That's a good question.
What is the good news? We're not in this alone. The global forest sector is undergoing some real challenges. Right now, particularly in the temperate climates, whether in northern Europe, Canada, or Russia, one of our challenges is that there are some structural changes occurring. The paper and pulp industry—the paper industry in particular—is going soft. There is nothing we can do about it; it's technologically driven. That is the primary use of the lower quality biomass that we produce. The good stuff we can put into lumber, and if we can get it to the U.S. market, that's great.
But we need to get a way to get value out of the lower quality biomass. That's why our focus—at least a lot of our emphasis, a lot of people are focusing on this—is on what you can do to create value out of the low-quality stuff. A lot of it is going into energy. We're hearing this in Meadow Lake. That's electrons, electricity. That's good in some areas, but unfortunately it's also relatively low-valued energy. It doesn't create a lot of jobs or value or revenue. But, it's good in some situations. We need to create other ways to do it.
Our challenge is that in the whole energy and chemical space, we're competing with very low-cost fossil fuels. That's just the way the market is, and it's going to stay that way, in our view. We need a way to say, how do you then close that gap and put a value on carbon? That's really the issue. How do you put a value on carbon?
We talk about carbon prices. Yes, that's one way, but in reality, everywhere in the world there is a political limit on what you can on an economy-wide carbon price. Fifty bucks? I'm not sure. The reality is that it's not strong enough. What we're finding is that by putting in these flexible regulations, with which you can target big-emitting sectors, and then putting in these trading systems, you can really send a strong enough price signal to get steel in the ground here. That's what we have to do, get steel in the ground.
I gave the example of a joint venture that Canfor is looking at with their Arbios joint venture in Prince George. That would not be occurring in Canada, period, if it were not for the B.C. low-carbon fuel standard.