrial Suitability

Torrefaction relies on batch processing, so new biomass can’t disrupt thermal conditions in the system’s primary kiln. Even in batches, the process struggles to consistently heat biomass throughout – resulting in an inconsistent product.

Valmet’s BioTrac™ system is truly set apart from competing biofuel technologies by its continuous operational design. Its proprietary plug screw feeder allows a constant inflow of biomass into a stable steam explosion reactor environment.

Its constant outflow produces much greater quantities of a highly homogenous, standardized product that has all undergone exactly the same degree of treatment. Industrial-scale end users can rely on it for better boiler stability, and strict and consistent amounts of energy production.

BioTrac’s Superior Pellet Consistency

Torrefaction’s primary drawbacks stem from difficulties with heat transfer and subsequent product uniformity. Maintaining the same temperature at the core of a wood chip as on its surface is a slow and delicate task.

When biomass is pushed through torrefaction at industrial speeds, kilns cannot maintain necessary isothermal conditions. Fluctuations lead to non-homogenous pellets. Over-torrefied biomass is too brittle to pelletize, under-torrefied has absolutely no water-resistance.

But, as torrefaction failed in reaching commercial maturity, Valmet was developing BioTrac™ steam explosion to provide the consistency in product attributes and supply that power stations need. And, in doing so, it created the first truly viable green ‘drop in’ replacement for coal.

To learn more about CoAlternative Energy Ltd’s advanced black pellets, and its use of Valmet’s BioTrac steam explosion technology, please use the contact details available on this website.

THE BEST FEEDSTOCK FOR BLACK PELLETS

Mon, 12 Jan 2026 19:46:48 GMT

Seven Reasons Why Fire-Damaged Dead Wood is the Best Raw Material for Advanced Black Pellets

As climate pledges press harder in the late 2020s it seems most likely that coal will be replaced first in our energy mix, ahead of oil.

After white wood and torrefied pellets failed to prove themselves an ideal substitute for the fossil fuel, new steam explosion technology developed in Finland has now created coal’s first truly viable replacement.

Advanced black pellets made by steam explosion behave just like coal, in multiple ways.

They’re waterproof, with much greater mechanical strength and bulk density than earlier pellet iterations. They grind like coal, and have a comparable calorific value to coal.

However, lab tests have shown, stream-treated advanced black pellets release just six percent of coal’s deadly CO ₂ .

To date, manufacturers used mainly ‘round wood’ timber as fresh feedstock for biofuel pellets. Its high water volume makes it energy-intensive to process. Tree resin and terpenes impact negatively on biofuel quality. The environmental impact of using fresh cut timber is clear – fewer trees means more CO ₂ in the atmosphere _.

Instead, CoAlternative Energy Ltd converts fire-damaged forest dead wood into its best-in-class advanced biofuel pellets.

From good forest management to carbon-neutral processes and final product quality, the reasons for using fire-damaged dead wood to make advanced black pellets are numerous:

1. Ideal Physical State for Processing

When fire sweeps through a forest, it typically kills the trees in its path but leaves the structural integrity of their trunks intact. The intense heat produced during a forest blaze turns each trunk into a natural kiln, warming heart and sap wood, before wind and sun draw out its moisture content.

By the time this standing wildfire-damaged dead wood is harvested from Canada's boreal range by our forestry team it can contain 50 percent less water by mass than 'green wood'. This makes it lighter to handle and transport, and less energy-intensive to process at our production plants.

Wildfire-damaged dead wood provides more net fibre than 'green wood' and is therefore more efficient to process. It results in much lower operational expenses and a significantly smaller production carbon footprint than when processing 'fresh' feedstock with high water content.

2. Reduction of Forest Fire Risk

Climate change has doubled the likelihood of extreme wildfire weather conditions in Canada. Holdover ‘zombie’ fires can now smoulder for years underground and a much greater frequency of lightning strikes place Canada’s boreal forest carbon sink at more risk than ever before.

Every wildfire leaves standing and fallen charred dead wood in its wake, creating dangerous fuel continuity. Dried by wildfire heat and then the elements, this desiccated timber acts as extensive kindling for underground holdover ‘zombie’ fires, and the spread of future forest blazes.

Clearing this ‘tinder’ – as part of producing a green fuel – creates fuel breaks that stop the spread of future wildfires by distancing burning forest from unburned forest. These fuel breaks protect ancient old-growth trees, and their carbon stores, and allow Canada’s boreal forest range to thrive.

3. Stable Fixed Price Feedstock

Canada operates stringent policies around forestry, logging and timber practices, quite rightly, to protect the carbon sink in its precious boreal range. The price of ‘round wood’ timber prices across the world has also become increasingly volatile, with fluctuations sometimes entirely unpredictable.

CoAlternative has bought 20-year forestry rights to harvest fire-damaged dead wood and beetle-infested trees from five million hectares of woodland. This land already contains a 15-year backlog of scorched timber and ensures more than 500,000 MT of feedstock can be harvested each year.

This long-term access to low-cost raw cellulosic material provides CoAlternative Energy Ltd with feedstock for production at the same fixed price each year, for 20 years. And, in turn, it protects offtake partners and their residential and industrial customers from unstable fuel and energy prices.

4. Reduction of GHG Emissions

Leaving dead wood to rot in the forest releases methane – a potent greenhouse gas 80 times more powerful in trapping heat than carbon dioxide. Methane is thought to have caused more than 30 percent of global warming in recent years and it is the focus of new efforts to ease climate change.

Scientists and politicians now believe the most effective way to slow human-made climate change could be to reduce the amount of methane released into earth’s atmosphere. They claim that a 40 percent cut in methane could pair back temperature rises by 0.3°C in the next decade.

CoAlternative Energy Ltd removes dead, dying and decaying wood from Canada’s forest range, to convert into low-emission advanced black biofuel pellets. In doing so, it prevents vast amounts of decomposition methane from entering the atmosphere and causing global temperature rises.

5. Groundwork for Reforestation

Perhaps the most compelling argument for using fire-damaged dead wood for black pellets is the environmental restoration it facilitates. Clearing standing and fallen charred timber from large swathes of land both protects old growth woodland and creates space for planting new trees.

Restocking and expanding Canada’s forest carbon sink with indigenous tree species is at the core of CoAlternative Energy Ltd’s composite approach to addressing climate change. It launched the New Ground Foundation in 2018 to reforest and manage areas that it clears of wildfire dead wood.

Through the foundation, in cleared areas, the company plants coniferous spruce, fir, pine and larch trees alongside deciduous species including birch, aspen and poplar. All contribute to a greater carbon sink that draws down atmospheric carbon dioxide from above Canada’s boreal forest belt.

6. Unique Chemical Make-Up

Wildfires cause intense heat that typically destroys tree branches and canopies but only scorches tree trunks. The structural integrity of tree trunks often remain unchanged while their chemical makeup is slightly altered by thermal degradation of the wood’s lignocellulosic structure.

Fire-damaged dead wood has had its cellular bonds weakened by heat, so activated lignin has begun to redistribute through its fibres. It has also had volatile resins, oils, and terpenes driven off so they can’t interfere with binding during pelletisation – leaving pellets with a higher fixed carbon content.

Advanced black pellets made from fire-damaged dead wood grind into a less stringy more consistent powder, improving mill throughput for furnaces. And the resulting fuel feedstock is cleaner and concentrated in carbon-heavy components needed to produce high-calorie fuel.

7- Coal-Like End Product

Coal-powered generating stations around the world, faced with making “low capital cost” switches to burning biomass, require the most viable ‘drop in’ replacement for coal. The low-emission biofuel they adopt must behave like coal in as many ways as possible to minimise capital expenditure.

Standard wood pellets are notoriously difficult to grind, requiring five times more energy to prepare for pulverized coal boilers. They also necessitate major plant modifications to handling, storage and processing infrastructure. And torrefied pellets aren’t dissimilar to white pellets in many ways.

Advanced black pellets, made from fire-damaged dead wood and by steam explosion, have a Hardgrove Grindability Index (HGI) much closer to coal. Their coal-like, pre-brittleness means they can be processed using existing coal-handling infrastructure with minimal CapEx and modification.

FUTURE FLASH AT THUNDER BAY

Tue, 06 Jan 2026 18:09:48 GMT

The Story of the World’s First Steam-Treated Pellets Power Station

Steam-treated black pellets are shaping up for a lead role in the energy transition, as the most viable low-emission replacement for coal.

Though their potential to ease manmade climate change was first realised more than a decade ago – on the shores of Lake Superior in Ontario, Canada.

Thunder Bay Generating Station became the world’s first power plant to use advanced black pellets, after Ontario banned the use of coal as fuel.

