OT: Province unveils bio-energy plan
Wednesday, February 28, 2007
Province unveils bio-energy plan
by GORDON HOEKSTRA Citizen staff
The province's latest energy plan released Tuesday calls for a new bioenergy strategy that will take advantage of the province's renewable energy sources, such as beetle-killed timber.
However, the plan, two years in the making, provided few details on the bioenergy strategy.
For example, there was no mention in the 44-page plan, or its background documents, of how the province is going to overcome the cost barriers of using the massive amounts of beetle-killed timber in the Interior to produce electricity.
There was also no target set for how much energy the province plans to produce from beetle-killed timber and wood waste, or when the province expects to see bioenergy in production.
The plan did say B.C. Hydro is going to issue an expression of interest followed by a call for proposals for electricity from sawmill residues, logging debris and beetle-killed timber.
No timeline was set in the plan for the proposal call, or any parameters, including the size of energy projects.
Asked how the beetle-timber cost issues will be overcome, Energy Minister Richard Neufeld said he expected energy producers will start working with forest companies on how they can actually develop new energy from pine beetle wood.
"We expect that it's going to be actually a lot more expensive than what we're used to today with our run-of-the-river projects and those kind of things," Neufeld told reporters on a call linked to the energy plan news conference.
"But what we have to do is look at the other side of the coin and think about what would happen if we just left it there and didn't deal with it," he said. "That wood is actually going to rot."
Neufeld said once B.C. Hydro makes the proposal call, the province will find out what's possible.
Even if the power is expensive, he noted there are opportunities to sell it south of the border where some areas may be looking to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Bioenergy -- burning wood to produce electricity and heat -- is considered a green energy as its carbon neutral.
Later, an energy ministry official said that a complete bioenergy strategy -- that will include more details -- will be released in the coming months.
Prince George North MLA Pat Bell lauded the bio-energy plan, saying many of the questions will be answered in the proposal call by B.C. Hydro.
He said the Ministry of Forests and the energy ministry are working together so that when the call goes out it is clear how the wood will flow and how tenures will be awarded.
Bell, the agriculture minister, also said the B.C. Hydro call for proposals is unique because the bioenergy users won't be competing against other energy producers.
The beetle epidemic now covers more than 8.5 million hectares in north and central B.C., an area more than twice the size of Vancouver Island.
The beetle, and its larvae, destroy lodgepole pine by eating out the inner bark, as well as by introducing a fungus that impedes water flow. By the time it runs its course in 2013, 80 per cent of the Interior's pine is expected to be dead.
Utilizing pine beetle-killed timber to produce energy has been discussed for several years in the province. However, the cost of building roads, logging dead timber, replanting and then transporting chipped logs to power plants is considered cost prohibitive.
It's expected that subsidies or tax credits, or higher electricity prices, would be needed to make it viable.
Council of Forest Industries official Doug Routledge said that the most viable potential in the short-term is to use waste wood at the road side that could be trucked in regular logging trucks.
The use of wood and debris left behind in logged areas or standing dead lodgepole pine is not supported on the energy revenue side at the moment, said Routledge, vice-president at the northern office of COFI in Prince George.
He said the forest industry is working with the province on finding ways to remove those economic barriers as well as policy barriers. Forest companies take on obligations when they log forests, as they are responsible for replanting trees and issues like biodiversity. If other parties go in afterward to utilize leftover wood, the industry wants to ensure its interests are protected, said Routledge.
NDP forestry critic Bob Simpson said the Liberals' energy plan was long on rhetoric and short on substance. He said it didn't have any financial analysis on how to accelerate the move into alternate energy.
He said the bio-energy strategy is disappointing since it was pushed off to a later date.
Simpson, the MLA for Cariboo North, said he hopes the bioenergy strategy would be an integrated one that simply didn't replace liquidating forests for solid wood products, to liquidating forests for energy.
Other values like water runoff, wildlife and the burgeoning understory also need to be protected, he said.
AI
