Natural Resources committee  The program you're talking about is the Biomass Crop Assistance Program. That program was created to support the lignocellulose sector for making ethanol. There was very little impact on pellets. Some projects benefited. I would say that, of the $235 million, about $5 million was

Natural Resources committee  That's because of the current cost of other energy sources, such as natural gas. Electricity is cheap in Quebec, but we are replacing heating oil and propane to a significant degree. There are more problems economically with other forms of energy. There are also conversion costs.

Natural Resources committee  Many projects have been announced. There is plenty of potential for export to Europe, but none of those projects have materialized yet. However, the next time there is an announcement about the closure of a paper mill, some company—an independent one, probably—will probably choos

Natural Resources committee  As Mr. Mangin said, collecting biomass form the forest and transporting it to a mill for processing costs more than what the market is paying right now. However, there is some progress. Mr. Regan mentioned that he paid $2 for his bag of pellets 10 years ago and that he's now pay

Natural Resources committee  I don't really think you can say that pellets are less safe than natural gas or coal. The same standards apply. It's a fuel and has to be used with care. Explosions happen in natural gas systems too. Wood pellets certainly have to be handled with care. There haven't been any exp

Natural Resources committee  Yes, there could be a possibility there. They are huge consumers of fossil energy just for extracting. I understand that they need to make steam to extract in the tar sands. Well, they can make steam with biomass. There's a lot of biomass available in Alberta and in that neck of

Natural Resources committee  Right now, woody biomass as energy is 7% of the Canadian energy mix. It's already there. Now, several markets are different. The paper industry has done a great job of using their waste wood as an energy source.

Natural Resources committee  Yes. That's the advantage of pelletizing. It helps with distribution and storage. We're transporting overseas. It depends on the markets you're dealing with. Of course, Canada is blessed with other forms of relatively cheap energy, and we're having a hard time competing there, b

Natural Resources committee  NRCan has been helping us with our export markets, mostly, in developing the overseas markets and helping us to show overseas markets the sustainability of our products, but there is a huge potential in Canada that has to be developed, and we'd like to see some incentives being p

Natural Resources committee  Okay. Well, the Northwest Territories started by converting a prison block to heating with pellets five years ago, and they now have the highest concentration of pellet use in Canada, with a population of 40,000 consuming around 20,000 tonnes of pellets a year, replacing oil and

Natural Resources committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. I represent the Wood Pellet Association of Canada, and we manufacture wood pellets. I have samples here that I'd like to circulate so that you know what we're talking about. I understand that Mr. Regan already knows about this.

Natural Resources committee  I'm sure they are, but you'll have to call them “granules” in French—granules de bois. You probably have copies of my presentation, which was distributed. I'm going to give you a small course on pellets, starting with the samples here, and give you some information on production