Mountain pine beetle-killed wood is ready for the taking, but can bioenergy companies get to it before nature takes its course? British Columbia is abuzz with bioenergy. Of the 68 municipalities, 103 First Nations, and numerous rural settlements in the region of the mountain pine beetle (MPB) epidemic, not many are ignoring the possibilities of turning “beetle wood” into pellets, direct heat, and/or electricity – and at the same time, into profit, jobs, and hope. The 2008 update of the Mountain Pine Beetle Action Plan, released in 2002 by the BC Ministry of Forests and Range (BCMFR), estimates that since the late 1990s, MPB has killed over 620 million cubic metres of lodgepole pine. The affected area covers more than 130,000 square kilometres, about four times the size of Vancouver Island. By 2015, the pest is expected to have killed 76% of the pine volume in the interior of British Columbia and will have continued its march eastward. There will be 400- to 500-million hectares of MPB-destroyed trees in British Columbia available for harvest in the next 20 to 30 years, assuming there’s no major fire or blow-down, says Don Gosnell, BCMFR manager of bioenergy initiatives. But an abundance of dead trees doesn’t necessarily spell success for bioenergy projects, in his opinion. “The markets will determine whether the wood comes out or not, for whatever reason,” Gosnell says. The beetle wood is declining in quality, and trees are breaking off halfway up, he notes, leaving a difficult and dangerous situation for those who want to come in and clean up. “Advanced regeneration is occurring in a lot of places,” Gosnell adds, “and the government won’t let anyone come in because they’d damage that undergrowth. Some stands are too remote or on terrain that is unharvestable.” He says that, currently, there are tenure opportunities of lowerquality stands of dead pine offered by the province, and that the “reasonably healthy” pulp sector is using some of that. “To get investment for a bioenergy project,” Gosnell explains, “you have to secure supply and prove you can truck it to your plant with logistics that make sense.” Traditionally, that has taken the form of residue from sawmills, many of which have shut down in recent years. For these reasons, most bioenergy projects that aim to use MPB-killed wood do not use it exclusively as raw material. Securing fibre supply continues to be a challenge for the developing biomass energy sector, agrees Tony Sauder, forest feedstocks program leader for FPInnovations, which has its head office in Pointe-Claire, Quebec. “For areas of the BC interior where the MPB has had a presence,” he says, “the long-term availability of roadside harvest residues will decrease over the next five to ten years and will be replaced by accumulations at satellite merchandising yards and the harvesting of dead, standing timber to allow reforestation to proceed. This means the general price for feedstocks will increase significantly, as users must cover more transportation costs and more development costs.” There is a silver lining, however, in that the trees can still wait some time for harvest. “The limiting factor for [usable] lifespan is the fall-down rate of the trees,” says Dr. Kathy Lewis, professor of ecosystem science and management at the University of Northern British Columbia (UNBC) in Prince George. Lewis’ research shows that standing MPB-killed trees up to six months dead possess greenwood characteristics. Between two and eight years after death, the wood shows “stable properties,” and most trees are still standing. Starting around the eight-year mark, however, they begin to fall in large numbers because of rot and woodborer infestations at the base. Once a tree falls, rapid deterioration ensues because the entire trunk is in contact with the ground, says Lewis. Moist soil can lead to rapid fall-down because it helps keep the wood moist and ripe for decay fungi, but drier sites can also provide high fall-down rates because they support enhanced carpenter ant activity. Another silver lining can be found in the fact that companies are ready, willing, and able to dive into bioenergy. “The existing forest industry has long experience with handling wood fibre from the forest and is well positioned to work with energy companies to supply biomass for new processes,” says Sauder. “The existing Canadian pulp industry [also] has infrastructure for generating electricity from biomass.” For example, Canfor Pulp Limited Partnership has cogeneration plants at its three BC pulp mills. Electricity generation at its Prince George and Intercontinental mills is being expanded incrementally, and opportunities for further expansion are being investigated at the Northwood facility. Strategic Alliances At Pinnacle Pellet Prince George, most of the feedstock is beetle wood. “Generally up until about a year ago,” says chief operations officer Leroy Reitsma, “we exclusively used mill byproduct fibre. However, since the economic downturn, mill production has decreased while at the same time, the degradation of MPB-killed trees has increased significantly, so we’re moving into the forest and cleaning up the materials left behind, which are not merchantable for lumber production.” There is definitely enough fibre out there, in Reitsma’s opinion, if you’re smart about it. “The key principle we’ve always Adhered to is to work with sawmills that are leaders in the industry,” he says. “For example, we’ve worked together with Canadian Forest Products (Canfor) and the Moricetown Native Band in Houston, British Columbia, to benefit everyone in building a pellet plant as partners beside the Canfor sawmill in 2006. The sawmill has realized an increased revenue stream from its byproducts, and the partnership receives steady access to raw materials.” Abbotsford-based Biomass Secure Power is another company using a partner strategy. It has an agreement with Lower Nicola Indian Band to begin construction in early 2010 on a 12-MW biomass cogeneration and pellet plant in Merritt. President and CEO Jim Carroll says that the plant will use only beetle wood sourced from local mill residue and specifically cut under tender. Another strategic alliance – this one between Western Biomass Power Corporation of Prince George and the Tsilhqot’in National Government – will submit a Phase II proposal to BC Hydro’s Bioenergy Call for Power. If accepted, a $260-million, 60- MW generating plant (with some heat also produced) using mostly beetle wood will be built in the Cariboo Chilcotin region. Western Biomass’ manager of business development, Jeff Paquin, says, “The Tsilhqot’in National Government recently bought an idle sawmill that shut down about a year ago, which employed mostly