Instead of decommissioning Thunder Bay Generating Station, Ontario Power Generation (OPG) pioneered a conversion process that is only now being duplicated the world over.

OPG had recently spent CAD$170M converting its coal-fired Atikokan Generating Station to burn white wood pellets.

Atikokan needed new covered storage to protect white wood pellets from the elements. It integrated dedicated receiving and handling systems to mitigate dust generation, and subsequent explosion and fire risks. New milling technology was also required to pulverize the white pellets. All at great cost.

Thunder Bay Generating Station was a peaking plant, meaning it ran only when demand for electricity was exceptionally high. And Ontario Power Generation was insistent it didn’t incur a similar-sized expense.

So, in 2014, it instructed Thunder Bay’s management to make a “low capital cost” switch from coal to biomass at the power plant the following year.

OPG and station chiefs – tasked with making only minor modifications to store, handle, pulverise and combust a suitable replacement for coal – had to think outside the box. So, they returned to previous research by Ontario’s Ministry of Energy and OPG into all possible ways to decarbonize power stations.

In doing so they came to consider, as potential fuel sources, both torrefied black wood pellets and a brand new, previously untested type of advanced black pellet made by steam explosion. And they set out to compare their weatherability, dust generation and milling needs.

Biofuel Evaluations

Weatherability was measured on a pellet durability index to compare their relative quality in terms of mechanical strength and ability to resist degradation.

Water was found to induce pellet degradation and dust production, so eight types of torrefied wood pellet and two types produced via steam explosion were immersed in water.

OPG’s Senior Technical Officer Les Marshall recorded: “The project team sought to identify pellets with outstanding performance in this area. This work confirmed the trend for steam exploded pellets to perform significantly better than torrefied fuels when exposed to water.

“Immersion of the torrefied pellets in water has had a clear and significant negative impact on the integrity of the pellets. Steam treated pellets were seen to have a clear advantage.”

Torrefied wood pellets were subsequently discounted from the remainder of the evaluation tests.

Dust generation was then tested on steam-treated pellets using a rubber-lined tumbler, operated for 48 hours. It resulted in only a “relatively small volume of very fine dust” generated, something STO Marshall recorded as “particularly important” in reducing “risks associated with airborne dust generated during handling.”

The milling tests showed only minor changes were needed to the physical mill and the operation of plant pulverisers.

Plant Modifications

A review of Thunder Bay Generating Station’s handling systems followed. A small number of areas were highlighted for minor safety improvements that would mitigate the build-up of electrostatic charge.

A slide gate at the mouth of the initial reclaim hopper was extended to reduce the free flow of pellets, limiting the volume of fuel fed to the conveyor.

The existing conveyor and bunker systems were found to be well grounded but, nevertheless, additional protection was installed on dust collectors along the fuel path.

The project team introduced humidifiers and humidity meters into metal loading bunkers used for pellet burns. It was then satisfied all dust and ignition hazards had been properly addressed.

Two equipment modification were made to the plant’s pulverisers. Increased air flow helped fuel enter the mills. Discharge skirts were removed to allow fuel to exit them more quickly for burning.

STO Les Marshall noted: “The durability of the pellets is essentially constant throughout the handling system and appears to be unaffected by the falls through the transfer points.”

He added: “The airborne dust monitoring results were very encouraging, superior to those for the baseline case handling coal. The personal breathing zone results were all well below the Ontario Occupational Exposure Limits for softwood dust.”

And he concluded: “Taken together, these results indicate the very real potential to employ second generation wood pellets in coal handling systems with relatively minor modifications.”

Test Burn Results

A test burn was carried out next. In his project notes, STO Les Marshall wrote: “When called upon to operate at full load, the unit has demonstrated the capability to easily generate at the full (original coal) nameplate capacity.”

His report continued: “CO emissions have been very good. Auditing very low pollutant levels has become problematic when operating with low pollutant levels. CO production was actually increased during this run to allow for a better check of the continuous emission monitoring system.

“The fine particulate results are also very favourable, and the product of a low ash fuel, good combustion and particulate collection performance with the existing equipment.”

And with that, in February 2015, Thunder Bay Generating Station became the world’s first to prove that low-emission, steam-treated black pellets could replace coal with little modification to plant facilities.

Thunder Bay was reconfigured to burn advanced black pellets for a cost of just CAD$3M. The conversion immediately made the CAD$170M spent on converting Atikokan Generating Station – to burn high-emission, less efficient white wood pellets – seem profligate.

The moment heralded the dawn of a new era for fired power stations which would otherwise be taken out of service.

Mr Marshall summarized his report with the words: “The conversion of Thunder Bay Unit 3 from coal to advanced wood pellet firing is the first such project in the world.

“This project confirms the ability to execute a low capital cost conversion project by leveraging the unique properties of these new second generation biomass fuels.

“The Thunder Bay case study has demonstrated the potential for utilities to execute similar projects to repurpose existing coal assets using advanced biomass fuels, as a means of increasing their portfolio of dispatchable, renewable power.”

Thunder Bay Generating Station remained as a peaking plant to supply excess electricity demand until 2018, operating on just steam exploded black biofuel pellets on every occasion it was needed.

Due to its intermittent use, the power plant built in 1963 developed deterioration in areas of its infrastructure which ultimately proved uneconomic to repair.

Thunder Bay Generating Station was decommissioned in 2018 and demolished in 2023 (as documented by Concrete Pictures Inc.), but its legacy as a totem for energy transition remains.

Numerous power stations worldwide followed the pioneering trail it blazed in 2015 and more continue to turn to its blueprint every year to adhere to emissions regulations.

THE RISING SUN OF RENEWABLES

Wed, 31 Dec 2025 07:59:34 GMT

Why Japan is leading the world towards using advanced black pellets

High-ranking representatives of Canada’s biomass and forestry industries recently returned from the country’s second 2025 trade mission to Japan to bolster relationships with its energy industry.

The November mission to the Far East saw two Provincial forestry ministers joined by First Nations leaders and Wood Pellet Association of Canada (WPAC) delegates meeting with Japanese trade partners and utilities.

Canada’s ambassadors also visited Omaezaki Biomass Power Station on Suruga Bay, after it commenced operations to burn only wood pellets and palm kernel shells last January.

Omaezaki’s power plant uses around 300,000 tonnes of biomass each year, a third of which is imported from Canada, to generate enough electricity to power 170,000 Japanese households.

Canadian wood pellet exports to Japan grew eighteen-fold in ten years to 2024 – from CAD$11M to CAD$207M. The business envoys sought to extend that growth trajectory, as Japan holds firm on its pledge to reach carbon neutrality by 2050.

Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) has a dedicated team to develop its standards for biomass inputs. And WPAC delegates were joined by Alberta’s Minister of Forestry and Parks Todd Loewen and British Columbia’s Minister of Forests Ravi Parmar in offering sincere assurances about the ethical sources of Canadian biomass fuel.

Japan has emerged as the global epicentre for the adoption of biomass fuel, and most recently particularly advanced black pellets, in its transition to green energy.

The country also insists it will reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 46 percent before 2030. And it intends to achieve that target by integrating new steam-treated black wood pellets into its national grid, at pace.

The country’s growing appetite for advanced black pellets isn’t accidental. It is the result of a nexus of four conditions including ambitious decarbonisation targets, unique geographical necessity, longevity of existing coal infrastructure and a generous regulatory framework around its energy transition.

Each condition is explored here.

Decarbonization and Carbon Neutrality

Japan’s climate targets are clear. The country intends to be carbon neutral by 2050 and, on the way, it will cut greenhouse gas emission almost in half by 2030. Japan’s METI guidelines consider burning biomass to be carbon neutral, given any CO₂ emissions generated were previously absorbed by trees during their growth cycle.

Furthermore, it has rigorously assessed steam-treated black pellets over their life cycle, taking into account the minimal amount of energy needed to create them, their high bulk density which requires fewer shipments and their lower processing requirements at furnace end. Correctly, in Japan’s eyes, steam-treated black pellets have a highly favourable carbon footprint.

Geographical and Logistical Necessity

Japan is a mountainous island nation with limited land available for large-scale energy storage, and a humid climate that is hostile to traditional white and most torrefied pellets. Both ultimately disintegrate when exposed to moisture, and require expensive sealed, climate-controlled silos and covered transport to stop them rotting, crumbling and creating hazardous dust.

Advanced black pellets, particularly those created by steam explosion, are hydrophobic. They can be shipped and stored in the open air. This eliminates the need for large capital infrastructure investment on scarce land resources at Japan's coastal ports and power plants. The superior energy density of steam treated pellets also reduces transportation costs.

