Canadian Biomass • JulyAugust 2018 • Industry News

Following through on his campaign promise, new Ontario Premier Doug Ford’s first order of business has ended the cap and trade regulation in the province and begun a wind down of the Green Ontario Fund (GreenON) programs.

The GreenON fund was created last year to allocate $25.8 million in proceeds from Ontario’s carbon market towards the creation and commercialization of green technologies. Four wood heat programs for rural, Indigenous communities were part of the GreenON fund.

“We are getting Ontario out of the carbon tax business,” Ford said in a statement. “Our focus will be to give people lower gas prices, lower energy bills and a real break in their wallets in order to get our economy going and create jobs. Help is here.”

Ford said his government will honour contracts that have already been signed through GreenON, such as energy efficient insulation and window retrofits. The fate of other initiatives currently supported by the fund will be decided on a case-bycase basis.

The statement notes that the Auditor General’s review of Ontario’s cap-and-trade program found the system could cost Ontario consumers and businesses $8 billion, with a “negligible impact” on the province’s carbon emissions.

The decision has sparked a letter of concern from members of Canada’s Clean50 Awards, who say the decision to cancel the cap and trade system risks losing the $420 million the federal government gave Ontario to help the province meet the federal Pan-Canadian Framework on Clean Growth and Climate Change. Ottawa has mandated that provinces without a carbon-pricing scheme by the end of 2018 will have a tax of $10 per metric tonne imposed.

We’ve come a long way, but there is still a ways to go. This was a prevailing sentiment from industry leaders speaking at the Canadian Bioeconomy Conference and Exhibition that took place in Prince George, B.C., in early June.

“Sometimes we forget that we are a fledgling industry,” Rob McCurdy, CEO of pellet producer Pinnacle Renewable Energy, told the crowd.

McCurdy said Canadian pellets are world recognized as a quality product, but there are challenges faced by the industry, one of which is demonstrating to international buyers the sustainability of their product. “How do you meet a demand that is growing 20 per cent a year? How do we grow sustainably to meet that demand? This is a good challenge to face,” McCurdy said.

Advanced Biofuels Canada CEO Ian Thomson outlined two other hurdles to producing fibre-based biofuels. First, that there is just one fibre basket in Canada and many players competing for it. And second, the high cost of developing technologies to process wood fibre into biofuel. Carbon pricing, Thomson said, can help overcome the cost challenge.

A number of conference speakers addressed the need for Canada to develop a national bioeconomy strategy.

Mayor Anna Tenje of Vaxjo, Sweden, gave a keynote address on the efforts the community underwent over almost 50 years that lead to their official designation as the greenest city in Europe. “Don’t wait for the national legislation; it won’t come for years,” Tenje said. “I would like to see more communities take the chance. It starts in the cities and municipalities around the world.”

Vaxjo has set a goal to be fossil fuel free in 2030. The city is using bioenergy to achieve that goal, and, since it set the target in 1996, has already reduced emissions by 58 per cent and improved economic growth by 32 per cent. “We have shown that this is possible,” Tenje said.

Complementing this idea, Clean Energy Consulting’s Tim Hoy’s presentation as part of a low-carbon economy opportunities panel centred on the idea that bioeconomy growth must come from community-level projects. “It takes a lot of the complexity out of the larger systems, and it solves community-specific problems,” he said.

During a panel dedicated to discussing community projects that are advancing the bioeconomy, Council member Blair Hogan from the Teslin Tlingit First Nation in Yukon presented an overview of the community’s project to install 10 wood chip boilers connected to three district heating systems. Wood heat not only reduces the community’s reliance on diesel, but will also help them reduce the fuel load surrounding the community. “There is a huge risk of wildfires so that creates an economic incentive for us to harvest around the community,” he said.

In his keynote address to the conference, B.C. Environment Minister George Heyman indicated his support for the growth of the biomass industry in the province, confirming there is a place for bio-solutions to climate change.

“I think, and I think you’ll agree, it’s much better to take waste and turn it into an economic advantage than pollution,” he said.

