Bioenergy Conference Set for P.G.

Friday, December 08, 2006 03:58 AM

Bio-energy, in this case wood pellets, may be the fuel to keep the northern economic engine fired up (opinion250 file photo)

There are some real opportunities for Communities covered by the Northern Development Initiatives Trust in the world of bio energy. That is the message that will be explored at a special conference set for next Thursday in Prince George.

Bio energy calls for the burning of biomass, it could be from any number of sources, but in this scenario, it is all about wood pellets to create energy. Those who manufacture the pellets say it is nature’s perfect fuel as it doesn’t require the cutting of any extra trees because the pellets are made from what’s left on the sawmill floor, and it is a renewable resource.

The conference is being put on by the Northern Trust. The Trust’s CEO, Janine North, says the one day session is the result of two opportunities "DuPont has moved some of its rsearchers to B.C. and is keen to focus on the opportunities presented by bio energy, and the second reason is that the Board (Northern Trust) has looked at bio-energy and the huge economic opportunities it presents, especially in the wake of the pine beetle. We think there are opportunities like independent power production that can help stabilize the economy of northern communities."

North says nearly one half of the 40 communities involved in the Northern Trust are taking part in the one day conference. They will be joined by forest industry representatives, Ministry of Forest reps, bio-energy companies, and financial investors.

North is confident there will soon be supportive policies from government that will encourage the use of bio mass energy producing projects.

"Really, its all about learning more about the potential and making the connections" says North.

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Posted on Friday, December 08, 2006 03:58 AM in News by 250 News

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Comments

Posted by: Palopu on December 8 2006 8:09 PM

Biomass is a fancy word for what the Pulp Mills call Hog Fuel. The pulp mills burn sawdust, and other woodwaste to produce steam for the mills, and in the last 10 years to run co-generation plants to generate electricity. We now have co-generation plants at Northwood Pulp, Prince George Pulp, Intercontinental Pulp. There is also a big co-generation plant that has been operating in Williams Lake for the past 15 years. There are also other plants through out the Province.
There is some surplus of Biomass (Hog Fuel) at this point in time, and because of the surplus mills at Dunkley, Isle Pierre, Clear Lake, and Bear Lake have been burning it. The surplus was a result of mills operating at capacity and running three shifts. With the downturn in the lumber market, and the return to one and two shifts, you will have a reduction in the amount of biomass that will be available for the pulp mills and their co-generation plants.

In the final analysis if there should be a shortage of (Hog Fuel) you can rest assured that it will go to the pulp mills because they through their forest companies own most of the (Hog Fuel). Unless there is some other way to generate **Sawdust** there might not be to much available for **Pellets**

Posted by: Chadermando on December 9 2006 3:48 AM

Palopu, you are wrong. Only the PG Pulp mill plant is a co-gen plant. The Northwood and Intercon take hog fuel, but it is not for co-generation, but rather for steam production for use in the pulp mill.

Currently PG Co-gen can barely handle the hog fuel from Rustads alone. Polar can easily supply Intercon with its hog fuel needs, and Northwood can get by on PG Sawmills hog. The limited amount that comes out of Polar speratically and Carrier easily handles any shortages for the pulp mills. These are not super mills and leaves a lot of available hog that is currently being burned in burners.

Houston Canfor alone burns the equivilent of a b-train of hog fuel every half an hour. Thats around 300 b-trains a week from one mill or nearly 12,000 tons of 'biomass' per week for one mill. I hear Houston plans a community co-gen plant and ditto for Vanderhoof with Platue on par with Houston. Why not Burns Lake, Smithers, Prince Rupert if they don't open the pulp mill, or even Williams Lake, 100 Mile House for that matter? All prime locations IMO.

Posted by: Palopu on December 9 2006 9:23 AM

Chandermando. Northwood Pulp, and Intercontinental Pulp have had Co-Generation plants for years. The excess steam generated from the burning of Hog Fuel is used to generate electricity that in turn reduces their costs to run these mills. The Co-Generation plant at Prince George was the last one built and is a much bigger operation than the Northwood,Interco, plants. There were plans to build one at North Central Plywood, however I beleive that has been put on hold.

There is no beehive burning allowed in the Greater Prince George area except by permit, which explains why Dunkley, Isle Pierre, Clear Lake, Bear Lake, etc are burning at this time, because their is a surplus of woodwaste. However the surplus is a result of most mills running three shifts for the last couple of years, and this is now comeing to an end. As the number of shifts go down the available woodwaste is reduced. You have to have sawmills running to produce woodwaste for **Hog Fuel** or pellets.

Certainly there has been enough sawdust available to support the pellet plants in Prince George, Quesnel, Houston, which have been operating for years, however whether their will be enough available for significant increases has yet to be determined.

Rumour has it that some mills will close down in the future. I am not aware of any plans to build new ones. My guess is that there will be a huge expansion to the Mills in the Vanderhoof area, and that they will build a Co-Generation plant in that area.

In any event it seems that it will come down to what type of facility would produce the most revenue in the burning of woodwaste. My bet is that it will be the generation of electricity, not wood pellets.

Posted by: Chadermando on December 9 2006 6:14 PM

Palopu, I hauled hog fuel for years from every one of the mills to all three pulp mills for both Lomak and Excel, and it was my understanding that only the PG Pulp mill was co-gen. The others are simply steam production (Intercon for sure I think), I could be wrong about Northwood small scale, but my understanding was that theirs was steam only as well.

My understanding is the steam is used by the pulp mills in the pulp production thereby reducing their energy needs for natural gas with hog fuel efficiencies.

I agree that Co-gen is where the money will be and not in wood pellets, simply because wood pellets need sawdust to make the pellets, and hog is not sawdust, and sawdust is in limited supply. You can not use hog fuel to make wood pellets as far as I know because hog has to much bark and contaminants for wood pellet production.

There will never in our life time be a shortage of hog fuel, as we can simply chip whole trees (worthless spindle dead trees) for that supply. Furthermore we haven't even begun to haul the hog fuel from the landing sites where we currently burn it in slash burns. The slash burns alone could fuel another 5 or 6 PG Co-gen like mills in the PG area producing enough electricity for a city of 150,000.

Vanderhoof is the major pellet producer outside of PG and they go far and wide for their supply. As far as Bear Lake.

All IMO.

Posted by: diplomat on December 10 2006 12:57 PM

All three Canfor mills use Co-Gen to generate electricity.

Northwood built Co-Gen first, followed by Intercon and finally Prince George Pulp and Paper.

Sorry, Chad, your info is dated.

Posted by: Chadermando on December 10 2006 6:27 PM

Well I'd like to get to the bottom of it. It makes no sense why the people at the mill would lie about that to me.