An energizing event

February 19, 2009 — Prince George, British Columbia

BioEnergy Conference and Exhibition

The forest vistas around Prince George continue to inspire ideas about the valuable resources to be found in this sea of trees. Some see pulp and paper. Others see building supplies. And, more recently, many are starting to see an increasingly viable form of energy.

This latest product takes the form of wood pellets, made from timber mill byproducts such as sawdust. Manufacturers have traditionally discarded this material, but when tightly pressed into small cylinders, it makes for a highly concentrated source of heat. In fact, stoves designed for this fuel turn out to be far more efficient than their log-burning counterparts.

Such stoves have become increasingly common in Europe, where the wood pellet industry is well established in places such as Scandinavia. Now business is starting to pick up in Canada, where the potential of this industry is as vast as the forests.

"They coined the term 'the Saudi Arabia of biomass', because we've probably got the largest accessible wood fibre basket in the world sitting right here in the backyard of Prince George," says Cam McAlpine, who co-ordinates a biannual conference to explore the latest issues in this field.

The 2008 edition of the three-day event, called the BioEnergy Conference and Exhibition, drew 400 delegates and 50 exhibitors from 20 countries to Prince George. With presentations from academics, entrepreneurs, and even Finland's Minister of Agriculture and Forestry, participants examined the economic and environmental implications of different types of fuels derived from biological materials.

This venue made it possible for Canadian suppliers to make inroads into established markets for such products, as well as learning more about new directions for technologies such as wood pellet production.

"We were able to provide an opportunity for Canadian businesses to meet with select European businesses that were here as part of trade delegations from Finland and Austria," says McAlpine.

For him, one of the most crucial aspects of the conference has been ongoing support from the National Research Council Canada Industrial Research Assistance Program (NRC-IRAP). This federal initiative offers a range of both technical and business-oriented advisory services along with potential financial support to growth-oriented small- and medium-sized Canadian enterprises. Delivered by an extensive integrated network of Industrial Technology Advisors (ITAs), a group of some 240 professionals in 100 communities across the country, NRC-IRAP supports innovative research, development, and commercialization of new products and services.

"Without NRC-IRAP, this conference would not have started as successfully as it has and developed to where it's become now," McAlpine says. "They've been there all along. NRC-IRAP has a lot of associations and links to the private sector, and associations within government."

He also notes the especially important role of Michael Kerr, the ITA who helped conceive the event in 2001.

"Everything he does contributes to the betterment of the community," says McAlpine. "This was one area where he saw the value of the work he does and the way it can tie into the community in which he lives. He brought himself and his knowledge of what NRC-IRAP can do for small- and medium-sized businesses."