Whatever the end use, the result is a carbon-negative fuel that the company has coined as Bright Green Hydrogen, which it says is “greener” than green hydrogen – hydrogen produced by electrolysis from renewable energy – and, after factoring in the value of the car -bon-negative attributes, will cost around the same as blue hydrogen. “There is far too much fibre left in the bush to be burned as slash or left to rot,” Fehr says. “With Hydrogen Naturally, we can turn it into a pellet and produce a fuel that is good for the econo-my. We can also capture and sequester the carbon that’s captured from the air and ends up in the wood pellet. And then, on top of that we can replant those trees so they become productive trees instead of marginal trees. That makes the hydrogen we produce carbon negative. That’s a game changer.” Canada’s historic wildfire season has underscored a critical solution set H2N offers. A century of fire suppression has built up an unnatural volume of fuel in Canada’s forests. Foresters have, for years, drawn attention to the need to reduce the catastrophic wildfire risk through landscape fire management, including forest fuel reduction through harvesting treatments. A challenge for in -dustry is in the economics. H2N will provide incentives for harvesting contractors to haul out more residual fibre from the bush. Fibre that used to be slash and left in the woods can now be cleared out and processed. The company can also turn decadent wood – beetle killed, fire killed, and so on – into profitable pellets. PROJECT SCOPE end engineering is progressing and will accelerate to full momen-tum by year end. Hydrogen offtake discussions are underway with many seeing the benefits of having a scaled supply of carbon-neg -ative fuel offset emissions from conventional fuels. “As with many projects Peak and North West embark on, the final investment decision is made at the same time when the found -ing investment is made; we finish what we start,” MacGregor says. Because the H2N project straddles two industries that in the past have had little to do with each other, he says there is an ex-citement building within the federal, Alberta and B.C. govern -ments regarding the benefits that such a partnership can bring. H2N is using proven technology throughout the natural air capture process to react quickly to the targets governments are working hard to reach, MacGregor says. “We are using technolo -gy we have used before at scale, just in a new way and if we are going to hit net zero we need a carbon-negative solution now.” While several forms of carbon removal are now being pro-posed, Hydrogen Naturally sees the cost of concentrating carbon as the major hurtle to making scaled air capture affordable. “Wood fibre is 50 per cent carbon thanks to the sun, we can’t squander this,” MacGregor says. With Canada’s forest industry in a state of transition, forest companies are integral to healthy change, Fehr says. “Ian and I are very excited. We think we’re on to something really big, and it’s all about bioenergy,” he says. • With the majority of Western Canada’s current wood pellet pro -duction shipped to utilities overseas, Fehr says their hydrogen hubs will create a new, reliable market to keep wood pellet pro-duction and use local to North America. “It’s taking the pellet in -dustry that is right now shipping overseas and turning it into a North American industry,” he says. Hydrogen Naturally is eyeing four production plants in North America, beginning with the Alberta industrial heartland north of Edmonton. Each plant will create 160,000 tonnes of hydrogen and store four million tonnes of carbon dioxide per year. Last year, the company signed an agreement with Fort Nelson First Nation in B.C. to build their first pellet plant there, primarily using fibre that is controlled by the Nation. Peak Renewables currently owns two sawmills in B.C. – in Vavenby and Galloway – as well as a finger joint plant in Cran -brook, B.C., an OSB plant in Prince Albert, Sask., and a wood pellet plant in Fort Nelson, B.C. An integral component to the company’s success is First Nations partnerships, Fehr says. “Peak Renewables is a company that was built to have ownership in forest products and bioenergy facilities – some of them will be 25, 35 or 45 per cent. The ones in Canada will all have First Nations ownership. We’re working on equity positions for First Nations in the towns that we work and we are very, very proud of that.” PROJECT STATUS H2N has completed the first stage of pre-project planning and has identified candidate sites in the heartland area for Hub 1. Front-Canadian BIOMASS CB_SGS_summer23_CSA.indd 1 19 2023-07-26 1:19 PM
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