Europe set to welcome biomass from Canada

Canada-based Vega Biofuels (VB) is to ship samples of its torrefied pellet product to European power companies for testing as the New Year commences.

The EU is home to the world's largest regional energy market and accounts for one fifth of the world's energy use and European power companies have been mandated to cut carbon dioxide emissions by 20% by the year 2020.

VB believes Europe's biomass resources are relatively small and unable to provide the necessary woody biomass to meet that mandate, but its biocoal solution could help solve that problem.

‘The first step in marketing our product is to allow clients to do laboratory testing,’ says VB CEO Michael Molen. ‘We are now able to provide the necessary samples of our product to perspective clients for testing. This is a huge step for our us and, once the lab testing is completed, the next step is to provide enough product to be processed through their existing fossil coal handling chain.’