The government’s willingness to put money into the bio-economy is a sign that it’s taking the industry more seriously, says Cariboo North MLA Bob Simpson.
Responding to the recent announcement that the province has provided $700,000 to the private non-profit forest research institute FPInnovations to gauge the extent of B.C.’s bio-economy, Simpson says he’s pleased because the bio-economy is something he’s been talking about for half a decade.
Simpson is part of the Bio-Economy Committee formed in July to identify ways of expanding B.C.’s bio-economy. A report from the committee points out the need for government to take a leading role in developing the bio-economy.
The funding announcement indicates the government’s listened to the committee, Simpson says.
His research shows the forest sector now generates about 55,000 jobs province wide, which is down significantly from its heyday, but still trumps every job in mining and oil and gas combined, he says.
“Revitalizing forestry by building a whole new industry using the fibre more robustly and fully, building bio digester and bio chemical facilities, has a greater job potential than in mining and oil and gas. And it is a sustainable industry,” he says, adding they are generational jobs, if done right, whereas mining, oil and gas, are non-sustainable.
When it comes to the prohibitive cost of bringing materials out of the forest, Simpson says the committee debated substantively on how the industry can bring as much of that forest fibre in when it’s being harvested.
“It’s called a one-pass because that’s the most economic way to bring that fibre in. You bring it into a marshalling yard and then the saw logs go to the sawmills, the pulp logs go to the pulp mills and the remaining fibre is made available to these emerging industries,” he says, adding right now it’s not economical because the so-called waste material gets left in the bush and burned.
Instead, Simpson thinks mechanisms need to be found to obtain the waste from the bush.
Industries that are looking at trying to access fibre are discovering it’s located 100 kilometers or further in the bush and saying it won’t work for them.
The dilemma, he suggests, needs to be solved by government.
“It’s a public resource, the access to the fibre is by regulation and legislation, and the utilization of the fibre is by regulation and legislation. Government must take the lead role in resolving that issue,” Simpson says.
Andrew Goodison of FPInnovations says the provincial government funding is being matched by federal funds and will be used to look at maximizing the value from the land base from the fibre, finding more and different ways to use existing fibre, especially oriented toward the bio-economy.
“If there is slash outside, instead of burning it we can we bring it in and apply it to different new products,” Goodison suggests.
Another broad area is supporting tentacle implementations in the communities themselves, he says.
“We’ve been working with industry to build business cases for different types of products and or different types of technologies in their facilities.”
The last area takes into account social values and looks at broader perspectives of the land base, such as what is the value of the carbon, fire prevention, or the hydrology of the soil when it comes to making decisions on what you remove.
“If it’s uneconomical to rehabilitate a forest, but it’s going to create a major forest fire hazard for a community, maybe that’s the reason why you would go in a rehabilitate,” Goodison says.
Part of the research will involve working one-on-one with companies in communities like Williams Lake, and as they start to get some results, the intention is to do community outreach, possibly reporting to city councils or economic development offices.