Plenty of feed stock available in this region for a lot more diversification into bio-fuels. The only thing holding it back is marketing the finished product and finding entrepreneurial venture capital financing to get things operational.

BioEnergy is big business.
It is about making money for BioEnergy companies and BioEnergy equipment manufacturers.
The reality is,"green" has very little to do with anything!
It is ALWAYS about money!

If it really PAID to do it, somebody would already BE doing it. Does it? And if not, why not?

There is never any problem finding "entrepreneurial venture capital" for ventures that the budding entrepreneur can show that there's a reasonable chance will pay.

Where this is the case with bio-mass power, like anything else, the plants are either already built and operating, or soon will be.

The problem they seem to be having here is trying to 'cook the books' in a way that shows what they want to do will EVER PAY, ON THE SCALE 'THEY' WANT TO DO IT. (Which is, likely as not, a scale that won't ever be sustainable, or sensible, or pay.) Remember the past experience with pulp and paper mills, OSB plants, the export of wood chips, northeast coal, etc., etc., etc?

Beware the line above that mentions "global bioenergy policy and carbon markets". That's synonomous with things like the now supposed universal global "need" for such diverse, and often seemingly unrelated things as reversing global warming, household water meters, cap and trade agreements, carbon taxes, and, you guessed it, the HST. All things to MAKE 'YOU' PAY to try to make it seem like other things that'll never pay are.

I hope a lot more is going on than using wood-waste for burning to produce energy.

Prince George could do with a cellulosic ethanol plant. Imagine what could be done with all the beetle wood. Flex fuel vehicles can run on 80% ethanol.

Prince George needs some real innovation. Bring on the green jobs.

Prince George being innovative is not going to cut it. The country being innovative is required.

Belém, Brazil did not cause Brazil's policy on ethanol production to be created following the 1970s oil crisis. It was the country of Brazil that took that step. Belém clould not have done it on its own. Neither can Prince George.

The country of Canada has no such guts or imagination!!!

Burning ethanol a vehicles mileage and power will drop. How much of this bio energy is driven by taxpayer subsidies.

Want to save the forests, not build site c build nukes, no pollution.

The gulf of Mexico disaster is what we are competing against with bio-fuels IMO. How much will that cost them when all is said and done and how does that effect the competitiveness of alternatives?

How long do you think the beetle wood will last before it rots in the ground and is good for nothing,. At best another 10 years, after that we go into a serious shortage of fibre. bio-fuels will then be used to run the Co-Generation plants at the Pulp Mills (they own most of the residue from their sawmill operations) everyone else will go out of business.

No wonder China eats our lunch ...

The amazing thing about China is they develop a game plan then deliver. They plan massive scale innovation, then deliver.

We argue, complain, and divide ourselves instead of being grand innovators and inventors. We can do this on a significant green scale.

BC needs to evolve and make some big bucks!

The weakness is in the "Plan". When it's done on a "massive" scale, and it goes wrong, then there's a massive disaster.

We, and the Chinese, and everyone else, tend to think we can solve any problem by simply increasing its boundaries.

But the more we do this, the greater likelihood that something critical in the "Plan" has been overlooked. and will come back to haunt us, big time.

Whether it's building three FastCat ferry-boats all together as a "cost saving" measure, before one has been completed first, tried and tested, and the problems clearly identified and corrected; or drilling an deep earth underwater oil well where the pressures likely to be encountered haven't been properly protected against in the event of blow-out, our ability to adequately "plan" for all eventualities decreases as the scale of what we're doing increases.

Scale it down, to manageable proportions, and we're likely to have much better long-term results.

We host a bioenergy conference every year, then city hall turns around and bans wood-fired hydronic heaters - the cleanest, most efficient way to heat with wood. Go figure.