It’s been said the road to Hell is paved with good intentions..If so, roads to Montreal could soon be paved with sawdust and Alberta could have one less homegrown market for its bitumen..On Monday, Natural resources Minister Jonathan Wilkinson handed out more than $1.5 million to FPInnovations which aims to develop asphalt that contains wood-derived products from Canada's forest sector..FPInnovations, in collaboration with the construction firm Eurovia and the Ministère des Transports et de la Mobilité durable du Québec, will conduct an on-road pilot in Ange-Gardien, a rural town of about 3,000 southeast of Montreal..The new asphalt being tested contains a renewable bio-product, lignin, intended to replace a portion of the petroleum-based bitumen currently found in conventional asphalt..This new product would increase pavement preservation and possibly extend service life for pavements and roads “in the face of climate change” NRCan said in a news release..The first road to be paved with the product was Raymond Boulevard, in Quebec City in 2021. The lignin-based asphalt showed no signs of weakness compared with conventional mixtures after two years. .Pilot projects have also been conducted in other provinces to test the asphalt's performance in the wide range of climate conditions seen across Canada.."Canada is blessed with immense forest resources. Finding innovative ways of managing and utilizing these resources can provide new pathways for low-carbon solutions,” Wilkinson said. “This partnership is paving the way for a more sustainable Canada." .According to IBIS research, the Canadian asphalt industry was worth about $5.4 billion in 2022 and has grown, on average, 2.8% per year since 2017..The market is expected to grow further as a consequence of government infrastructure spending and road construction. Canada has about 425,000 kilometres of paved, finished roads..The vast majority of Canadian asphalt is sourced from bitumen produced in Alberta. In 2021, Canada exported $280 million worth of asphalt, almost entirely to the US..Calgary-based Imperial Oil is Canada’s largest asphalt producer, and claims that one in every three kilometres of Canadian highway is paved with bitumen from Cold Lake..Canada has the second-largest bitumen reserves in the world, after Venezuela..Although asphalt has been used for paving since Babylonian times, Canada’s first asphalt paved roads were built in 1915 in Ottawa, Edmonton, Jasper and Camrose, Alberta.
It’s been said the road to Hell is paved with good intentions..If so, roads to Montreal could soon be paved with sawdust and Alberta could have one less homegrown market for its bitumen..On Monday, Natural resources Minister Jonathan Wilkinson handed out more than $1.5 million to FPInnovations which aims to develop asphalt that contains wood-derived products from Canada's forest sector..FPInnovations, in collaboration with the construction firm Eurovia and the Ministère des Transports et de la Mobilité durable du Québec, will conduct an on-road pilot in Ange-Gardien, a rural town of about 3,000 southeast of Montreal..The new asphalt being tested contains a renewable bio-product, lignin, intended to replace a portion of the petroleum-based bitumen currently found in conventional asphalt..This new product would increase pavement preservation and possibly extend service life for pavements and roads “in the face of climate change” NRCan said in a news release..The first road to be paved with the product was Raymond Boulevard, in Quebec City in 2021. The lignin-based asphalt showed no signs of weakness compared with conventional mixtures after two years. .Pilot projects have also been conducted in other provinces to test the asphalt's performance in the wide range of climate conditions seen across Canada.."Canada is blessed with immense forest resources. Finding innovative ways of managing and utilizing these resources can provide new pathways for low-carbon solutions,” Wilkinson said. “This partnership is paving the way for a more sustainable Canada." .According to IBIS research, the Canadian asphalt industry was worth about $5.4 billion in 2022 and has grown, on average, 2.8% per year since 2017..The market is expected to grow further as a consequence of government infrastructure spending and road construction. Canada has about 425,000 kilometres of paved, finished roads..The vast majority of Canadian asphalt is sourced from bitumen produced in Alberta. In 2021, Canada exported $280 million worth of asphalt, almost entirely to the US..Calgary-based Imperial Oil is Canada’s largest asphalt producer, and claims that one in every three kilometres of Canadian highway is paved with bitumen from Cold Lake..Canada has the second-largest bitumen reserves in the world, after Venezuela..Although asphalt has been used for paving since Babylonian times, Canada’s first asphalt paved roads were built in 1915 in Ottawa, Edmonton, Jasper and Camrose, Alberta.
