Natural Resources committee  Absolutely. We've had some real successes working with aboriginal communities. In fact, one of the largest pellet plants in British Columbia is located in Houston and is a three-way joint venture among Canfor, Pinnacle—which is the largest pellet producer—and the Moricetown Band.

Natural Resources committee  Well, we've watched the pan-Canadian climate framework. In there is a lot of stuff that's very exciting to us, such as decarbonizing remote communities. We think using wood pellets is going to be a good answer there. It was just in September that Minister Carr and the Canadian

Natural Resources committee  A biogenic carbon, carbon that's grown on the surface of the earth, is recycled through photosynthesis. When it's combusted, it turns into carbon dioxide, which is reuptaken through plants' photosynthesis. It's circular. Without taking the processing into account, terrestrial b

Natural Resources committee  Location is certainly an important issue, because wood pellets are a commodity product and a low-value product. We can't pay a lot for the feedstock, so we can't transport it very far. We can certainly incorporate cedar into the feedstock. You probably know that cedar bark is a

Natural Resources committee  The U.K. has two new plants under construction. Actually, one of them is almost finished, at Lynemouth in northeast England, and then there is MGT power in the Midlands. They are both going to consume about a million and a half tonnes each. Drax Power, our biggest current custome

Natural Resources committee  I wouldn't say Ontario is necessarily behind. There are actually two or three pretty large plants in Ontario right now—one in Thunder Bay, one in Atikokan, a very large one in Wawa, and then several smaller ones around Toronto and Hamilton. The very large plant that was built i

Natural Resources committee  There is an opportunity to use agricultural by-products, such as grasses, hay, and straw. The difficulty is that they tend to have a higher amount of chlorine in them, which causes corrosion in the boiler systems. They also have a higher amount of ash, which causes some disposal

Natural Resources committee  In North America and Asia it's a very well-established practice. We have power plants in the United Kingdom, Denmark, the Netherlands. It's very mainstream. The cost to convert a plant is quite minimal. You just need to have covered storage and separate conveyers and change out

Natural Resources committee  Thank you, and thanks to the committee for giving me the opportunity to discuss Canada's wood pellet sector. What I would like to touch on today is how the wood pellet sector fits within Canada's forest industry. I'd like to give you some basic information about wood pellets and