Coal Infrastructure Optimization

Japan possesses a suite of high-efficiency, low-emission coal-fired power plants that are still relatively young. Retiring these assets prematurely would constitute a damaging move for Japan’s long term economy, an excessively expensive logistical operation and an even more costly exercise in replacing them with alternative energy infrastructure nationwide.

Steam-treated pellets offer an obvious viable drop-in solution for keeping Japan’s power stations, and many cement works, running without the price of plant retrofits required to burn traditional white and most torrefied wood pellets. Steam-treated advanced black pellets also offer excellent grindability and the most attractive co-firing ratios of all pellet biofuel.

Progressive Political Policy

The primary engine behind Japan’s biomass boom is its Feed-in Tariff (FIT) system, launched in 2012 following the Fukushima disaster to diversify its energy mix. These intentionally generous tariffs provide the financial certainty that utilities need to invest in advanced fuel types. Japanese FIT rates often pay more than ¥20/kWh for large-scale biomass energy.

Japan’s Energy Savings Act also requires large power stations to achieve a generating efficiency of at least 41 percent by 2030. Carbon-neutral biofuel pellets help them meet these efficiency standards, while the country’s J-Credits Scheme allows utilities to earn industrial emissions credits that can be sold to other Japanese companies to offset their discharges.

Japanese firms are doggedly securing offtake from production facilities across the world to ensure a steady supply of advanced black pellets for their growing number of power plants.

Sumitomo Corporation, Tokuyama Corporation, Idemitsu Kosan, Kobe Steel and Mitsubishi UBE Cement among others compete for available supplies.

In doing so, they are helping Japan to turn specialised steam explosion technology into a cornerstone of an economy and a key player in its long term carbon-neutrality goal.

As other nations begin to move away from coal, this new “Japanese model” is becoming an appealing blueprint for advanced biofuel integration, and energy and economic transition.

PELLETS FOR BELLEDUNE

Tue, 16 Dec 2025 08:47:02 GMT

How one Canadian power plant is setting a global standard for energy transition.

Nestled on the edge of New Brunswick’s Bay of Chaleur, Belledune Generating Station provides its province with both power and prosperity.

Beside extensive deep-water docks, its imposing 467 megawatt power plant steadfastly supports 15 percent of the province’s electricity grid. Through taxation, it provides half of the local area’s municipal budget.

But its towering smokestack is among the largest emitters of greenhouse gases in Atlantic Canada.

And country-wide climate policies, introduced in 2018, now give it just four years to phase out coal usage and switch to a cleaner fuel – or be shut down.

The consequences of the plant’s closure for the local and regional economy are unthinkable.

So, under the stewardship of Canada-based NB Power, ‘Belledune’ is amid an enormous, dynamic transformation – to recycle its existing infrastructure into a world-leading green energy hub.

The metamorphosis won’t just repurpose existing energy systems and meet the region’s decarbonisation goals; it will support rapid growth in electrification across multiple New Brunswick industries and it will preserve and create thousands of jobs.

The Belledune Clean Fuel Project – as it is known and quite-rightly hyped – is nothing short of a blueprint for energy and economic transition.

Combining biomass, wind, solar, hydrogen and modular nuclear energy systems, it is a formula that uncountable other industrial utility hubs around the world will be well-advised to adopt.

New Brunswick’s Energy and Resource Development Minister Rick Doucet crystalized the potential in the project when he said: “Coal-fired power plants are major emitters of greenhouse gases and we have an opportunity to explore new alternative fuel sources while growing the provincial economy through innovation.”

And NB Power’s vice president Brad Coady feels he has identified the fuel that can provide the foundation to New Brunswick’s new era of prosperity.

In charge of the power company’s business development and strategic partnerships, he believes advanced wood pellets will most likely answer the energy minister’s call.

VP Coady said: “Finding an alternative renewable fuel source for the Belledune Generating Station is part of our long-term strategy to drive New Brunswick to a cleaner, greener future.

“We have explored several options and strongly believe advanced wood pellets are the most cost-effective and efficient choice for our customers.”

Belledune Generating Station conducted two pilot test burns of black wood pellets, replacing 100 percent of coal in its furnaces, last year. The plant operated successfully on each occasion.

VP Brad Coady reflected: “The tests confirmed that advanced wood pellets in the form of both steam-treated and torrefied pellets could be an alternate fuel source for Belledune.

“Based on our testing, it appears that advanced wood pellets are like coal. They can tolerate damp conditions and be stored outside. They grind and burn in the boiler in a similar manner as coal.

“As we continue our transition process, more analysis and further testing will be carried out to determine any unique aspects to handling and burning wood pellets at Belledune.”

The Port of Belledune is supporting NB Power’s energy transition at Belledune Generating Station with new storage facilities, automated handling systems and other terminal infrastructure for advanced black pellets.

Mr Coady added: “Our goal is to primarily source our renewable fuel needs from New Brunswick-based businesses.

“Based on our conversations with the wood pellet industry, we are confident a sufficient supply of advanced wood pellets will be secured in the coming year.”

NB Power is expected to finalise its pellet plans this coming February, with an aim for Belledune Generating Station to begin burning them at some point between 2028 and 2030.

The energy transition will be facilitated by New Brunswick’s Belledune Port Authority. Its port president and CEO Denis Caron played a critical role in the pilot test burns, overseeing the port’s importation of 2500 metric tons of advanced wood pellets.

Mr Caron is also managing investment in new storage facilities, automated handling systems and other terminal infrastructure to increase Belledune’s capacity to handle more than half a million metric tons of advanced black pellets.

CoAlternative Energy’s CEO David Peters has monitored developments at Belledune Generating Station over many years. More recently, he has engaged in discussions with NB Power around the plant’s energy transition.

And, as a leading developer of advanced biofuels, CoAlternative is already working closely with New Brunswick businesses to supply advanced black pellets under a long-term offtake agreement to NB Power.

Our CEO said: “New Brunswick Power Corporation’s proposal for energy transition at Belledune Generating Station is a truly visionary plan which combines multiple methods of renewable energy production.

“Replacing the huge amount of energy generated by burning coal is no easy task. It isn’t entirely possible with just wind and solar systems.

“The repurposing of Belledune Generating Station to burn advanced fuel pellets, which emit a small fraction of CO₂ compared to the coal, is critical to maintaining consistent power supplies to New Brunswick communities.

“For this reason CoAlternative Energy is in talks with the Belledune business community to become a regional producer and supplier of advanced steam-treated black pellets for new energy operations at the power plant.

“Our company will be pleased to extend the lifespan of this critical piece of energy infrastructure through its use of our low-emission biofuel. In the process, it also looks forward to creating new jobs and contributing to the area’s growing economy.”

THE ADVANCE OF STEAM TREATED PELLETS

Fri, 12 Dec 2025 20:13:14 GMT

How steam explosion produces a higher quality of black pellet than torrefaction.

Wood pellets have been considered an alternative to fossil fuel for almost half a century.

The energy industry first used compressed sawdust as a fuel source in the early 1970s, when oil’s market price quadrupled and it was rationed.

Ten years later, new factory machinery turned wood into a type of industrial charcoal through a process known as torrefaction.

Unfortunately, the extreme dry heat used in torrefaction created a brittle end product – making its handling, transport and storage highly challenging at utility scale.

But the advent of steam explosion technology in biofuel has brought a new advanced black pellet to the fore, as a viable and timely alternative to burning fossil fuel.

Steam-treated black pellets manufactured from a hydrothermal process, rather than from simple heat degradation, are a true direct ‘drop in’ replacement for coal.

Steam explosion preserves and redistributes lignin in cellulosic materials – rather than degrades it – so granular woody mass can be bound together naturally, tightly and securely under industrial compression.

This reallocation of lignin – responsible for waterproofing plant cell walls – creates a hugely resilient, hard, energy-dense pellet capable of withstanding all weathers, knocks and abrasions.

In multiple ways, advanced steam-treated black pellets exist and behave just like coal. Only, when burned, they emit just six percent of the carbon dioxide released by coal and no harmful local particulates.

The density and durability of advanced steam-treated pellets are qualities that were first seized upon in 2015, by Thunder Bay Generating Station in Ontario.

The power plant became the first facility worldwide to fully convert from burning coal to using steam-exploded pellets.

But only now, as nations and regions approach stringent deadlines for their phasing out of coal, are steam-exploded advanced pellets receiving the full attention and credit that they deserve.

Here are the five key reasons why energy companies and power stations around the world are turning to advanced steam treated pellets as the only obvious low-emission direct ‘drop in’ replacement for coal:

1. Mechanical Strength

Steam explosion alters the biomass structure of cellulosic materials. The high pressure and temperature involved in the process causes lignin to soften and disperse, acting as a natural binder during the pelletization of advanced black pellets. This gives steam-treated black pellets a much higher mechanical strength than torrefied and white wood pellets – so they retain their bulk density and experience less fragmentation during handling.

