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October 1, 2007 Vol. XI, No. 19

• “One of America's Greenest Executives” to speak at CIPEC Industrial Energy Efficiency Conference
• Energy efficiency could cut demand by 25 percent, say Canada's energy ministers
• Raising the roof on shingle recycling
• Vaperma teams up with Greenfield Ethanol to test new membrane system
• Alberta's Eco-industrial park on track
• Technology Tip

Articles

“One of America's Greenest Executives” to speak at CIPEC Industrial Energy Efficiency Conference

Billed as one of America's greenest executives, Ray Anderson, founder and chair of Interface Inc., will be the keynote speaker for Energy 2007.

As head of a billion dollar company that sells commercial and institutional interiors in more than 100 countries, Anderson has transformed the company into one of the world's most sustainable manufacturers. In the process, he has become one of the world's leading spokespersons and advocates for sustainability and has written Mid-Course Correction – Toward a Sustainable Enterprise – a book that chronicles Interface's journey towards sustainability.

Mr. Anderson will be giving the keynote address to industry leaders at Energy 2007 – an industry energy efficiency conference to be held at the Fairmont Château Laurier in Ottawa on November 27 and 28. The event includes leading business thinkers who will shed light on the latest and most cost effective techniques to improve energy performance. The conference is an opportunity to network with industry leaders and energy efficiency champions, and engage in open discussions on topics including financing energy efficiency projects, emerging technologies and employee training.

“Energy 2007 is a must-attend event for people in industry who are both serious about reducing energy costs and protecting the environment,” says Douglas Speers, President of EMCO Corporation and Chair of the CIPEC Executive Board. “Ray Anderson is a true visionary. He's an industry leader who has demonstrated that the way we do business to reduce environmental impacts can also boost profitability.”

CIPEC – a voluntary partnership between industry and the Government of Canada – has been helping Canadian industry cut costs and raise profits through energy efficiency for more than 30 years. Supported by Natural Resources Canada's ecoENERGY initiative, CIPEC offers Canadian industry the tools, expertise and resources that companies need to implement more efficient industrial processes and to utilize cleaner sources of energy.

For more information about CIPEC or Energy 2007, visit the Web site at www.Energy2007.gc.ca.

Energy efficiency could cut demand by 25 percent, say Canada's energy ministers

Among the new pledges to increase intergovernmental cooperation in advancing energy efficiency, Canada's Council of Energy Ministers (CEM) agreed that energy efficiency could reduce energy demand in Canada by almost 25 percent of today's energy use by 2030.

Canada's energy ministers endorsed the potential for energy savings through conservation at the annual Council of Energy Ministers meeting that took place in Whistler, British Columbia on September 25, 2007. This claim builds on the recent announcement that all governments are working collaboratively to enhance the model national energy code for buildings by 25 percent by 2012.

At the meeting – co-chaired by the Honourable Gary Lunn, Minister of Natural Resources, and the Honourable Richard Neufeld, British Columbia Minister of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources – ministers agreed to collaborate further on energy efficiency initiatives. These initiatives include new energy technology partnerships in priority areas such as cleaner fossil fuels, advanced energy end-use, alternative and renewable energy sources, bio-energy, and hydrogen production, storage and conversion.

Ministers also endorsed the document Moving Forward on Energy Efficiency. This document was created to engage governments, the private sector and individuals in a pan-Canadian effort to reduce energy consumption in homes, buildings, industry and on-road transportation. It offers a menu of tools from which individual governments can choose to enhance energy efficiency and conservation. It also includes numerous options for action on energy efficiency by sectors outside governments. These sectors include professional and industry associations, retailers, financial institutions and others, ranging from energy-related training for professionals such as engineers and architects to the expansion of green financial instruments.

Raising the roof on shingle recycling

More than one million tonnes of roofing waste goes into Canada's landfills each year. New studies show, however, that transforming asphalt shingles into road surfacing materials or using it as a fuel source could virtually eliminate that waste and cut greenhouse gas emissions significantly.

“We spend all this energy getting raw materials such as oil and metals out of the ground,” says Michael Clapham, senior policy advisory with NRCan's Minerals and Metals Sector. “The last thing we want to do is throw them away.”

That philosophy prompted NRCan to hold a multi-stakeholder workshop in February 2007 to investigate the potential of recycling roofing materials. The National Research Council, Public Works and Government Services, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and Canadian and U.S. industry representatives participated.

As a result of those discussions, NRCan is now working with four provincial governments (British Columbia, Alberta, Ontario and Nova Scotia) and four municipalities (Greater Vancouver, Calgary, Region of Peel and Halifax) to get asphalt shingle recycling pilot projects off the ground.

One company in Halifax that is already recycling asphalt shingles continues to work with the municipality and Lafarge North America Inc. to increase the amount of shingles that can be recycled within the region.

Halifax C&D Recycling Ltd. shreds asphalt shingles then screens them into grit and flake. The grit is sold to a local paving company. The flake – a fibrous material covered in asphalt – goes to Lafarge NA, which uses the material as an alternative fuel in its Brookfield cement manufacturing facility thereby offsetting the amount of coal it uses.

