PG Figures Prominently In BioEnergy Plan

By Michelle Cyr-Whiting

Rich Coleman, Richard Neufeld, Premier Gordon Campbell, and Pat Bell in Prince George

Prince George, B.C. -  The B.C. Government released its BioEnergy Plan earlier in the day, but the Premier and Ministers Responsible for three integral components of the strategy held a news conference in Prince George this evening to go over its highlights.

Premier Gordon Campbell was joined by Forests and Range Minister, Rich Coleman, Energy, Mines, and Petroleum Resources Minister Richard Neufeld, and Agriculture Minister, Pat Bell.

"We wanted to do this in Prince George because Prince George is actually the biomass capital of the world," says Premier Gordon Campbell.  "We believe that Prince George will be a real hub of this kind of activity -- we believe there’s some exciting opportunities ahead for rural communities."

The government plans to pass legislation quickly to set up two funds:  1.  a $25-million dollar BioEnergy Network fund to realize the conversion of biomass waste into energy production  2.  a $10-million dollar fund for biodiesel productions.

Campbell says a first ’Call for Proposals’ will be going out in the next two to three weeks.  "We’ll look for proposals that say this is how we can generate the energy with biowaste or wood products -- it will likely mostly be wood products at this point because it will be from people who have existing (forest) tenures -- that will generate electricity into the grid." 

Right now, the province is short about 30-thousand gigawatt hours of electricity (it would take six Site C dams to meet that demand).  The provincial goal is to be energy self-sufficient, through both conservation and new power production, by 2016.

Energy Minister Richard Neufeld says more than 80 submissions came in during a call for ’Expressions of Interest’ last spring.  He says that indicated that prices would probably run between $100- to $130-dollars per megawatt for the energy.  But Neufeld says, "We don’t know what those prices are going to be -- the competitive process will give us the best rate."

Forests Minister, Rich Coleman, says, "This is a significant opportunity for our forest industry to set up a second line or third line of business that they can actually use to drive economies of scale into their businesses."

Coleman says he’s confident concerns from the pulp industry have been met by this targeted ’Call for Proposal’ from among existing tenure holders.  Despite the fact many forestry companies have been left cash-strapped by the downturn in the industry, Coleman says they are ready, willing and able to take advantage of this green opporunity.  "A number of your forest companies are already out in front of it, particularly in Prince George, where they are working on joint ventures with both First Nations and power companies who will do joint-venture investments on this sort of thing."

A second-stage call will go out in late spring or early summer and will be broader to allow groups that may not have land tenure, but have a proposal nonetheless, to put a bid in.

The Premier says the Mountain Pine Beetle epidemic has forced the government to come up with a long-term strategy to take advantage of all that fiber. "We don’t have a future like our past," he says, "It’s not a matter of simply cutting wood, leaving whatever you feel like in the bush and, you know, doing the best you can on the commodity markets.  We actually have to think of how you maximize the value of all that resource."

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