2. Energy Consumption

Steam explosion requires a maximum temperature of 260°C to produce advanced black pellets while torrefaction needs roasting temperatures of 300°C and above. When produced on industrial scale for large energy utilities, this difference in treatment temperature represents significantly higher energy use. Steam-treated black pellets can be mass produced for a much lower cost than torrefied wood pellets, and with less harm to the environment.

3. Bulk Density

Steam explosion creates hard, ultra-dense pellets with a tighter bind of granular organic mass. This maximizes their energy payload per each unit of volume. Steam-treated pellets offer 14-18 GJ of energy per cubic meter. Lighter, more brittle torrefied ones muster just 12-16 GJ of energy per cubic meter. This allows utilities to reduce shipping volumes significantly, and to stockpile more energy in each storage silo, reducing their operational expenses.

4. Water Resistance

Steam treatment gives advanced black pellets a surface coating of lignin which makes them completely hydrophobic. They remain entirely intact when submerged in water, where the pellet structure of torrefied wood pellets often disintegrates – as torrefaction offers only partial water resistance. This allows steam-treated pellets to be stored outdoors, and exposed to rain and snow without coverings, reducing capital expenditure costs.

5. Pellet Grindability

Both steam treated and torrefied biofuel pellets offer excellent grindability for co-firing with pulverized coal and other materials. But while steam treated pellets require slightly more energy to pulverize, they grind more like coal – becoming granular again. When ground by industrial pulverizers, torrefied wood pellets become powdery and create a safety profile that needs specific measures to prevent dust, off-gassing and combustion.

To learn more about CoAlternative Energy Ltd’s advanced steam-treated black pellets, or its steam explosion manufacturing process, please use the contact details available on this website.

THE IMMEDIATE IMPACT OF MODERATING METHANE EMISSIONS

Fri, 28 Nov 2025 19:05:51 GMT

Why the UN has heat-trapping methane in its new climate targets.

As more countries walk away from their commitments to burn less fossil fuels, enduring champions of climate action have focused on a faster fix for greenhouse gas emissions.

Scientists and politicians now believe the most effective way to slow the pace of human-made climate change could be to reduce the amount of methane released into the planet’s atmosphere.

They claim cutting methane could stave off the worst short-term consequences of climate breakdown while nations re-evaluate their new positions on fossil fuel use.

Belief in its immediate benefits for air quality, food security, and public health was so strong at COP30 that some delegates organised a micro-summit to fast-track policies and programs for cutting methane discharge.

Methane alone is thought to have driven at least a third of global warming in recent years. Once in the atmosphere, it is about 80 times more powerful in trapping heat than carbon dioxide.

But because it doesn’t last nearly as long, fast action to cut methane could have an enormous immediate effect on controlling warming.

Head of the UN’s Climate and Clean Air Commission Martina Otto previously described “reducing methane emissions this decade is our emergency brake in the climate emergency.”

A 40 percent cut in methane could pair back temperature rises by 0.3°C in the next decade, it has been proven.

So, if the world wants to mitigate the anticipated overrun of the 1.5°C threshold set out in the Paris Agreement, action on methane appears not just wise but imperative.

Without any action methane emissions are expected to rise 13 percent by 2030. With this in mind, Brazil’s environment and climate minister Marina Silva was joined by the Climate and Clean Air Coalition in Belém to launch a “ Super Pollutant Country Action Accelerator” .

The program intends to make immediate inroads into reducing methane across 30 developing countries by 2030 and will spend an initial $150m to do so – tackling natural and human-made processes including leaky oil and gas infrastructure, livestock and rotting organic material.

Rotting food in landfills alone causes about 20 percent of human-related methane emissions.

The UK backed the program by also announcing a plan to significantly reduce methane emissions as a new pillar of its climate ambition.

UK Energy Secretary Ed Miliband said: “Cutting methane and other non-CO₂ greenhouse gases is one of the fastest and most effective ways to slow global warming and clean our air.

“The UK is leading the way through our Methane Action Plan which will drive real progress towards a safer, fairer, and cleaner future for our children and grandchildren.”

CoAlternative Energy operates a business model that incorporates its own approach to reducing methane emissions.

It uses only fire-damaged deadwood, diseased timber and forest floor debris to manufacture black biofuel pellets. All old-growth, healthy trees in Canada’s boreal forest are left standing.

And, among multiple reasons why it does this is so decomposition methane, which escapes from decaying woody materials, is prevented from entering our atmosphere and warming the planet.

Timber that is left to rot and decay in a forest environment releases methane persistently and consistently over years. Not just for the creation of wildfire fuel breaks is it better off removed.

CoAlternative Energy has 20-year renewable Crown forest rights to remove all dead and dying wood from five million hectares of forest, to make low-emission black biofuel pellets burned instead of coal in plant furnaces.

CEO David Peters said: “Methane entering our atmosphere, trapping in heat and exacerbating human-made global warming comes from many sources.

“By far the worst culprit of methane gas discharge is the fossil fuel industry which leaves coal mines and shale gas wells uncapped. Oil and gas platforms also leak methane while only sources that operators identify are vented and flared.

“But a significant source of methane released into the atmosphere also comes from rotting organic matter, some of which remains to decay in forest habitats over years.

“Hundreds of square kilometres of wildfire-damaged deadwood are capable of contributing enormous amounts of methane to our planet’s greenhouse gasses.

“Coalternative removes as much of that decaying matter as possible and uses it as raw material to make low-emission biofuel burned in place of coal at power stations.

“This elimination of decomposition methane is part of our company’s full-circle green thinking, which also incorporates forest side production facilities, carbon-neutral production processes and especially high bulk density offtakes.

“Our company’s contribution to addressing the causes of global warming is holistic and includes reducing methane gas emissions.

“This is why the company welcomes the UN’s vision and initiative in doing the same.”

WORKING ON THE FRONT LINE OF CLIMATE DEFENCE

Mon, 17 Nov 2025 19:18:00 GMT

Why clearing wildfire deadwood is crucial to saving Canada’s carbon sink.

CANADA’s boreal forest belt is home to numerous Indigenous tribes, our planet’s last large intact ecosystem and one of its biggest carbon sinks.

The country’s expansive evergreen belt – dominated by towering spruce, fir and pine trees interspersed with coniferous birch, aspen and poplars – stretches from the Atlantic coast of Newfoundland and Labrador to the western reaches of Yukon, before continuing through Alaska to Russia.

It is part of the planet’s Great Northern Forest biome – a commanding emerald-green crown of ancient trees that circle the Arctic and keep the earth breathing. The boreal colossus acts as a crucial component in regulating global climates by offsetting our species’ greenhouse gas emissions.

But wildfires, which break out annually and claim swathes of Canada’s dense forest, threaten to decimate all of the region’s native attributes and scuttle its vital carbon reservoir.

Every tree lost to wildfires that rage, sometimes for weeks and sometimes for months, reduces the capacity of Canada’s carbon sink to temper global warming.

In 2025, Canada has seen the second worst wildfire season in its history, two years after its worst. This year alone more than 8.3 million hectares of precious woodland were lost to forest fires across Canada.

More than 6,000 wildfires burned across nearly every Canadian province and territory, but most commonly in northern Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Ontario.

And every one of those wildfires, caused by man-made global warming, left charred and fallen deadwood in its wake – creating a crisis of fuel continuity to exacerbate similar future fiery events.

Clearing this deadwood from Canada’s forest is now an urgent and logical practice to create fuel breaks so the spread of future blazes can be slowed and stopped. And, so the world’s most critical terrestrial carbon vault can be saved from further destruction.

Canada’s Boreal Colossus but Earth's Most Critical Carbon Vault

The significance of Canada's boreal forest to global climate stability cannot be overstated.

Its enormous expanse is estimated to hold about two-thirds of all the carbon stored in forests globally, and half of all global soil carbon. Combined, the Canadian boreal region alone stores about 67 billion tonnes of carbon in its trees, soil and peatlands.

When undisturbed, this immense capacity makes the boreal forest a powerful net carbon sink and something of a climate superhero.

Yet, this sink is under pressure and becoming dangerously fragile. Climatic changes of increased temperatures and fiercer lightning storms are producing more frequent and severe wildfires.

Warmer weather has also proliferated insect outbreaks, which have cut through and killed off huge sections of forest. Mountain Pine Beetles have now diseased millions of hectares of boreal forest in Canada’s western Alberta and Saskatchewan regions, after establishing themselves and decimating similar volumes of natural habitat in British Columbia.