“This is truly a win-win-win story”, says Bob Masterson, Director, Energy and Environment Policy with the Cement Association of Canada. “The environment and society benefit as virgin raw materials are conserved for future generations and materials are diverted from landfills. The roofing industry is able to demonstrate stewardship over the lifecycle impact of its products, and the cement industry benefits from access to lower cost, locally sourced fuels.” Masterson adds that “With their extremely high temperatures and residence times, cement kilns provide ideal conditions for energy recovery opportunities for a wide variety of by-product and residue streams from the institutional, commercial, industrial and municipal solid waste sectors.”

Most construction waste is often mixed together, which makes it difficult to screen out useable material. The vast majority of roofing waste, on the other hand, comes from re-roofing projects, not from demolition, theoretically making the materials easier to divert.

Although you can't recycle asphalt shingles back into roofing materials, up to 90 000 tonnes of carbon dioxide could be cut each year by adding 5 percent of shingle grit to hot mix asphalt. This asphalt is then used for road surfacing.

Canadian hot-mix asphalt plants produce about 30 million tonnes of material annually. Substituting just 5 percent of the virgin material – about 1.5 million tonnes – in the hot mix asphalt would eliminate the roofing scrap generated each year in Canada.

The economics are also quite attractive, particularly for the construction industry. “When you look at the lifecycle cost of asphalt shingles, recycling them gives you a significant bang for the buck,” says Mr. Clapham. “If you take into account the cost of tipping fees, the cost of offsetting virgin asphalt, and if you use the residue material as an energy source, the cost benefits start to add up.”

NRCan will present Canada's initiatives at the 3^rd Asphalt Shingle Recycling Forum in Chicago on November 1 and 2, 2007. For more detailed information about asphalt shingle recycling, see also Enhancing the Recovery of End-of-life Roofing Materials and Enhanced Recovery of Roofing Materials, both available from NRCan's Recycling in Canada Web site.

Vaperma teams up with Greenfield Ethanol to test new membrane system

In June 2007, a new 22 000 square foot testing facility opened in St. Romuald, Quebec to prove the merits of a membrane system that separates water from ethanol.

Vaperma Inc., a Quebec-based company that develops advanced gas separation solutions, has partnered with Greenfield Ethanol, Canada's largest ethanol producer, to test the Siftek membrane.

In Vaperma's proprietary process, water vapour permeates through a polymer membrane at a greater flow rate than ethanol. The membrane can separate ethanol-water mixtures over a wide range of water concentration, ultimately producing fuel grade ethanol.

For ethanol to be used as an additive in gasoline, it must have a water content lower than 0.8 percent by weight. To reach that level, ethanol must be distilled and dehydrated – processes that can add significant cost to the final product.

“Our system essentially replaces both of those processes,” explains Claude Létourneau, CEO of Vaperma. Initial testing reveals that the Siftek membrane cuts energy costs by up to 50 percent, the equivalent of 1.7¢ per litre.

Vaperma is now working on a second generation membrane that could be used for cellulosic ethanol. This ethanol is made from a wider variety and combination of materials such as agricultural and forestry wastes and it has a much higher water content than corn- or sugarcane-based ethanol.

In October 2007, Vaperma will also begin testing a similar method to dehydrate natural gas.

“Conventional dehydration for natural gas uses glycol, which absorbs the water in the natural gas and then you strip the water from the glycol,” Mr. Létourneau explains. "We will replace the absorption and distillation with our membrane system.” Mr. Létourneau expects that the energy savings using this process will be about 30 percent.

Commercialization of the technology is not far away. “We hope that the results of this phase of testing will translate into a commercial installation by 2008,” Mr. Létourneau reports.

Vaperma's new facility was financially supported by the Government of Canada (Natural Resources Canada, Technology Early Action Measures and Sustainable Development Technology Canada) and EnCana, a Canadian natural gas producer.

Alberta's Eco-industrial park on track

A new 30-acre Eco-industrial park in Hinton, Alberta is scheduled for completion this time next year. This park, called Innovista, will include an innovative wastewater collection system and lot design to ensure buildings use land more efficiently.

Ecology is Innovista's central organizing theme. The design and development of the site will build on and augment the site's natural features while its infrastructure will integrate with key aspects of the site's eco-system. Energy production will incorporate renewable energy systems; waste will be treated as a possible resource for neighbouring businesses; and the park will encourage strategic collaboration among businesses such as group purchasing and central storage.

By reducing industrial water consumption, leveraging use of renewable energy sources and creating an industrial area that people actually want to work in, Innovista believes that Eco-industrial parks cost less to operate and allow industries to be more effective at retaining employees than conventional industrial parks.

Innovista says 60 percent of Phase 1 of this project has been committed. Occupants include RMS Developments Inc. and Hinton's Infrastructure Services Facility. Located 250 kilometres west of Edmonton, Hinton is the first Canadian community to develop an Eco-industrial park from the ground up. This project was carried out with grant and loan assistance from the Green Municipal Fund – a fund financed by the Government of Canada and administered by the Federation of Canadian Municipalities.

For more information, visit Innovista's Web site at www.eip.hinton.ca.