"Access to sawmill residue is hard to find," said John. "The sawmill residue is being totally utilized. Meanwhile non-commercial grade fibre is abundant in the B.C. forests and elsewhere," due to existing forestry practices.
The problem for wood pellet manufacture is that to harvest debris would cause a five-fold increase in the cost of fibre used in wood pellet manufacture; sawmill residue has been the cost-efficient commodity in use making wood pellets to this date. Nevertheless, "The forest floor holds the future of economic development," said John.
In terms of bio-energy, untold mega-watts of electricity are being slashed and piled and burnt in North America's forests, a situation that becomes practically macabre when the deterioration of mountain pine beetle factors into the equation. In that disaster lies an opportunity, and the members of the association are poised to develop an new economic sector.
People like John Swaan are closely impacted by the current state of B.C. forests because they are close witnesses to the situation. "I have made many trips through the B.C. Interior looking at forests that I was involved doing the replanting of lodgepole pine, and those trees of 30 years ago are dead."
John doesn't mind saying the Ministry of Forests in B.C. remains bent on placating licensees and that is a perpetual reality in North American forestry, forestry companies rule the forests. Things may be changing, however, and Swaan said First Nations are major partners in accessing volume of fibre required to the bio-mass/energy production equation, whatever form it ends up taking.
"We need to reclaim and remediate forests and First Nations are front-line advocates of the process. We have to deal with big changes in forests because of 50 years of fire suppression in forestry management." Fire is an ecological player that has been playing a reduced role, and it is a major part of the way forests have evolved.
Meanwhile, the market for wood-generated energy is expanding, "Wood is displacing coal in Europe," said John. "In one European city recently one of our members shipped 120,000 tonnes of wood pellet to replace 80,000 tonnes of coal." Cities in the Netherlands, Belgium, and the UK are switching from coal fuel to wood. Canada is the source of their wood-energy.
TAKE THE PULSE