The imperative is clear: every measure must be taken to protect the remaining stores of carbon in Canada’s boreal forest and prevent future wildfires that release it into earth’s atmosphere.

A Planet Enraged: The Rising Tide of Mega-Fires

The need for urgent action to stem the extent of forest fires in Canada is amplified by particularly stark facts about the local impact of global climate change. Canada is warming twice as fast as the global average and that is driving the spread of extreme wildfire weather conditions.

Lightning is cited as the cause of approximately half of Canada’s forest fires, and the country averages almost 4 million lightning strikes annually – the majority occurring through June, July and August.

But specific intense storm events in recent years – namely 2021, 2023 and 2025 – have generated tens of thousands of lightning strikes in concentrated periods, leading to a surge in wildfire ignitions.

This year in August, for example, nearly 70,000 lightning strikes were recorded in British Columbia in one week. But the extent of boreal forest set ablaze by these tree and ground strikes is perhaps a better indicator of the power of this new class of electrical storm.

The average annual forest area burned in Canada over the last 25 years is approximately 2.2 million hectares. However, the most destructive season on record, 2023, consumed 16.5 million hectares – a figure more than seven times the historical average.

The science is definitive: climate change has more than doubled the likelihood of extreme wildfire weather conditions in Canada. And conservative projections suggest the overall burn probability of forested land will increase by at least a further 17 percent before the century is up.

To cope with this rising tide of fire in Canada’s boreal forest, and to protect its carbon sink, active fuel management is an essential defence.

The Logic of Fuel Breaks: Stopping Fire in its Forest Tracks

A fire requires three components to burn: heat, oxygen, and fuel. And, in a post-wildfire landscape, hectares of charred and dried deadwood act as a massive and volatile fuel reserve.

Once a forest fire is extinguished, dead wildfire debris creates a fatal fuel scenario.

Toppled timber, branches, brush and dry needles create horizontal ground fuel that enables holdover fires, smouldering beneath forest floors in layers of peat and decomposing organic matter, to ignite this kindling and reach previously untouched sections of northern Canada’s forest.

Some of 2025’s wildfires began as holdover ‘zombie’ fires from as far back as 2023, and they took hold by burning their way through forest floor charred timber.

Vertically, closely spaced scorched tree trunks create ladder fuels that ignite forest canopies – leading to intense and dangerous crown fires that are difficult to control for aerial fire-fighting crews.

Clearing this deadwood and removing this debris creates crucial fuel breaks that protect ancient trees from fire. This critical practice breaks the continuity of fuel by separating burning material from unburned material.

Fires that encounter patchy or separated fuel sources spread more slowly, become easier to tackle for firefighters and leave more of Canada’s boreal carbon sink intact to draw in CO₂ from the atmosphere.

The Greenhouse Gas Double-Threat: Carbon Dioxide and Methane

The risk of leaving swathes of deadwood strewn in forest areas extends beyond igniting the next big fire.

The disintegration of woody matter creates a long-term threat to the atmosphere from decomposition gasses.

Left to decay, rotting wildfire deadwood releases its stored carbon back into the atmosphere as CO₂, but also through the production of Methane (CH₄) – a more impactful contributor to global temperature rises with 84 times the climate-warming potential of carbon dioxide over a two decade period.

Removing this slow-rotting carbon reserve from northern Canada’s boreal belt eliminates a significant source of CO₂ and high-impact CH₄ from the planet's collection of greenhouse gasses.

A Triple Mandate: The People, their Physical Environment and the Planet

The importance of removing deadwood extends further still, to the social and environmental fabric of Canada’s forest regions.

The forest management practice is a direct means of protecting and supporting Indigenous tribes.

Canada's boreal zone is home to numerous native populations, including First Nations, Inuit, and Métis peoples. All have deep historical and cultural ties to Canada’s northern territories – which bear the brunt of the country’s wildfire crisis.

Most of northern Canada’s majority-Indigenous communities are located in fire-prone regions. Clearing the fuel directly protects their homesteads and cultural landscapes, and it provides their communities with work and income.

The removal of deadwood further safeguards Canada’s boreal forest ecosystem, which remains the largest intact forest ecosystem in the world.

While a natural amount of deadwood supports biodiversity, the catastrophic volumes left after a mega-fire creates an unnatural imbalance that threatens the long-term health of the forest. By mitigating the fire risk, deadwood harvests ensure that the unique and substantial range of species specially adapted to Canada’s harsh northern climate remain protected.

A Corporate Commitment to Canada’s Carbon Sink

The deadwood, which lies in wait as a fuel source for future wildfires in Canada’s boreal forest, is an environmental problem that presents its own green economic solution.

It can remain in place as springtime kindling, to turn underground ‘Zombie’ fires into new forest blazes. It can provide surface and ladder fuels for wildfires ignited by coming lightning strikes. And it can release deadly greenhouse CO₂ and CH₄ gasses into the atmosphere.

But while it is left to assert each of these environmental threats, it is being wasted as a natural asset needed in the production of a new generation of low-emission fuels.

Turning this fire-damaged timber into low-emission black biofuel pellets – a climate-friendly ‘drop in’ replacement for coal – eliminates almost all of the CO₂ injected into the atmosphere when burning the fossil fuel to produce utility-scale energy.

Doing so helps to reduce climatic effects that are the very ones causing extreme wildfire weather conditions. It also creates fuel breaks that make future wildfires easier to manage and extinguish. And it protects Canada’s carbon sink to syphon hothouse gasses out of our ever-warmer atmosphere.

CoAlternative Energy Ltd’s entire business model is based on using only fire-damaged timber, diseased trees and forest floor debris to create clean biofuel pellets as a replacement for dirty coal.

The company has secured 20-year, renewable-license rights to harvest wildfire deadwood and beetle-infested evergreen trees from five million hectares of forest in northern Alberta. That crown forest area contains a 15-year backlog of damaged and diseased timber.

And the company harbours prepared plans to replicate its business model in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia over the coming decade.

Its next-gen steam-explosion process converts wildfire remains into black pellets under pressure, to remove all harmful particles and elements from the biomass. All that is left are highly-compact, water-resistant green fuel shots with 94 percent less carbon release than coal – but still 87 percent of the energy release of coal.

Moreover, the steam explosion of cellulosic matter yields valuable biochemical furfural as a byproduct of the manufacturing process.

And the end-to-end production process provides jobs and security to Indigenous populations living on the front line of the world’s climate crisis.

In this process, clean-ups of forest wildfire deadwood act as an economic driver for the emerging green economy, reduce greenhouse gas emissions and preserve Canada’s carbon sink to play its role in restoring the health of the planet.

IEA ANNUAL REPORT REVEALS ENERGY TRANSITION PATHWAY

Thu, 13 Nov 2025 19:09:11 GMT

Findings show huge global rise in demand will be met by green energy projects.

THE WORLD will build more renewable energy projects in the next five years than it has in the last 40, according to a report released this week by the International Energy Agency.

The global energy watchdog’s research revealed the scale of change about to occur in light of increasing demands being placed on the planet’s power supplies to support new technologies.

Its World Energy Outlook 2025 report also showed that, over the coming decade, growth of global green energy infrastructure will outstrip growth of all other forms of energy expansion combined.

The IEA’s flagship report evaluates all energy sources as well as total planetary energy supply and demand annually. And this year it concluded that an imminent rapid rise in low-carbon electricity sources would ultimately seal humanity’s transition away from fossil fuels.

The study found that the surge in renewable energy projects was necessary to build much-needed, improved resilience into international energy systems.

It calculated that total energy output to be reaped from renewable sources in the next ten years would almost meet all of the world’s growing thirst for electricity – expected to rise by 40% in the same period.

The IEA cited increased heating and cooling needs, more use of electric vehicles and the development of large AI datacentres as reasons behind increased demand, predicting global investment in datacentres to top US$580bn in 2025 alone.

The World Energy Outlook report highlighted the emergence of large solar farms – across the Middle East, Asia, Africa and other sun-kissed regions – would form the largest part of coming green energy infrastructure. It also recognised the role to be played by nations adopting a renewed and safer relationship with nuclear power.

And it predicted that global coal and oil demand will have peaked by the end of this decade.

Acknowledging the energy transition underway, IEA Executive Director Fatih Birol said: “When we look at the history of the energy world in recent decades, there is no other time when energy security tensions have applied to so many fuels and technologies at once.”

He added: “We will still use oil, we will still use gas. But the growth of electricity demand is spectacular.”

The IEA’s findings drew swift response from leading energy analysts and think tanks.

David Jones, chief analyst of Ember – which uses and analyses IEA data to inform its own research – said the study’s findings made a transition away from fossil fuels “inevitable”.

