Northwest Manufacturing in Red Lake Falls conducted a test burn of canola pellets in February 2008, a project supported by the NW CERT team.  The results are compared to corn and wood pellets.

Canola meal from the press has 16 to 19% fat, and contains 8700 BTU/lb.   Cost comparison for several common residential heating sources are summarzied below. 

The test burn was conducted at Northwest Manufacturing using EPA Method 28 for testing fuels.  See http://www.epa.gov/ttn/emc/promgate/m-28.pdf   Results of the test burn include fuel characterization data, emissions data and observations of fuel handling.  

Canola pellets performed very well in the Woodmaster furnaces leading to overall efficiency of 85%, compared to 79% and 76% for wood pellets and corn respectively.  Canola pellets had slightly higher particulates, compared to wood pellets and corn.  The US EPA standard for outdoor wood burning furnaces is 1 lb/ MMBTU fuel burned, with a reduction to .60 lbs/MMBTU in 2010.  All three fuels tested have particulate emissions lower than .60lb/MMBTU.  The table below reports particulate emissions for each fuel.