The devastation in the forestry industry has created greater awareness in Northern Ontario to consider creating green fuel projects from the region’s abundant wood waste, says a leading bio-products expert.
But building a new bio-economy in Ontario from the forest scrap heap won’t happen overnight.
Dr. David Deyoe says that despite the big push to develop bio-renewable fuels, demand is way ahead of supply, in terms of available technology.
Much of today’s current conversion technology, such as gasification and pyrolysis processes, remains in the prototype testing stage and is likely three to five years away from commercialization.
And it will require a greater commitment from industry to embrace change towards making new value-added chemical products and for government to create a new regulatory framework to better utilize wood waste.
Deyoe, a Ministry of Natural Resources senior biotechnology advisor, has been a much sought-after speaker in the last year-and-a-half, delivering about 40 presentations across Northern Ontario on the emerging economic trends in using forest biomass for fuel.
He’s out to promote a fundamental awareness of what biomass is out there, what technologies are available to access it and what’s being done with biomass in other jurisdictions. Deyoe is in the early stages of preparing a forest biomass supply model, a kind of primer to stimulate some ideas for business and job opportunities and to help governments shape a provincial and national bio-energy policy.
Forest biomass, or wood waste, was once thought of as an eco-blight on the landscape, but it could become a valued commodity for a broader spectrum of new forestry-derived products.
In the past, when wood waste wasn’t being buried or left behind, it was used by industry as hog fuel and for composite wood products. But Deyoe says business has been slow to explore other opportunities in utilizing unused sawdust, bark, treetops and stumps for green fuel, specialty chemicals and polymers.
Mill closures due to high energy prices and global competition have had one-industry towns such as Opasatika, Atikokan, Dryden, Kenora and Hearst eager to pursue new value-added opportunities with an almost Scandinavian zeal.
The potential of a new economy was realized when a California bio-engineering company, MEMS USA, stepped forward in January and proposed building a $150 million US wood waste-to-ethanol fuel plant in Hearst using scrap and residue from area mills, harvest sites and from a landfill.
In March, Deyoe was preparing to take his message to industry leaders, mill managers and government policy makers at the Forest Leadership Conference in Toronto.
“What will be interesting to see is to what extent people in industry will be willing to step outside the box to consider some of these options and be part of the investment.
“We’re at a point where the industry has to make some fundamental decisions about what its future’s going to be like and who are going to be its primary partners in that future.
“I think if the forestry industry continues along the commodity-based approach to doing business, and doesn’t take into consideration value-added wood or bio-products as part of their new portfolio, I don’t think they’re going to be competitively successful in the future.”
Deyoe is part of a public-private partnership of his own. He is working with Dr. Peter Fransham of the Ottawa-based Advanced Refinery Inc., in a green fuel venture to build a bio-refinery pilot plant at a logging site north of Sault Ste. Marie, later this year.
He says talk of converting forest biomass into fuel is really nothing new, harkening back to the oil crisis of the 1970s and 1980s. But once prices stabilized, little technological or political progress was made to advance new alternative fuels.
But this time around, with China and India’s “phenomenal” consumption of fossil fuel and greater public awareness of the effects of global warming, renewable fuels are looking better all the time.
“This oil crisis now has rekindled the fires around using different renewable resources for energy and alternative fuels,” says Deyoe. “But at this time, it’s clear to more people – oil companies included – that there is a global crisis in terms of cheap oil.”
Whether the jobs created from a new bio-economy will replace the 42,000 jobs lost in Ontario mill closures over the last five years, depends on the industry making some transformational changes, says Deyoe. It also depends on the companies having the cash on hand to make those kinds of investments.
“There are opportunities, but the industry is not well positioned to capitalize on those regardless of how much money the province is able to put up to support the industry.
“We’re hearing from investment bankers and others that the industry needs to rethink its position in terms of what products it produces and what markets it pursues.”
Well before a bio-economy can even take root, Deyoe says there’s a myriad of regulatory issues to work through to address both environmental and economic concerns, including the questions of who owns the forest slash at a harvesting site.
“There’s a whole plethora of different types of regulations that don’t fit the use of forest biomass. As a result, they become obstacles.”
The Ministry of Natural Resources has no resource calculation on the amount of forest biomass that exists on harvest, mill or in landfill sites in Northern Ontario.
Deyoe says some research data exists but not enough to make definitive policy statements.
He is collecting information for Ontario’s first forest biomass inventory and plans to develop some models indicating how much supply is out there, what type it is, how it can be accessed, along with a financial analysis and forest management planning model to help businesses make better decisions.
