With all the grumbling about the federal carbon levy’s effect on grain drying costs, a company that promises its technology can use a fuel source exempt from the tax should have customers lining up.
“There are two sides to that,” said Triple Green CEO Lyall Wiebe. “Obviously, there’s lots of interest, but there are lots of fellows sitting on the sidelines because they are anticipating that the carbon tax will be removed.”
Triple Green is a Morris-based company that produces biomass-fueled heating, composting and dehydrating systems used in mining, agriculture, industrial and other applications.
Wiebe is talking about Triple Green’s BioDryAir. It is basically a forced-air furnace that attaches to a farm’s existing air dryer with a duct to direct the air. It is fed fuel via a hopper and auger system and allows farmers to use biomass fuel sources, including crop residue, which are exempt from the carbon levy.
But that levy is a stormy issue, and Wiebe said he has to be careful when navigating those waters. On the one hand, his business would benefit from an augmented price on carbon. On the other hand, the tax is very unpopular with the customer base he’s trying to attract.
Why it matters: A Morris manufacturer says biomass grain drying makes sound economic sense for farmers regardless of public policy.
And according to Wiebe, the product’s return on investment is significant regardless of any supplemental price on carbon.
“One farmer told us it was probably his best investment ROI that he’s ever made on his farm. It took grain drying from a huge cost to a profit centre,” he said.
“Forget about the carbon tax; we can put money in their pockets and increase their profit margins. I have instructed our sales staff to not even bring up the argument of a carbon tax and sell it on the basis that there isn’t one.”
During the debate over Bill C-234, the private member’s bill that aimed to exempt grain drying from the carbon levy, Wiebe engaged with politicians to correct misconceptions about grain drying fuel.
“I’ve written senators on both sides of this issue because of claims made by various farm groups that there’s no good alternative.”
Wiebe said his company’s products belie those claims.
Fuel flexibility
“With our systems, we can burn almost any type of biomass. It doesn’t have to be wood pellets; it can be grain pellets or various other kinds of pellets, and all kinds of different types of biomass.”
Even loose hay can be dumped in the burner.
“You would need to push a lot of loose hay into it in order to get the amount of BTUs you need,” he said. “In other words, a more condensed form of biomass works better.”
Some Triple Green customers do burn unprocessed biomass in their dryers.
“We just commissioned the O Foods oat milling plant on the northwest side of the perimeter,” said Wiebe. “We have two big boilers in there. One boiler is supplying high-pressure steam to the processing plant, and the other is supplying heat to the processing plant, and they’re burning oat hull.”
The company also has a seed-grower customer who screens out grains with ergot and burns them.
“He used to have to haul that ergot to the municipal waste facility and now he burns it and turns it into energy,” said Wiebe.
Aggregate to agriculture
He and his partners took over Triple Green five years ago.
“It was a struggling business, but they had a proven product. We have invested an enormous amount of money in automation, redesign and improvements. “
When Wiebe took over the business, it was largely focused on aggregate drying technology for the mining industry. He recognized how the technology could be effectively adopted for agricultural purposes.
“We saw a business opportunity taking our product that we had drying various different products in the mining sector and making several changes in product design and automation to fit the agricultural sector,” he said. “Now, we’re on the cusp of really getting going on the bio-dryer side of things.”
Triple Green has sold a few units to Manitoba farmers, but sales haven’t neared the potential he sees for the product.
With high commodity prices, at least until recently, farmers weren’t forced to cut costs to ensure profitability. As commodity prices fall and input prices increase, farmers will look for creative ways to squeeze profits from their fields, so Wiebe anticipates interest will grow in BioDryAir.
“We have the early adopters reaching out to us and moving forward, but our product is leading edge,” said Wiebe. “We’ve had these drying systems in the mining sector for many years, but it’s new to the agriculture sector, and farmers are a wait-and-see kind of group. They want their neighbour to try it first.”
Early adopters
Positive reviews of the product from farmers are beginning to come in. Andrew Devloo, of Jonk Generation Farms Ltd. near Holland, is among them. He wanted to replace his old grain dryer to ramp up corn production on the farm.
“What we had before was just small farm fans with an AB 250 dryer, and we were running propane on it,” Devloo said. “It worked well, but it’s just that we want to go to 2,500 acres of corn, and we needed to have a bigger system. And we needed to get our fuel costs down.”
The system was installed last year, but it wasn’t ready in time for fall drying. He dried some corn with his old dryer, and put the rest of the corn in bins He ran about 150,000 bushels of corn through the new dryer this spring.
“It was more reliable than I thought it was going to be. It’s a well-built unit,” said Devloo. “Especially being a first-time startup, I expected more trouble, honestly. But the first night we turned it on, I ran it all night.”
Devloo said the user interface was easy to figure out. He was impressed with the build and overall quality of the unit. His only complaint is that he couldn’t get it quite hot enough for his purposes.
“I lost heat with the dryer fans pulling in cooler outside air. It was only running at around 180–190F (roughly 80–90C) in the dryer. So the capacity of my dryer was cut down quite a bit,” he said.
“That’s something that I’m working with them on. They want to make it work so I don’t think it’s going to be an issue.”
Devloo said he’d like heat at to 210 to 220F (100–105C), and he’s confident Triple Green will come through. In terms of fuel savings, he said he was pleased with that side of the purchase as well.
“I haven’t really calculated exactly what my drying costs were. But I know the ballpark, and I know it’s quite low, especially in comparison to propane.”
He probably could have saved more if he used a cheaper fuel source, but opted for wood pellets to play it safe.
“It’s more expensive than burning chips or something else,” he said. “We have lots of stuff going on at that time of the year, so I wanted to be sure I could run it from my phone and be confident that everything’s working properly. And it did do that. I was away most of the time while it was operating.”
Devloo said the customer service has been excellent. He had great things to say about Gary Kleins, the manager of installation and service at Triple Green Products.
“I’m happy we did it; I think it was the right decision. If they get that thing to go to 220 heat, it is by far the best option. Even the way it is now, it’s the best option for guys that don’t have natural gas.”
Source: Manitoba Cooperator