The Northern Bioenergy Partnership is curtailing some of its activities but is not folding as the north's voice for turning wood into energy.
Sources close to the organization have confirmed that the board of directors is set to announce cutbacks along with a new plan going forward. The financial buy-in from forest industry companies has not met with initial expectations, requiring the organization to reevaluate its ambitions for promoting this growing sub-sector of the forest industry.
Part of the downsizing is the loss of executive director Elissa Meiklem.
Meiklem would not comment, and was conducting industry tours of local bioenergy operations when contacted.
Board chair Charles Jago also deferred comment until the group's work on the matter are complete.
The Northern Bioenergy Partnership was launched in late 2010 by a core group of forest-sector companies and supporters from government, academia, First Nations and other stakeholders. The expressed three-year agenda at the time was "to build Prince George and the north as a forest-based bioenergy cluster."
Meiklem - a forest industry consultant originally from Prince George with a long national and international pedigree in wood processing, product development and project management - was hired by the group in January 2011.
The group was started based on funding stakes made by the B.C. Bioenergy Network ($100,000 over three years), the Omineca Beetle Action Coalition ($60,000 over three years), and major industrial proponents of the bioenergy sector ($50,000 startup funding).
Sources said the organization was not out of money, but didn't want to financially over-extend itself, and so is taking these steps now to set up a viable future. Should firmer funding become available, the partnership organizers could ramp up activities again.
B.C. Bioenergy Network's executive director Michael Wheedon did not comment on the downsizing possibilities of the north's regional organization but he said the bioenergy sector was growing rapidly in many ways, yet was still confined by the market realities of the forest industry in general.
"The forest products sector has gone through some tough times, and although it is in a far more robust way today, it is tough to find resources," he said.
Wheedon had already noticed a positive influence being made by the Northern Bioenergy Partnership in the provincial green-energy and wood-alternatives industries. The main sign was the success of the International Bioenergy Conference held in Prince George in June. If downsizing was afoot, he said, it wasn't for lack of trying on the part of the fledgling agency.
"We can point to a large number of projects underway right now across the province," he said. "Our organization has been involved in more than $100 million worth of projects in B.C. and I could point to probably 10 times that amount overall. We are doing our best to contribute to that; the Northern Bioenergy Partnership was, in their way, helping those developments come forward. I am very hopeful about their future, and I am certain about the future of the bioenergy sector."
