Business View Civil and Municipal | April/May 2022

18 CIVIL AND MUNICIPAL VOLUME 3, ISSUE 3 fossil fuel supplies. It is also used in Canada in some northern communities as well as on educational, health and industrial campuses in more urban Canada. Typically, a biomass generating facility creates electricity for the grid, transports its high temperature industrial steam to a nearby pulp and paper mill where it is used to dry the products. That steam is then piped to, and throughout, the nearby community where, using heat exchange technology, the heat is transferred to each building. No other source of energy is required to heat the buildings. In the summer, the system is reversed with the buildings using the heat exchange technology to cool the interior. This approach is one of the most efficient uses of a renewable form of energy – the forest. The Government of Ontario should adopt a biomass strategy that not only sustains the existing generators, but where possible, increases the further use of available biomass. That strategy should also facilitate, through approvals and financing, the creation of new biomass generation facilities to meet the growing electrical demand of the province along with incentives for the creation of district heating solutions for communities currently relying on natural gas for heating. Biomass fueled generation and district heating is also an economic opportunity for a number of the remote Indigenous communities who will shortly be connected to the provincial grid. Surplus electricity could be sold to the grid while developing a constant flow of heat throughout the community. Of all the energy solutions, biomass, in conjunction with district heating, will create the most employment in small town Northern Ontario. *Iain Angus is the Chair of the Common Voice Northwest Energy Taskforce, former chair of the Ontario Forestry Coalition, and a former Vice President of the Northwestern Ontario Municipal Association GUEST SUBMI SS ION