canada

[[{"type":"media","view_mode":"media_large","fid":"533","attributes":{"alt":"","class":"media-image","height":"480","style":"width: 333px; height: 333px; margin: 3px 10px; float: left;","width":"480"}}]]A new report warns about the potential worsening of climate change from logging Canadian forests for electricity and heat, and recommends a “precautionary approach” regarding the expansion of biomass energy.

Forest Biomass Energy Policy in the Maritime Provinces, written by Jamie Simpson for the Halifax, Nova Scotia-based East Coast Environmental Law, evaluates environmental impacts from existing and proposed bioenergy facilities in eastern Canada, with concerns including: inaccurate carbon accounting, an increase in logging, a decrease in forest productivity and soil health, and loss of biodiversity.

The recent uptick in bioenergy is “driven almost entirely” by policy decisions spurring the development of fossil fuel alternatives, according to the report, with regulations failing to accurately assess environmental tradeoffs.

Simpson tracks seven biomass power facilities in the Maritime region. Two facilities in Nova Scotia, Nova Scotia Power Inc., a 60 megawatt facility in Port Hawkesbury, and a 30 megawatt facility in Brooklyn, make up approximately 4% of the province’s electricity. Four biomass power facilities in New Brunswick generate 160 megawatts, while a wood and oil burning facility in Prince Edward Island generates 1.2 megawatts.

Despite emerging science demonstrating significant carbon emissions from bioenergy, most international and regional policies ignore these emissions in its accounting. The report references several studies debunking “carbon neutral” bioenergy, including Timothy Searchinger’s Princeton study, Bjart Holtsmark’s Norway study, and Massachusetts’ Manomet study.

Simpson critiques the Manomet study, which debunks carbon neutrality over the short term, as underestimating carbon impacts in its assumption that logged forests will be left to regrow and re-sequester carbon indefinitely. He explains that Manomet doesn’t account for future logging or a loss of forest productivity due to logging impacts or climate change.

The report asserts that, if this emerging climate science is accurate, “we may be misleading ourselves as to the actual carbon” benefits of bioenergy. Since renewable energy policies for the Maritime Provinces don’t take these studies into account, government may be “undermining efforts to reduce carbon emissions due to faulty accounting.”

Bioenergy has spurred a 20% increase in logging New Brunswick’s Crown (public) forests, and Nova Scotia logging has increased 14% overall. Currently, there is “little regulatory oversight” for bioenergy logging in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, including “whole-tree harvesting and near-complete removal of living and dead material from sites...”

No specific regulations for biomass logging exist in Nova Scotia, aside from forestry regulations requiring ten trees be left per hectare (~2.5 acres) along with streamside buffers.

In 2011, the Nova Scotia Department of Energy set a cap of 350,000 dry tons (700,000 green tons) worth of standing trees to be cut for bioenergy to qualify under Renewable Electricity Regulations.

Nova Scotia Power Inc.’s (NSPI) 60 megawatt biopower facility is estimated to burn 705,000 dry tons of wood per year, at least 385,000 tons coming from whole trees, the rest from sawmill “residue.”

The report references news coverage of hardwood product manufacturers blaming the NSPI facility for  “either going out of business or reducing output due to a shortage of hardwood supply.”

New Brunswick’s Renewable Resources Regulation requires 40% of electricity sales from its public power utility, NB Power, to be generated from “renewable” sources, including bioenergy, though no regulations exist for biomass logging.

Nova Scotia’s 2010 Renewable Electricity Regulations call for 40% of energy from “renewable” sources by 2020, while a feed-in tariff program provides tax incentives for combined-heat and power biomass facilities.

Prince Edward Island’s goals for 2010 included 15% of energy from renewables, including bioenergy. Bioenergy is currently 10% of PEI’s total energy use, made up almost entirely from residential wood heating and one district heating facility in Charlottetown.

Prince Edward Island isn’t currently considering biomass power and only regulates biomass logging if it receives public subsidies. In that case, whole-tree logging cannot occur along with clearcutting (unless converting  lands to non forest use), but is allowed with selective logging.

-  Rachel Brighton, October 10, 2014, The Chronicle Herald

[More evidence of biomass energy competing for limited wood source.]