He said: “Renewables and electrification will dominate the future and all fossil-importing nations will gain the most by embracing them.”

He added: “There’s a revolution happening right now and it’s in renewables and electrification. The evidence on the ground is overwhelming.”

Climate change think tank E3G offered comment on the IEA’s report from its energy transition program lead, Maria Pastukhova.

Ms. Pastukhova said: “The choices for the global energy system and the global economy are unambiguous. If countries want to grow their economies and protect their citizens from roller-coaster energy prices, they need to focus relentlessly on energy efficiency and the decarbonisation of energy demand.”

CoAlternative Energy’s CEO David Peters addressed the IEA’s findings and provided his thoughts to this website.

He said: “This is the first World Energy Outlook report from the IEA that truly spells out how humanity’s transition away from oil, coal and gas will occur. It paints a clear picture of what the end of dirty and deadly fossil fuel looks like, and how the planet’s energy infrastructure is set to undergo great change.

“Less encouraging though is that the report predicts global coal consumption to peak in another five years’ time, before it begins to decline.

“That is too late and, given the IEA’s projections around electricity demand, the decline will likely be too slow to address climate change in any significant and meaningful way.

“Much of the carbon emitted from that consumption of coal over the coming years can be offset though, with investment into the production of low-carbon coal alternatives like black biofuel pellets, and then using them as a direct drop-in replacement for coal burned in industrial and utility-scale furnaces.

“Those actions will maintain a power supply that meets growing energy demand but hugely reduce carbon emissions from the moment black pellets are used to replace coal.”

GLOBAL COAL CONSUMPTION HIT ALL-TIME HIGH IN 2024

Fri, 07 Nov 2025 17:26:16 GMT

How one shift to a low-carbon sustainable alternative can mitigate our increasing over-reliance on coal

Global coal consumption reached a record high last year despite widespread initiatives to switch to renewable energy sources, a leading annual report into climate change has revealed.

A rise in power demand around the planet was cited for the new spike in coal use, even though its percentage share of the world’s wider energy mix dropped.

The World Resources Institute released its worrying findings on October 22 ^nd in the think tank’s yearly State of Climate Action report.

Reflecting on its outcomes, one of the study’s research associates warned that rising coal use around world threatened to thwart attempts to rein in global atmospheric heating.

Efforts to limit global warming to 1.5°C above preindustrial levels, as set out in the Paris climate agreement, depend on industrial and residential power usage being based on sustainable energy sources instead of coal, oil and gas.

Clea Schumer said: “The message on this is crystal clear. We simply will not limit warming to 1.5°C if coal use keeps breaking records.

“One of the most concerning findings from our assessment is that for the fifth report in our series in a row, efforts to phase out coal are well off track.”

The same State of Climate Action report cautioned that forests, peatlands, wetlands and oceans were being damaged at a rate that vastly reduced the planet’s capacity to store carbon.

Another senior research associate at World Resources Institute, Sophie Boehm, added: “As this global report card shows, we have barely moved the needle on phasing out coal or halting deforestation, while public finance still props up fossil fuels.

“These actions aren’t optional, they’re the bare minimum needed to combat the climate crisis and protect humanity.”

Since a 190-strong coalition of governments at COP26 committed to reduce coal consumption in 2021 some of the world’s largest nations have ramped up their use of the fossil fuel.

India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi revelled in his country exceeding 1bn tons of coal production this year and Donald Trump has repeatedly stated his support for coal and other fossil fuel use since taking office in the US for a second term.

The effects of these hugely counter-intuitive developments are yet to be felt in the form of higher greenhouse gas emissions.

World leaders and high-ranking officials will meet in Brazil next month for the Cop30 UN climate summit, to discuss how to keep the world on track to stay within 1.5C of global heating in line with the 2015 Paris climate agreement.

To meet 2030 climate goals, the State of Climate Action report recommends that their phasing out of coal must accelerate tenfold.

But as the world enters a new AI-based phase of industrial competition, it is hard to envisage nations agreeing to retire the 360 coal-fired power plants per year that the report says is needed before end of the decade.

However, low-carbon alternatives to coal burned in power stations, steel mills and industrial factories offer end users a truly transitional and sustainable energy source – one that significantly reduces greenhouse gas emissions and repurposes existing energy infrastructure.

Black biofuel pellets, created by a steam explosion production process from cellulosic raw materials, possess 87.5% of the energy release of coal when burned – yet release 94% less carbon than coal.

They are positioned to replace coal, the energy that coal produces for the planet and resolve the climate crisis in one shift to a truly sustainable energy source.

CoAlternative Energy manufactures its black pellets from fire-damaged timber and diseased trees harvested respectively from the scenes of devastating wildfires and extensive irreversible beetle infestations.

The company’s CEO David Peters said: “The World Resources Institute’s State of Climate Action report, produced by Systems Change Lab, makes for uncomfortable reading and should be another wake-up call for nations and industries intent on using coal as an energy source.

“The report also shows that no industry sector is on track to meet global climate goals and that clean-energy investments are still hugely inadequate to check a rise in average temperature.

“Now is the moment to invest in clean and sustainable sources of energy, and especially ones that can replace coal. Black wood pellets produced by steam explosion have energy and bulk densities that make them a true and viable alternative to coal, but they release 94% less carbon than coal.

“The over-reliance on coal that is highlighted by The World Resources Institute’s report can be mitigated by investment in the only direct ‘drop in’ replacement for coal – and that is black pellet biofuel.”

CFS TO SUPPORT PELLET PRODUCERS FROM $500M FUND

Fri, 07 Nov 2025 17:23:51 GMT

The Canadian Forestry Service will use Carney cash to fix pellet industry focus on EU markets

The Canadian Forestry Service has committed to invest in the country’s pellet industry with money from $500m of fresh government funding.

The newly-available capital is part of a bigger CA$1.25bn aid package to support the country’s lumber sector, in the face of recent US tariffs and subsequent global trade shifts.

Speaking at the Wood Pellet Association of Canada’s annual conference last month, the Canadian Forestry Service’s Director of Trade and International Affairs vowed: “There will definitely be support provided to the pellets industry.”

Pierre-Jonathan Teasdale also revealed that new measures to support Canada’s wood pellet industry were just weeks away.

He told delegates: “We’re actively working on measures to be announced promptly in the New Year. Our team will launch a diversification programme that targets offshore markets.”

Canadian PM Mark Carney announced his emergency support package for Canada’s forest industries in August “to supercharge product and market diversification and make the industry more competitive globally.”

Within eight weeks of that statement Pierre-Jonathan Teasdale had travelled to Halifax, Nova Scotia with assurances for biofuel pellet manufacturers that money was available and support was coming.

He told WPAC’s two-day annual conference: “For us, the forest sector is a key pillar of the Canadian economy, supporting good jobs, supplying low-carbon products, and the biomass and wood pellets sector is certainly part of that.”

Focusing on Canada’s shift away from US buyers, the CFS trade chief explained: “Given that the EU is the third market in importance for the wood pellet sector, this is a top priority for us.”

Pointing to a WPAC pilot pellet traceability platform, built in partnership with the CFS, Pierre-Jonathan Teasdale added: “I think that the sector is well ready to meet the EUDR requirements, which is good news.

“Internationally, we are also supporting Canadian participation in ISO standards for solid biofuels exports. This includes standards for testing wood pellets.”

The EU’s Renewable Energy Directive, also known as RED III, places new pressures on external pellet producers to prove the traceability and quality of their products.

Pierre-Jonathan Teasdale revealed the CFS’s forthcoming investment as a panellist participating in a WPAC market and policy update titled Navigating Regulatory Change.

Joining him in the conference suite of Halifax’s Marriott Harbourfront Hotel was director of bioenergy for market research consultancy Hawkins Wright, Fiona Matthews.

Fiona added insight to Pierre-Jonathan’s initiative. Explaining complexities that exist in the EU wood pellet market, she revealed how “aspects” of the delayed RED III were already “being implemented with some variations across different member states.”

Fiona said: “The consequences of this is that there will be variations in different end user requirements across the European market, depending on how those individual member states implement those rules.

“There could be a consequence in terms of feedstock sourcing for pellet producers selling into these different countries and countries.”

The Wood Pellet Association of Canada’s conference took place on September 23 and 24 and was attended by Coalternative Energy’s CEO David Peters.

Coalternative Energy finds itself well-placed to meet new requirements imposed across the EU as it harvests only dead wildfire wood, diseased timber and forest floor debris to make 2 ^nd generation black wood pellets – as part of its commitment to sustainable biofuel production.

David Peters said: “New markets are opening up to the importation of biofuel wood pellets as a replacement for coal burned in power stations, steel mills and in other industrial furnaces.

