Mutual benefits bring LNIB and Trace Resources together

Trace Resources in Merritt, B.C., is a company closely tied to working with First Nations like Lower Nicola Indian Band, leasing land on LNIB reserve property, employing First Nations from LNIB, and working with the Shulus Forestry, owned by LNIB (run by Trevor Ball).
   

 Ron Racine is one of the owners of Trace Resources. “We run our operations on LNIB, near Merritt, and we employ people there. We’ve been operating for one and a half years manufacturing forestry fibre for chips, hog fuel, and some logs for market.”
    

The company picks the highest value usage for the fibre and ultimately uses a lot of low-cost fibre in their operations. In fact, the company has caught the attention of the B.C. government, “With companies like Trace, we’re turning the mountain pine beetle infestation into a bioenergy opportunity that will create jobs and meet our climate goals,” said Forestry Minister Pat Bell, while he toured Trace’s grinding operations north of Merritt.
    

“We’re seeing a whole new industry developing – an industry that leaves no piece of wood behind.”  Trace Resources formed in October 2008 in answer to new opportunities around the utilization of wood waste. Together with an affiliated company, Jaeden Resources, it recently put into operation two grinders and loaders worth $1.8 million.
    

Trace is following the learning curve and, “learning by doing,” says Racine. Chips are used by pulp mills like Harmac Pacific Northern Bleached Softwood Kraft (NBSK) pulp mill located on the east coast of Vancouver Island near Nanaimo, British Columbia, and Howe Sound Pulp and Paper. Hog Fuel is sold there, and to Belgium. Logs go to market. 
    

Racine says, “LNIB was looking for partners to move products from their forestry operations and we were looking for land to put our operations, and fibre for those operations, and skills in forestry operations,” and found all of this in LNIB. Racine’s company found the LNIB operations and personnel to be innovative and relationship oriented.
    

Racine says, “The relationship is based on three principles, the land lease, the employment of LNIB personnel both directly and indirectly, and the operation of the FRA forest license owned by LNIB.” Trace operates on a ten hectare site north-west of Merritt. “We have buildings, a scale for weighing fibre, and a chip plant. Some of the timber is processed for log sales.”

The company maximizes profits from the wood fibre they receive from LNIB and other First Nation forest licensees. “It’s full utilization of the wood.”

Decadent forests in B.C. are failing to sequester carbon

Matt Mercer is a New Brunswick-born forestry professional who migrated to Vancouver Island where he works in forestry management consulting and raises a young family. Matt has been studying the forestry biomass file for the company he works for in Campbell River, B.C., Zimmfor Management Services Ltd., a consulting company of resource sector professionals that operates world-wide, including South America, Asia, USA, and Canada. 
     

Biomass has become a big file in on a world-wide scale and B.C. offers substantial opportunities in these emerging green-oriented (carbon neutral) forestry business practices. "We have quite a few clients in wood-products manufacturing and they are inquiring about regulatory changes from the B.C. government energy plan (of 2007)," says Mercer. 
     

"The plan outlines the energy strategies for the next few years with the goal of energy self-sufficiency by 2016," he says. Government policy has been undertaken to meet these energy goals, and institutional frameworks like the B.C. BioEnergy Network have been allocated funding to encourage development of research in nine basic streams of energy production from renewable or reusable resources. 
     

Canadians are behind parts of Europe where most facets of resource potential are exploited, including cities doing energy production from forest waste products found in Canadian sawmills and turned into wood pellets. Mercer says federal policies in Canada favour reduction of 'carbon intensities,' and part of B.C.'s energy policy reflects that strategy. 
     

"The federal government says that suppliers must reduce carbon intensities by 20 percent between 2010 and 2020." Suppliers with carbon-based energy output are looking at research into celulosic-based ethynol (alcohol fuel derived from wood waste), which, "emits smaller carbon intensity than other ethynols."  
     

And, he notes, "Co-generation is not uncommon in the forestry sector, with pulp mills recycling biomass into hog fuel to power their facilities. Mercer says the Zimmfor approach to biomass potential looks at both sides of the equation, from the points of view of both wood product manufacturer and fibre supplier. One informative source to follow is the BC Forestry Climate Change Working Group of pulp and paper, saw-milling, and forestry sectors.  
     

Decadent forests in B.C. are failing to sequester carbon due to mountain pine beetle devastation and other issues. These forests are under examination in Request For Power calls and Request For Qualification research proposals, and these forests stand to be harvested intensively for biomass, with high-priority silviculture operations to follow. 
     

"The forestry sector is looking at carbon-offset programs related to fertilization of forests, use of seed-stock to make better carbon-sequestering trees, and aforestation policies to plant new forests," says Mercer.