Bioenergy could help in North (Canada), minister says

Prince George Citizen (Canada)
Written by GORDON HOEKSTRA, Citizen staff
Wednesday, 04 June 2008

Bioenergy opportunities will open up not just in B.C.'s beetle-ravaged Interior but in other areas of the province like the northwest where there is a glut of old, rotting timber, B.C. Forests Minister Rich Coleman told a BioEnergy conference on Wednesday.

The start-up of the new sector was helped with the introduction of legislation this spring that will create new tenures to feed energy plants with wood debris left behind from logging the province's forests, said Coleman, the keynote luncheon speaker. The new tenures -- expected to be put up at the same time as a second call for bioenergy projects by B.C. Hydro next month -- will also include access to standing beetle-killed timber.

Coleman stressed that the new bioenergy sector will be able to use existing resource roads at no cost if the province has helped pay for them, and the wood fibre will be priced at the lowest level, 25 cents a cubic metre.

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