“Two factors hold the key to national markets meeting the EU’s Renewable Energy Directive, and both are addressed by CoAlternative Energy.

“The low carbon release of black wood pellets help EU nations to meet many requirements set out by RED III. But CoAlternative’s commitment to use only dead wildfire wood, diseased timber and forest floor debris as black wood pellet feedstock provides the provenance they require too.”

FURFURAL: THE $700M BIOCHEMICAL

Fri, 07 Nov 2025 17:21:27 GMT

Why Global Demand for Versatile Furfural is Soaring and what it means for CoAlternative Energy

FURFURAL is fast emerging as one of the world’s most promising bio-based chemicals, for its environmentally-friendly application across numerous industries.

While the industrial production of furfural began in the 1920s, notably by The Quaker Oats Company, it has received renewed attention recently for its versatile and eco-friendly qualities.

The adaptable organic compound is used in the production of fuels, lubricants, bricks, foods, pharmaceuticals, fragrances, cosmetics, as well as ceramics, rubbers and plastics.

Typically a pale yellow liquid, with a cherry-almond scent, Furfural is created when residual plant materials are processed after they’ve been farmed.

Corn cobs, wheat bran, both oat and rice hulls, sugarcane pulp and waste hardwoods all produce furfural when dehydrated. The resident sugar xylose in their cells becomes furfural when it is refined in an industrial process.

And because all of furfural’s natural source materials are continually replenished through seasonal growth cycles, it is comfortably categorised as a renewable and sustainable biochemical.

Furfural’s potential to displace petroleum in the production of chemicals and vehicle fuels, and its broader appeal across several thriving global industries, mean furfural is starting to realise ever-increasing demand.

The global market for furfural is now valued at approximately US$700m and CoAlternative Energy will generate large quantities of the biochemical, as a consequence of making black biofuel pellets from Canadian wildfire woods.

So, in this article, we look more closely at furfural and explain how it has become such a staple component of everyday fuels, pharmaceuticals, lubricants and building materials.

And we answer five key questions to help shed some light on the properties and potential of this little-known biochemical.

What is furfural used for?

Furfural is used for multiple purposes. Its versatility as an organic compound sees it included in the production of paints, plastics, resins, bricks, fibreglass, ceramics, biofuels, pharmaceuticals and cosmetics.

Furfural is a bio-based agent for vulcanisation – a process that transforms raw rubber into a stronger, more durable material. In the energy sector, furfural is used to manufacture cleaner and higher octane petrol and diesel, and more recently their clean alternatives

Beyond these heavier industries, furfural’s flexible application extends into food, agriculture and household goods – as a flavouring ingredient in pastries, coffee and spirits, a component of herbicides, insecticides and pesticides, and an agent in household cleaners, lubricants and detergents.

Why is furfural a renewable product?

Furfural is a renewable and sustainable biochemical because its natural plant sources are continually replenished through growth cycles. It is derived exclusively from agricultural waste. It isn’t a petroleum-based chemical. But it is equally good for making fuels, solvents and plastics.

That furfural adds value to organic waste streams, doesn’t compete with food crops for land and resources, and doesn’t require expensive refineries for production only serves to heighten its appeal.

Furfural can be converted into green fuels through hydrogenation, oxidation or condensation. Methylfuran, methyltetrahydrofuran, ethylfurfuryl and ethyltetrahydrofurfuryl ethers are all staple constituents of bio jet fuel.

How is furfural made?

CoAlternative Energy Ltd. produces furfural as a by-product of manufacturing its black biofuel pellets.

Harvested dead wildfire wood and diseased timber from Canada’s boreal forest is steam-treated under pressure at 220°C. This hydrolysis forces the release of acetic acid from the organic material. The acetic acid, combined with a sudden drop in pressure placed on the biomass, breaks down their cell structures – separating xylose sugar liquid from the wood’s fibres.

The pulp is dried, granulated and compressed into ultra-compact energy-dense biofuel pellets. The isolated xylose sugar liquid is treated with sulphuric acid under heat to remove water, before it’s distilled into furfural. All of this takes place at Coalternative’s pellet production facilities.

What is furfuryl alcohol?

Furfural is a renewable bio-based platform chemical that has already yielded an entire new family of sustainable derivative chemicals.

Among them, Furoic acid is used to make pharmaceuticals and agrochemicals. Tetrahydrofuran is favoured in weather-resistant coatings for metals. Caprolactam and hexamethylenediamine are two distinct monomers used in the production of Nylon. All come from furfural.

However, furfuryl alcohol is its most important commercial derivative. Almost 90 percent of furfural produced around the world becomes furfuryl alcohol – and is used extensively in the production of heat-resistant resins, reinforced plastics and modified wood products that neither decay nor burn.

What does the future hold for furfural?

The global market value of furfural is currently around US$700m while annual production of the bio-based chemical remains approximately 350,000 tons. But the numbers are expected to grow, substantially.

Increasing demand for sustainable, bio-based chemicals is driving furfural’s success story – as nations and their industries shift from petrochemicals.

China currently dominates the global furfural market. It produces 80 percent of the world’s supply, while consuming more than half of it to feed its large foundry and pharma industries. Other big nation consumers of China’s domestic furfural product include India and Japan, with the Asia-Pacific region accounting for the largest share of furfural’s global market by far.

However, Europe’s stringent commitment to developing green economies has seen its consumption of furfural grow year on year. While a revived US automotive sector is now the driving force behind western demand for furfuryl alcohol - used in vehicle resins and plastics.

Unstable climates for agriculture and fractured global supply chains have made the price of raw material to make furfural volatile. Although, CoAlternative Energy has a 20 year fixed-price feedstock of hard wood, with a 15 year backlog of fire-damaged timber included in its forestry rights.

The cost of transporting furfural is expensive. Importing the biochemical from China isn’t viable.

But, our company’s position in the heart of Alberta removes the expense of shipping and importing it from the Far East.

And these are the reasons why furfural plays such a central part in Coalternative Energy’s ambitious business plans.

GLOBAL BLACK PELLET DEMAND BEGINS TO SURGE

Thu, 02 Oct 2025 08:24:28 GMT

Industry enters rapid growth phase as markets switch on to 2nd generation biofuel’s inherent qualities

THE global market for black pellets biomass will burgeon over the coming decade, according to two independent market analysis reports released recently.

Demand for Gen2 black wood pellets - from power stations and utilities companies, cement, steel and chemicals manufacturers, as well as commercial and residential heating customers – has been forecast to reach USD$4.1bn by 2035.

International climate initiatives, national carbon-neutral policies, rising demand from eastern Asia and the advancement of pellet production technology were cited as key drivers behind demand for black biomass pellets.

Two successive reports, released by market insight specialists 24ChemicalResearch and Wise Guy Reports, predicted compound annual growth rates of black pellet demand to be 6.5% and 7.1% respectively over coming years.

Both think tanks highlighted black pellets’ superior energy density and water resistance, compared to traditional white biomass pellets, as reasons for their emerging viability as a sustainable energy source.

While Wise Guy Reports’ study focused on black pellets’ compatibility with coal infrastructure, 24ChemicalResearch’s earlier analysis unpacked black wood pellets’ potential to create additional future revenue streams through carbon credit generation – when they’re integrated with carbon capture technology.

Black pellets release 94% less carbon into the atmosphere than coal, while retaining 87.5% of the fossil fuel’s energy release. 24ChemicalResearch’s findings recorded their “lower ash content” in its data.

The research body, which prides itself on being “the most trusted resource for market insights in the chemical and materials industries” however curbed its candour for the virtues of Gen2 black pellet biofuel by documenting concerns over high fixed costs in the industry.

Both reports benchmarked the global market value of black pellets biomass at $1.2bn in 2024. But 24ChemicalResearch’s data carried a more conservative estimate of global demand for Gen2 pellet biomass reaching $2.1bn by 2032.

It claimed: “Despite its potential, the market faces hurdles including high capital costs for production facilities averaging 20 to 30 percent more than white pellet plants.

“Supply chain complexities arise from the need for specialised handling equipment to maintain pellet integrity. Regulatory uncertainties in some markets and competition from alternative renewables like solar PV also pose challenges.”

Wise Guy Reports’ market insight, published on 30 ^th August on the UK’s Industry Today website, was more optimistic – pegging global demand for black pellets at $4.5bn come 2035.

It declared: “The outlook for the biomass black pellets market is highly positive with sustained demand from power generation, industrial heating, and renewable energy sectors.

“By 2035 the market will nearly double to $4500m, driven by global carbon neutrality goals and increasing reliance on bioenergy.”

