Last week, Lafarge NA and Performance Plants Inc. (PPI), a Kingston-based biotechnology company, announced a multi-year agreement to grow and develop clean energy biomass grasses and woods for use as fuel at the Lafarge plant in Bath, Ontario.

For Lafarge, the joint project is part of the company's ongoing commitment to reduce its carbon footprint, including the use of renewable and local fuel alternatives. "The future of the environment, our business, and the communities we serve depends on reducing the need for fossil fuels to run our operations," said Robert Cumming, environmental and public affairs manager at the Bath Plant.

The companies are also partnering with the Sustainable Bioeconomy Centre at Queen's University and the University of Guelph, Kemptville Campus to further evaluate the program with a special focus on assessing the full potential of non-food plant species as fuel.

For Performance Plants, the four-year agreement is an opportunity to create enhanced non-food crops that are able to be grown on less productive farmland. By combining crop types and PPI's unique trait technologies, fuel users will be able to create a customized biomass fuel to meet their specific needs. "Our challenges with biomass and biofuel energy are maximization of crop yields, crop consistency, and cost efficiency," explains Peter Matthewman, president of Performance Plants. "This is where our technology will be instrumental to develop next-generation seeds that are customized for specific industrial users looking for alternative clean energy sources. Biomass-derived biofuels provide a sustainable and economically viable solution for reducing global carbon emissions."

PPI is developing non-food biomass feedstocks that will be grown on land and under conditions less suitable for food or feed production. These optimized feedstocks will provide renewable alternatives for industries producing liquid transportation fuels and biochemicals as well as those seeking solid fuels to replace coal.

Non-food grass crops were planted in late May and early June on 25 acres of land adjacent to the Lafarge cement plant and owned by the company. After MacKinnon harvests the bales, they will be processed into fuel pellets. These pellets will then be used by the Lafarge plant to fire its cement kiln. The company expects to conduct the first trial use in the fall of 2009.