First Nations people, and Western Biomass bought the land next to it. This project, if accepted, will mean that the sawmill’s financial viability will greatly improve and thereby sustain traditional sawmill jobs while creating new bioenergy employment.” The cost of forest management planning, harvesting, and reforestation will be shared between the two operations, and both partners will share electricity profits. Western Biomass is also submitting a proposal for a 30-MW plant with Gitxan First Nations in the Hazelton area. The BC government instituted the Bioenergy Call for Power as part of its efforts to become electrically self-sufficient by 2016. Phase I, conducted in 2008, resulted in four electricity purchase agreements from projects headed by Canfor Pulp and PG Interior Waste to Energy in Prince George, Domtar Pulp and Paper Products in Kamloops, and Funding Gives Bioenergy a Boost The Northern Development Initiative Trust, an independent regional economic development corporation, continues to distribute funding on behalf of the British Columbia and Canadian governments for many new bioenergy initiatives that involve the use of mountain pine beetle (MPB)-killed wood. These include the following. Del-Tech Manufacturing has received support to develop a biomass cogeneration plant at the Baldy Hughes Therapeutic Community addictions centre near Prince George. Del-Tech has also received a $5.5-million loan towards the construction of a $15-million thermal oil biomass heating plant to be leased to Canfor’s Mackenzie sawmill for dry kiln operation. Del-Tech and Nechako Mechanical are receiving assistance to develop new wood pellet-fired boiler systems that can compete with low-emission European models. Various partners in and around Fort St. James have received funds to commission a marketing plan to further develop bioenergy opportunities as part of the development of a worldclass bioenergy industry cluster in that community. Pinnacle Pellet Meadowbank has received a loan to install a biomass decontamination and preparation system. This will enable the use of additional processed fibre directly from logging operations and reduce debris-related costs. Pioneer Biomass is receiving a loan of about $1 million to expand its business into the recovery of wood waste that would normally be burned on logging sites. The company plans to operate two custom-built horizontal grinders and the support equipment to produce and deliver material to Capital Power and Pinnacle Pellet. Northwest Wood Preservers is receiving a $2-million loan towards constructing a $5.5-million pellet plant at the Vanderhoof Specialty Wood Products value-added finger joint lumber plant in Vanderhoof, near Prince George. The pellet plant will use all residual waste from the fingerjoint plant, which in turn primarily uses lumber trim ends from MPB-killed trees. All-Wood Fibre, a biomass chipping company that now offers a range of biomass procurement and processing services, has received expansion money to source fibre and purchase its first grinder. Cariboo Waste Products in Quesnel, a newly formed division of Clan Logging, has received rebates to support an expansion to manufacture wood chips for use in pulp, pellet, and bioenergy plants. In November 2009, the BC Bioenergy Network (BCBN), a provincially funded organization supporting the growing bioenergy sector, announced a strategic agreement with the First Nations Energy and Mining Council and the First Nations Forestry Council to further the development and commercialization of bioenergy technologies. In October 2009, BCBN announced a similar strategic agreement with Terasen Gas and distributed $52,500 to Initiatives Prince George to support the Northern Bioenergy Partnership, an industry-led collaboration that will establish the region as a bioenergy leader. Zellstoff Celgar Limited Partnership (Mercer International) in Castlegar. Building on Phase I, Phase II is calling for both larger-scale and community-level proposals that involve sources such as underused forest-based biomass and wood waste sourced from new forest tenure. Other Bioenergy Projects Here is a roundup of other projects, some well established and some new. Capital Power (formerly EPCOR), based in Edmonton, Alberta, runs the largest biomass electricity plant in North America. Built in 1993 in Williams Lake, it produces 68 MW from both mill residuals and logging waste. A wood gasification system with 15-million-BTU output will be operational at UNBC by the end of 2010. It will deliver high-temperature hot water to the existing water heating system. In addition, UNBC has selected Nexterra Systems to supply and install a turnkey biomass gasification system that will displace up to 85% of the natural gas currently used to heat campus buildings. It will also serve as an anchor for the new Northern Bioenergy Innovation Centre. Construction began in June 2009 and will be complete by mid-2010. Nexterra has also installed biomass gasification systems at the Kruger tissue mill in New Westminster and at the Tolco plywood mill near Kamloops, and has other projects on the go. The city of Quesnel, through its Community and Economic Development Corporation (QCEDC), is gathering funding with its partners for an innovative cogeneration project with an anticipated completion date of mid- 2012. “The system would likely be a first in North America,” says QCEDC executive director Jim Savage. The heat From the existing local sawmill wood burner (used to heat kilns) will be recovered to produce up to 2 MW of electricity – about half Quesnel’s current residential consumption. A projected 5. 5 MW of waste heat will be used to heat large community buildings. At its demonstration plant in McBride, Alterna Biocarbon of Prince George is using Van Aardt process pyrolysis-based technology to transform biomass feedstock into a variety of carbon-based energy products. FPInnovations (Feric Division) has completed a number of studies to evaluate systems for grinding MPB-killed wood. For example, they’ve analyzed the use of a track-mounted horizontal grinder to comminute roadside residues in the BC southern interior for Domtar’s pulp mill at Kamloops. Pacific Bioenergy’s pellet plant in Prince George is using a significant amount of beetle wood from logging slash and sawmill residuals. Western Biomass’s Paquin believes bioenergy’s future in British Columbia is very bright in terms of the new research, training, employment, and investment it is creating. “In other words,” he says, “there is a silver lining to the MPB infestation, and the opportunity is resulting in the full and complete use of wood fibre, with long-term forest management plans being developed by industry and First Nations alike.”