[[{"type":"media","view_mode":"media_large","fid":"302","attributes":{"alt":"","class":"media-image","height":"271","style":"width: 333px; height: 188px; margin: 3px 10px; float: left;","title":"Photo: thechronicleherald.ca","width":"480"}}]]Opening up long-term access to western Crown lands will relieve some of the pressure that has been building in the forestry sector this year.

This week the province announced that 16 sawmills and manufacturers had been granted 10-year allocations on the former Bowater lands and other Crown land west of Highway 101.

Many sawmills had been crying out for this Crown access since late 2012, when the province acquired the assets of the defunct Bowater Mersey Paper Co.,including its vast tracts of timberlands in the southwest of the province.

This spring the province granted temporary access to these lands to 12 sawmills and two other players in the forestry industry: Louisiana-Pacific Canada Ltd., which produces hardboard siding in Lunenburg County, and Northern Pulp Nova Scotia Corp.

Emera Energy, which operates a biomass plant in Brooklyn that produces electricity for Nova Scotia Power Inc., was also allowed to harvest on Crown land this year, under a separate agreement with the province.

The new allocations secure access for mostly the same group of mills that gained the spring licences, but with a few left out and a few more added. Northern Pulp’s access to western Crown land has also been assured for the next decade.

Alongside these allocations, the province has a separate Crown land agreement with Port Hawkesbury Paper LP.

As well, Nova Scotia Power has become a significant buyer of biomass, through independent contractors, to feed its power plant in Point Tupper.

The allocations conclude a year in which there has been acute price competition for firewood and low-grade hardwood, spiked by expanding demand for biomass at Nova Scotia Power’s Point Tupper plant and, as some sawmills and contractors maintain, by Northern Pulp’s acquisition of hardwood pulpwood.

There has also been a logjam in getting wood out of the forest into the market, caused in part by a major contraction in the number of forestry contractors and truckers.

Some households felt the force of these market factors this year, when the price for firewood shot up after last year’s heavy winter. Some firewood suppliers told me their customers were hoarding wood for fear of a shortage, making the problem worse.

[[{"type":"media","view_mode":"media_large","fid":"120","attributes":{"alt":"","class":"media-image","style":"line-height: 20.6719989776611px; width: 333px; height: 250px; margin: 3px 10px; float: left;"}}]]- October 14, 2014, Bioenergy Insight

An explosion at Pinnacle Renewable Energy's wood pellet plant in British Columbia injured three and resulted in around 30 employees being evacuated.

The incident happened on 9 October after a fire broke out inside equipment used to dry wood fibre. The plant's built-in suppression system had already extinguished the flames by the time fire fighters arrived.

The plant was last inspected on 17 June 2014, when no problems were found.

[The forest footprint for a biomass incinerator is massive. Will be interesting to see if any probe is done in regards to this facility. -Ed.]

-  by Erin Pottie, June 27, 2014, Cape Breton Bureau

[[{"type":"media","view_mode":"media_large","fid":"223","attributes":{"alt":"","class":"media-image","style":"width: 333px; height: 187px; margin: 3px 10px; float: left;","title":"Photo: CBC"}}]]A Cape Breton environmental group is calling for an emergency review of harvesting practices at Nova Scotia Power’s biomass plant in Point Tupper.

On Friday, the Margaree Environmental Association issued a letter to Premier Stephen McNeil requesting a delay in harvesting to allow the province to examine the plant’s wood supply.

Association co-chair Neal Livingston said the plant has shown itself to be a “voracious” consumer of wood fibre.

Not only is quality material being directed to the plant, there is also too much forest resource being cut, he added.

“You basically kinda have a monster there and it wants to be fed,” Livingston said. “I think that rather than get it wrong and have it continue to be a bigger and bigger problem, it’s a really good time to take a look at what’s going on here.”

NSP has said up to 650,000 tonnes of wood waste will be needed to run the plant per year.

The 60-megawatt power generating station, located in Richmond County, is part of Nova Scotia’s plan to source 25 per cent of the province’s electricity from renewable sources by 2020.

But in recent months, business owners who rely on the forest for a living have told The Chronicle Herald that high-quality hardwoods are making their way into the biomass plant.