Today, the grain ethanol industry is an industry without risk. There is corn. We know exactly what to do in order to make sugar, to ferment it and to get proteins. This industry has allowed the ethanol sector to develop in North America.
In Quebec, for various reasons, we decided to try and show that we could use two other means of making ethanol, as well as making the corn ethanol. I am involved, both as an academic but also outside of the university, in both of the projects you have mentioned.
One of these technologies uses essentially used wood, such as wood from demolitions or construction, or even wood from the forest. We process this wood and make it into gas which we then make into ethanol using what are called catalytic techniques. This technology, as I was explaining earlier on, already exists in South Africa, and is coal-based. No company in the world is doing this with wood. We have a project in Westbury, in the Eastern Townships, that will prove that it is possible to do so with wood residue.
The plant is already partly built. The equipment has been ordered, and we should begin production this summer. There are risks. It is not without risk as in the case of corn, but it is a very low risk for a certain number of stages that are happening elsewhere, and that will prove the feasibility of success with our raw material in the Eastern Townships.
There is another project under way using better quality waste biomass. We would be making both ethanol and paper fibre. It is a project intended to give paper mills the opportunity to broaden their horizons at an historic moment when the pulp and paper industry is suffering.