plant managers and internal specialists for input, and worked closely with major con- tractors that included Del-Tech’s BID Con- struction Group in Prince George, Service Electric in Quesnel, and Allied Blower in Williams Lake. As for the timing and location of the Meadowbank plant, Lodge says they have three basic requirements when looking for a location for a pellet plant. “We need access to raw material, we need access to a power supply, and we need access to a rail line. In this case, we had all three.” Lodge also notes that the best scenario is to be close to a host sawmill for the raw ma- terials, and Dunkley Lumber, which is just 4 km away, fit the bill. “We have a company objective to grow the business when suitable opportunities arise, and Dunkley had an un- committed supply of sawmill residuals,” he explains. “It was a good fit.” He also says the process has been getting easier with each facility they build. “When we built the Meadowbank plant, we enjoyed the fact that it wasn’t the first time through this process for us,” he says, referring to their past track record, which includes building three successful greenfield pellet plants – the two south of Meadowbank at Quesnel and Williams Lake, and another plant to the northwest in Houston, B.C., that is jointly owned by Pinnacle, Canadian Forest Prod- ucts (Canfor), and the Moricetown First Na- tion. The company’s only other pellet plant was an existing plant they acquired in Arm- strong, B.C. “Every time we build a plant, we gain experience and we take the best of what we have learned and incorporate it into our next project,” Lodge adds. As for plant manager Levesque, he came on board in August 2008, when most of the construction was complete. He says that al- though he missed the permitting, approval, and construction stages, he was here to ex- perience the plant’s start-up curve first hand. “We had our challenges, but we had a great group of people and we got through it,” he says. “It was a tough winter in terms of weather – very harsh, long, and cold – so it took some work to get the dryers where we wanted them. And with all of the sawmill shutdowns and curtailments last year, we had to make sure we had a sufficient source of fibre.” lookinG aHead Looking down the road, both Levesque and Lodge say they foresee steady growth in biomass and the wood pellet industry over the next decade. “We believe the uti- lization of biomass will continue to grow,” says Lodge, who grew up in a logging fam- ily in Fort St. James, B.C., and is a forester by profession. “Biomass is environmentally friendly, it is derived from a source that is ultimately renewable, and pellets will con- tinue to play a key role in the industry as they provide an efficient way of providing fuel for biomass power.” It’s an opinion shared by many, espe- cially in Europe, Japan, and Ontario, where Lodge says wood pellets are increasingly viewed as a substitution fuel for coal or other fossil fuels. With an investment in Meadowbank of nearly $25 million, it’s also an opinion Pinnacle is banking on. • Bill Tice is Canadian Biomass’ western editor based in Vancouver. In addition to working in the forest indus- try for such companies as Canfor and West Fraser, Bill has been covering the forest sector for more than 20 years. CanadianBIOMASS 19
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