"Our Suskwa project is taking advantage of First Nation natural resources in the Gitxsan traditional territory," a land-base that spans 33,000 sq km in the Pacific North West. "They have decadent forests and mountain pine beetle damaged wood fibre," says Connors, "Rejuvenation of these decadent (80 year old) forests is necessary because they are no longer sequestering carbon."
Connors notes that a healthy full grown hemlock will sequester 20 lbs of carbon per year and produce oxygen in abundance for people to breath. Due to their current condition the forests surrounding Hazelton and Smithers are ideal places to start seriously greening the Canadian economy. This 40 year project is designed to take out declining grades of wood and replace this decadent fibre with vibrant new forests.
"We are proposing to build a high-pressure boiler to burn wood and heat water to create steam." Steam will spin a turbine, which charges a generator to produce 34 MWh of electrical energy. Connors says the project puts a $150 million economic infusion into a depressed area, and, "the Gitxsan people are partners having full ownership, buying in, and completely participating. And it is a project that provides links to all kinds of jobs in the forestry sector."
A BC Hydro purchase of power from the plant would give Gitxsan a long-term cash flow running many years. The proposed plant site will be constructed on 16-acres including a former gravel pit operation outside of Hazelton, says Connors, responsible re-application of land used as development property in the region.
The power plant operations will employee 35 people full-time, and another 130 more jobs will be found in the 'periphery' doing wood salvage, working in the greenhouse that provides seedlings to reforestation projects, and logging for a sawmill cooperative with Gitxsan license holders feeding the fibre from an Annual Allowable Cut in their territory.
Suskwa depends largely on decadent forests for fibre, and other biomass fuel loads will be found in MPB killed lodgepole pine. The plant has been designed for a 40-year life span. The Run Of River Power development in Gitxsan is joined by an even bigger biomass power proposal (that has a shorter life span of about 20 years), says Connors.
"The 60 MWh Tsilhqot’in Biomass Power Project is to be located 75 kms west of Williams Lake in Hanceville, B.C.," and most of the biomass fuel for this energy production will be found in the MPB forests of the central interior. The Tsilhqot’in proposal is a 50/50 partnership with the First Nations and these folks have a huge problem with 'beetle' kill in their forests. They have less work to do in reversing decadent forest conditions.
In this regard the Tsilhqot’in proposal focuses on beetle kill (and reforestation), which shortens the time span of energy generation according to this one-shot consumption of beetle damaged trees. Meanwhile the BC government's self-sufficiency targets for energy production are slated to be 2016, and the goal of complete green energy production has been set for 2020, says Connors. Carbon-neutral biomass projects contribute to government meeting both objectives.
The ROR Power focus on B.C. has been based on First Nation initiative in all corners of the province. They have one fully operating run-of-river power generation facility on Brandywine Creek near Whistler with a rated capacity of 7.6 MW. They built close working relationships with First Nations of Squamish and Lil'wat communities. The turn into biomass includes the aforementioned partnerships. The company is presently developing five run-of-river project clusters totaling 639 MW of potential capacity.
The green energy initiatives coming from IPPBC members like ROR Power are "creating opportunities where there are no opportunities to be found otherwise." Furthermore, says Connors, "The use of forestry biomass to create energy is proven technology and forestry byproducts have long been in use for energy production of forestry facilities in B.C.. The projects like Suskwa and Tsilhqot’in are taking energy production values from biomass to a new business level." 