Pinnacle Renewable Holdings Inc. has entered into two new long-term, take-orpay off-take contracts with customers in South Korea and Japan.

The contract in South Korea is with CGN Daesan Power Co., Ltd., a subsidiary of CGN New Energy Holdings Co., Ltd, a diversified independent power producer in Asia. The contract in Japan is Pinnacle’s second with Toyota Tsusho Corporation, a trading and investing company and a group member of Toyota.

As a result of these two new contracts, the weighted average remaining life of Pinnacle’s portfolio of off-take contracts with customers has been extended from seven years as of March 30, 2018, to more than nine years.

Under the terms of the Daesan contract, Pinnacle will supply 315,000 metric tonnes per annum of industrial wood pellets to Daesan beginning in 2021. The industrial wood pellets will be used in a biomass power generation plant in South Korea.

“Entering into this longterm relationship with Daesan is an important milestone for Pinnacle as it represents our first long-term contract in South Korea and our largest contract to date in Asia,” said Robert McCurdy, CEO of Pinnacle. He also commented on the country’s growing commitment to decarbonization.”

Under the terms of the Toyota Tsusho contract, Pinnacle will supply 170,000 metric tonnes per annum of industrial wood pellets to Toyota Tsusho beginning in 2021. The industrial wood pellets will be used in a biomass power generation plant in Kanda, Fukuoka Prefecture, Japan.

“We are pleased to enter into our second long-term supply agreement with Toyota Tsusho, and our fifth new contract overall in Japan this year,” McCurdy said.

The Wood Products Safety Summit 2018 offered more than 50 delegates a day of diverse presentations on safety – with a clear focus on the value of both increased collaboration and process safety.

Held at the Prince George Conference and Civic Centre on June 6, 2018, there is one thing above all else that consistently permeated each of the presentations during the safety day and that was simply that process safety management, strong safety culture and high performance in any industry require collaboration, participative management of all stakeholders and a walk the talk attitude where results prove that many heads are better than one.

Kicking the day off, Darrin McCaskill, WorkSafeBC’s director of programs, projects and initiatives, said that employers, workers and labour had made gains in health and safety performance, and thanks to everyone’s hard work “more workers are going home safe that at any time in our history”.

He said the multi-faceted forestry industry includes everything from harvesting, transportation, processing and manufacturing to silviculture. He noted that there are many high risk work activities involved in bringing a tree or fiber to market and the sector has seen some darker days. “The prevailing attitude at the time was not if, but when a serious incident would occur.”

McCaskill said fast forward to today and we have seen a noticeable change, a new world where employers are actively engaged in health and safety; a robust health and safety association, the BC Forest Safety Council, providing the infrastructure for health and safety and resources; and, there is an industry emphasis on training and supervision. “Clearly, the culture of risk-taking is being replaced by safety-first approach,” he said.

“We know that workers do not need to die or get hurt to cut down a tree or transport logs or manufacture lumber. Overall industry has vastly improved its safety practices; some remarkable achievements have been made and there are fewer injuries and fewer fatalities,” said McCaskill. “But maybe, just maybe, good is not good enough.”

On May 2 an Air Canada Airbus A320-200 aircraft flew from Edmonton to San Francisco with biofuel, the company announced. The flight was scheduled for the trade mission delegation led by the Alberta government, the City of Edmonton and Edmonton-area businesses to California.

“Air Canada is proud to partner with the Edmonton International Airport (EIA) to operate today’s flight with biofuel,” Teresa Ehman, director of environmental affairs at Air Canada, said in a news release on May 2. “Air Canada continues to support and advocate for the development of biofuel in Canada to become commercially viable; a big step towards creating more sustainable aviation in Canada and internationally.”

Since 1990, Air Canada has improved its fuel efficiency by 43 per cent, Ehman said. The airline has committed to meet the targets set by the International Air Transport Association, including carbon-neutral growth from 2020 and to reduce CO2 emissions by 50 per cent by 2050.

“This biofuel demonstration flight reflects our combined commitment to bring forward low carbon, renewable fuels into the aviation and airport sectors,” said Tom Ruth, president and CEO of Edmonton International Airport.