PG Green Company Building McBride Research Plant

By Michelle Cyr-Whiting

Alterna Energy Inc’s Leonard Legault (left) and Phil Marsh (right)

A Prince George-based company is poised to burst onto the North American scene of the emerging green energy production industry...

Alterna Energy Inc. was founded, according to its information pamphlet, to "harness the opportunities in the green energy sector, particularly those created by the excess of wood fibre biomass in central British Columbia created by the mountain pine beetle epidemic."

While his motto is "under-promise, over-deliver", President & CEO, Leonard Legault, says he’s quietly confident a testing facility already under construction in McBride, will give the company the data it needs to begin breaking ground on its first North American plant, possibly in Prince George, by the end of the year.  (Alterna already has a plant in South Africa)

Chief Technology Officer, Phil Marsh, says Alterna’s "Enviro Carbonizer" takes bio-mass - like wood waste, solid sewage waste and garbage - and, through carbonization, produces a charcoal dust.  Marsh says it’s highly efficient when compared to other green processes like ethanol, which takes 5-litres of ethanol in the processing of wood waste to produce 6-litres ethanol as the end product.

And the process has enormous implications for the northern half of the province - with the abundance of beetle kill wood on the one hand, and the need by industries like mining to supply power to remote areas, well off Hydro’s grid.  "Huge implications that we can look at by, first of all, being an independent power producer operating on any kind of carbonaceous material or bio-mass in the location," says Marsh.  He points out Alterna’s enviro carbonizers are modular and transportable and can be doubled or tripled, depending on the power needs.

Alterna’s President says that versatility is also a key to providing energy security, particularly in our region where the amount of available bug kill wood may vary at any given time.  "If there’s a situation where we either can’t attain biomass for some period, or the demand (for energy) jumps all of a sudden tommorow, now we’re one of the few systems, or maybe the only system that can mitigate that," says Legault.  "Because as soon as we create this carbon, it’s now basically an inert piece of charcoal, if you like.  It can sit there in a storage tank for years."

Legault and Marsh met with Energy, Mines, and Petroleum Resources Minister Richard Neufeld when he was in the city on Wednesday.  Legault says their presentation was well-received.  "There’s going to be some calls (Request for Proposals) coming up based on remote power and we’re keen on those."

In the meantime, Alterna will begin emmissions testings at its research plant in McBride starting next month.  "We’re pretty confident there’s not going to be any issues," says Legault.  "But it has yet to be proven by a third party."

Marsh says wood will be the focus of testing right now.  "We have carbonized many different materials on a test basis in South Africa, but in Canada, now, we have to determine which ones meet emissions criteria."  The process could spell relief for municipalities struggling to deal the amount of solid waste going into landfills.

The testing is expected to be complete by late summer or early fall, with Alterna planning to make an announcement on a plant at that time.  Legault, a long-time resident of Prince George, admits a number of communities in the Lower Mainland have been trying to woo Alterna, but says the company is "more focused on issues for the North right now."

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