And it supported its findings with a breakdown of continental demand for Gen2 wood pellets, concluding: “The Asia-Pacific region is expected to emerge as the fastest-growing market. Europe will remain the largest market, supported by stringent emission regulations and supportive government policies. North America will serve as a major exporter to global markets, leveraging its abundant biomass resources.”

CoAlternative managing director David Peters commented: “Research and analysis such as these reports help to prove the viability of what is still an emerging sustainable energy source.

“The green energy industry has greater awareness of the existence white wood pellets and certain sections of it have made up its mind about them. That’s understandable.

“But Gen2 black pellet biofuel has up to 24 percent more energy release than Gen1 white pellet biofuel. Black pellets release significantly less carbon than white pellets. They are also at least 35 percent cheaper to transport than white pellets due to their greater bulk density.

“All of these truths make Gen2 black pellets the ‘game-changer in renewable energy’ that 24ChemicalResearch reports they are, and the ‘reliable and sustainable fuel option’ that Wise Guy Reports say they are.

“Black pellets have a key role to play in global energy transition.”

24ChemicalResearch’s full market analysis report can be downloaded via this link .

Wise Guy Reports market analysis can be read in full via this link

Each report based its findings on primary qualitative research data compiled from extensive interviews with industry executives and technical experts, combined with thorough analysis of quantitative production data, trade flows, as well as scrutiny of policy development within major black pellet markets.

DRAX PROBE SHOWS WHY PELLET PROVENANCE IS KEY

Thu, 02 Oct 2025 08:24:27 GMT

CoAlternative Gen2 black pellet biofuel offers win-win for climate change and energy industry ethics

A PYRE of recent allegations stacked against energy giant Drax has illuminated the importance of transparent provenance in the biomass industry.

In March, a former executive claimed the company had misled over its sourcing of white wood pellets burned, as a replacement for coal at its Selby power plant.

The accusation came less than one year after the firm agreed to pay Ofgem £25m for filing inadequate data on the wood it sourced as fuel – although the energy regulator found no evidence of deliberate misreporting.

And three weeks ago Drax revealed it was cooperating with a further probe into “historical statements” that it made about the origin of white wood pellet fuel that it imported as an energy source for UK homes and businesses.

Few companies will recognise the importance of transparent provenance in biomass fuel production more than Drax. The UK government gives Drax vast renewable energy subsidies based on the fuel it burns.

As part of them, Drax has signed a stringent Contracts for Difference (CfD) agreement with the UK government to guarantee all of its pellets come from sustainable sources. It also recently unveiled its own far-reaching sustainability framework to aggregate detailed data about its supply chain.

This undoubtedly came in response to well-meant concerns that some of its white wood pellets could have originated from logging firms operating in northern Canada’s old-growth primary forests.

Canada possesses 25 percent of the world’s boreal forest, dense woodlands rich in biodiversity and complex eco-systems. Logging licenses are rightly difficult to acquire in the country’s provinces, and the controversial activity is already on pause in several of them.

It is for all of these reasons that CoAlternative uses only the dead remains of charred wildfire timber mixed with Alberta’s forest floor debris to create its Gen2 black wood pellets.

Our steam explosion treatment process converts this low-grade biomass into premium, high-density black pellets that also replace coal in power stations, but with little or no modification of plant facilities needed.

Each year wildfires claim up to 20,000 sq km of forest in Alberta, near to where CoAlternative is based in its Peace River district.

The fires, started most commonly by lightning strikes, provide plentiful feedstock for our steam explosion pellet plant, without any need for climate-deadly deforestation and logging.

That expired feedstock is harvested, steam-exploded and compressed to create offtake with 46% greater bulk density and 24% greater energy release than any high quality Gen1 white pellet fuel – making it comparable with coal and highly viable for transportation.

The product’s lower moisture content and lower ash production ensure it is low-emission and considerably cleaner and more environmentally friendly than white wood pellets, or coal.

By clearing dead wildfire wood from Alberta’s boreal forest, CoAlternative’s biomass supply chain also reduces the release of decomposition methane into the Northern hemisphere – and promotes reforestation instead of deforestation.

CoAlternative CEO David Peters said: “Drax deals with millions of tons of biomass every year, so it faces an enormous challenge in establishing the provenance of every wood pellet that it burns. It has made clear that it is increasing its efforts to meet that challenge.

“Scrutiny of biomass supply chains is a principal part of the industry’s present and future. The practice helps to show the contribution that biomass can make to climate change reversal.

“Deforestation of any primary woodland contributes to global warming. It undermines the world’s energy transition away from fossil fuels.

“Put simply, the biomass industry will find it difficult to justify its existence if it relies on the felling and logging of any mature tree stock. But none need occur for the production of biomass wood pellets anyway.

“Canada’s boreal biome produces ample forest floor and wildfire debris, and diseased woodland, for the production of wood pellets.

“Only a steam explosion process can turn it into a black pellet biofuel product with sufficient energy density and calorific release to warrant shipment over significant distance.

“That is why CoAlternative will lead the way in producing second generation black wood pellets which validate the existence of biomass fuels and contribute to our move away from burning fossil fuels.”

COP30 TO SEND NEW MEMO: ENERGY TRANSITION MEANS ECONOMIC TRANSITION

Thu, 02 Oct 2025 08:24:21 GMT

Climate summit delegates will be advised to find fiscal recovery in green economic and energy transition

WITHIN two months world leaders are expected to leave the planet’s 30 ^th international climate summit with a fresh perspective on energy transition.

Unlike 29 Conference of Parties before it, COP30 is set to refocus participants on the financial benefits of addressing climate change, as well as the economic costs of ignoring it.

It’s believed this resounding message at November’s Brazil conference will replace repeated warnings of a world approaching breaking point, in dire need of averting its fearful fate.

Instead, dialogue at COP30 is anticipated to chime with growing global concerns and priorities around weakening economies, cost of living crises and rising unemployment.

The UN’s executive secretary of Framework Convention on Climate Change intends to convince attendees in Belem that the growth and profit they seek lies in green economic transition – with clear cut examples used to make his point.

Through COP30, Simon Stiell will illustrate “the economic growth that can be stimulated through strong climate action.”

It is anticipated that countries like Japan and China – having gained billions in investment and generated mammoth profits by embracing clean energy and green economic transition – will provide much of his case study material in Belem.

He told government officials visiting him in New York this month: “We’ve been speaking about the impacts on lives, livelihoods. It doesn’t get into other elements – the economic benefits of taking climate action and what this means in terms of jobs, food security, water security.”

Brazil was chosen to host COP30 for its potential to lead on issues of biodiversity and nature-based solutions to climate change

But Mr Stiell will also use COP30 to highlight the economic effects of the climate crisis on countries if their national plans to meet the Paris agreement are neglected.

According to an International Chamber of Commerce report which analysed 4,000 climate-related events – from flash floods that washed away homes to drawn-out droughts that crippled farming – extreme weather cost countries $2tn globally between 2014 and 2024.

The ICC’s secretary-general John Denton reflected on the study: “Major productivity losses from extreme weather events are being felt in the here and now by the real economy.”

His views have been advanced recently by insurance industry leaders who have spelled out the consequences of coverage for climate-related risks becoming unviable and unavaiable.

Posting on his LinkedIn page, Allianz SE board member Günther Thallinger explained: “Extreme weather phenomena drive direct physical risks to all categories of human-owned assets – land, houses, roads, power lines, railways, ports, and factories. Heat and water destroy capital. Flooded homes lose value. Overheated cities become uninhabitable. Entire asset classes are degrading in real time. Entire regions are becoming uninsurable.

“If insurance is no longer available, other financial services become unavailable too. A house that cannot be insured cannot be mortgaged. No bank will issue loans for uninsurable property.

“That means no more mortgages, no new real estate development, no long-term investment, no financial stability. The financial sector as we know it ceases to function. And with it, capitalism as we know it ceases to be viable. There is no capitalism without functioning financial services.

“There is only one path forward: prevent any further increase in atmospheric energy levels. That means keeping emissions out of the atmosphere. That means burning less carbon.

“This is not about saving the planet. This is about saving the conditions under which markets, finance, and civilization itself can continue to operate.”

And while delegates at COP30 will listen to alarming economic predictions more attentively than human ones, they might also note how the global private sector’s $2tn investment in low-carbon industry last year dwarfed it $1tn one in fossil fuel.

Money talks and the UN’s executive secretary of Framework Convention on Climate Change is correct to ask COP30 delegates to look at climate change with fresh eyes.

The opportunities for economic growth and financial security that reside in green energy and economic transition remain relatively untapped.

Now, for layered reasons, is the moment for government, industry and enterprise to embrace them.

23rd September