The bioenergy industry is both an exciting new frontier and a sector fraught with hurdles.
The discussions at the sixth International Bioenergy Conference and Exhibition at the Prince George Civic Centre focused on the sustainable energy advancements being made all over the world, especially pertaining to the use of wood waste that this region is so endowed with.
The other topic that kept coming back to the table was how Canada was a huge producer of the material but was also wasting a lot of the opportunities by having federal and provincial regulations that impeded growth, or lacked certifications and protocols that fostered growth.
"It is the lack of fiber supply that is the main stumbling block to obtaining capital," said Jan Larsson during one of the panel discussions. Larsson is a partner in Energy North, a corporation focused on renewable energy in Canada.
In other words, why would a major investor like a bank or a venture capitalist put money into a pellet company if the pellet company only has a one-year deal to obtain sawdust and woody debris from the only sawmill in town?
"Today, there isn't a single pellet plant in British Columbia that has anything more than a hand-to-mouth, year-to-year supply deal," said Gordon Murray, executive director of the Wood Pellet Association of Canada. "It makes it impossible to find financing or grow our industry. We are in a sea of wood waste and we are frustrated by limited access."
Ken Shields, CEO of Conifex Timber, had a practical retort: raise your prices to match the true values involved in your industry.
"Your own association report says, I think on Page 23, that your industry wants 24 per cent of the fiber volume, but you want to pay only two per cent of the log costs," Shields said. "It is more economical for our [milling] industry to leave that fiber in the burn pile. Get the financial numbers up and you'll have lots of fiber."
Tahtsa Timber proprietor Klaus Posselt is a veteran of both the logging, milling and pellet industries. "It's not that simple, for either side of the argument, but that is really where the conversation has to go," he said.
"But government needs to get actively involved. Those are the public's trees, and when a mill is finished with the tree for its lumber-making purposes, what's left over is still a public asset that needs to be managed. We have a viable pellet industry that isn't getting the regulatory attention or the companies involved getting the tax incentives it needs to force the use of that waste material in the direction of bioenergy, or something useful."
Shields, who also sits as the chair of the Canadian Bioenergy Association, said getting the bioenergy voice heard at the government's table was not easy.
"We are getting drowned out by the oilsands and the LNGs and the other home run projects that governments are enamoured with," he said.
Prince George MLA Shirley Bond, the province's Minister of Jobs, Tourism and Skills Training, said at the close of the conference that this wasn't all true. She acknowledged that the economic potential of LNG was the clear priority of the province, but that wasn't at the expense of bioenergy.
One of the points publicly disclosed in Premier Christy Clark's ministerial mandate letters released this week, she said, included a note to Minister of Forests Steve Thomson to figure out the fiber supply equation.
"It is about diversification," she said. "We also recognize there are sectors we need to pay attention to and yours is one of them...You want to grow and prosper in your sector and I truly believe you will. I think we're up to the task."
