GLOBE-Net, December 13, 2010 - Last week the BC Bioenergy Network, a provincially-funded agency supporting the growing bioenergy sector in British Columbia, announced the funding of $1,500,000 to Elemental Energy Inc. to demonstrate Paradigm Environment Technologies' MicroSludge® and anaerobic digestion at Catalyst Paper's Crofton-based pulp and paper mill on Vancouver Island.

This funding is  part of a joint initiative involving Natural Resources Canada ($2.5 million) and the BC Ministry of Forests and Range ($1.0 million), with significant in-kind contributions from Elemental Energy, Paradigm Environmental Technologies, Catalyst Paper, and FPInnovations. The total budget for the demonstration project exceeds $6.1 million.

The project involves the establishment of a fully automated transportable demonstration plant that includes a MicroSludge unit, sludge thickening equipment, anaerobic digesters, and a laboratory. The plant will process a portion of the waste activated sludge ("WAS") from the mill's effluent treatment plant to show how it can be turned into biogas, a renewable source of energy.

The demonstration will replicate mill operations in order to measure the operating savings at full scale. Installation of the equipment at the Crofton mill, located north of Victoria, is scheduled for early 2011. The demonstration trial is expected to last about 15 months. Following the Crofton demonstration, the transportable plant will be moved to other pulp mills for further trials.

Paradigm Environmental Technologies Inc., a private company located in Vancouver, British Columbia, has developed MicroSludge®, a patented technology industrial and municipal wastewater treatment plants (WWTP).

MicroSludge is a sustainable technology that significantly enhances the anaerobic digestion process, thereby reducing operating costs and increasing plant capacity. MicroSludge is modular, and can be easily deployed at existing WWTP facilities. MicroSludge can also be used to process industrial wastewater applications including pulp and paper, meat and food processing, pharmaceutical, and chemical plants.

"The new technology being demonstrated at the Crofton mill clearly aligns with one of B.C.'s goals for clean energy development," said B.C. Forests, Mines and Lands Minister Pat Bell.

His message was echoed by Michael Weedon, Executive Director of the BC Bioenergy Network, who noted this innovative technology has the potential to increase efficiency across the entire BC pulp and paper industry.

The potential market for these technologies is huge, notes Ken Rekrutiak of Elemental Energy, the project lead. "The pulp and paper industry is always looking for ways to cut costs and to be more sustainable. If, by using MicroSludge and anaerobic digestion, pulp mills can produce "greener" paper at lower cost and produce renewable energy, that's an important competitive advantage to all mills."

MicroSludge has already been applied at municipal wastewater treatment plants, and now this project will open up a new market for our technology in the pulp and paper sector noted Gordon Skene of Paradigm Environmental Technologies, the Vancouver-based developer of the MicroSludge process.

"We're optimistic that by enabling much faster anaerobic digestion, MicroSludge will prove to be an economically viable and sustainable waste-to-energy process for the pulp and paper industry."

Established in April 2008 with a $25 million grant from the BC government, the BC Bioenergy Network is an industry-led association that acts as a catalyst for deploying near-term bioenergy technologies and organizing mission-driven research for the development and demonstration of sustainable world class bioenergy capability in BC. For more information about the BCBN, visit www.bcbioenergy.ca.

Paradigm Environmental Technologies Inc. a private company located in Vancouver developed MicroSludge®, a patented technology to process wastewater at municipal sewage treatment plants and at industrial facilities.  MicroSludge can also be used to process industrial waste, including petrochemical waste, and pulp and paper waste.

This demonstration project will open new vistas for Paradigm which makes it an innovator to watch. For more  information about MicroSludge and Paradigm, visit www.microsludge.com.