Bio-Energy Plant To Be Built In BCR

Grant Dakus, Gregory Deron and Tim Hoy at an announcement of a bio-energy plant in the BCR Industrial site being built by PG Interior Waste to Energy. (Citizen photo by Brent Braaten)

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Bio-Energy Plant To Be Built In BCR

Written by Gordon Hoekstra
Citizen staff
Wednesday, 22 April 2009

Flanked by Prince George Liberal candidates Shirley Bond and Pat Bell, the P.G. Interior Waste to Energy group announced they will start construction of a $50 million bio-energy project next month.

The project, expected to create at least 70 jobs, is to be built in the BCR industrial on the site of the old Netherlands sawmill, which had still been producing lumber last winter. The new project will also produce products like charcoal and bio-oil.

"What better day to announce this project than Earth Day," said Grant Dakus, one of the project's co-ordinators.
"B.C.'s bio-energy strategy is allowing us to expand our operations despite the present challenges in the forest industry," said Dakus, who along with brother Mark, owns the Prince George-based P.G. Sort Yard also located in the BCR industrial site.

The $50-million project made a short list four months ago in B.C. Hydro's call for bio-energy, and the company has now inked a power contract with the provincial electrical utility, said Dakus.

The plant will be fueled largely by logging debris, which is normally burned in slash piles on logging blocks. Currently, the company is grinding logged timber from a beetle-killed 29-year-old plantation 20 minutes from Prince George. Normally, the province would have paid a company to cut and burn the trees, too small to be of commercial value, but the company paid the province for the right to cut and grind the material.

The plant -- which will be built in modules -- is expected to begin producing electricity in the spring of 2010 and be fully operational by the spring of 2011.

Dakus noted that not only will the project better utilize woody debris normally burned, and create jobs, but it will help will help stabilize their existing operations, a sawmill that supplies lumber to the Chinese market and a log sort yard.

The P.G. Interior Waste to Energy group also noted that the project will reduce the amount of government-permitted fine particulate allowed at the site by 70 per cent. The existing permit covers cyclones, an energy system and drying kilns for a sawmill and planer.

Company officials did not have air pollution emission numbers for the project at their finger tips, but Gregory Deron, the other co-ordinator for the project, said the process utilizes a closed system, limiting pollution. The process does not burn the wood waste, but rather uses a chemical decomposition, noted Deron, an official with Victoria-based Organic Power Technologies.

The project is less than 50 megawatts so does not trigger a full-scale provincial environmental assessment, but new permits or permit changes are normally reviewed by B.C. Ministry of Environment officials.

Environment ministry officials in Prince George were not immediately available for comment.

Air quality is considered a significant issue in Prince George, and was cited as so by both Liberal and NDP candidates in The Citizen on Tuesday.

Dave Fuller, who heads a local air-quality advocacy group, was unaware of the project. "It might be good for the air quality -- possibly," he said after being briefed on its basic parameters.

The People's Action Committee for Healthy Air have scrutinized projects that emit air pollutants in the past, including PacificBioenergy's wood pellet plant south of the BCR industrial site.

Bell, who held the post of forests minister, said the project represented the future of the forest industry.
He said that not only does the project create new jobs, and better utilize wood debris, it helps create another revenue stream to support traditional companies like sawmills.

The fact the first one is happening here in Prince George I think is a real testament to the willingness for people like Grant and Mark Dakus to invest in Prince George," said Bell, the incumbent in Prince George-Mackenzie.

The Liberals used forest industry backdrops during the last election to press their message the economy was heading in the right direction.

While the rejuvenated Netherlands site was successful, Gateway Forest Products went bankrupt.

Ainsworth Lumber's promise -- made just days before the 2005 election and touted by Liberal leader Gordon Campbell -- to build two panel plants worth $400 million in the Northern Interior never materialized.

In the past two years, more than 3,000 forestry jobs have been lost in northern B.C., a result of a major forest downturn led by a collapse in U.S. housing.

Bell acknowledged there have been challenges, but stressed the bio-energy sector offers a more hopeful future.

Bob Simpson, who has been the NDP's forestry critic, pointed to Canfor's sawmill curtailments announced Tuesday, saying workers need to be helped first, the the industry needs to be fixed.

New Democrats are calling for tenure reform so that communities, First Nations and businesses can get access to the fibre they need to keep people working, said Simpson. But in the short term we need to protect the economy of our forest communities, and make sure that workers and families can pay their mortgages.

Additional Information

Web Site: http://www.princegeorgecitizen.com/20090422187993/local/news/bio-energy-plant-to-be-built-in-bcr.html

Category: Forestry>Biomass Energy

Region: BC - Canada

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