Biomass Energy Drives Wood Shortage in Nova Scotia

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

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

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.

The oth­er con­straint in the mar­ket is the reluc­tance of pri­vate wood­lot own­ers to have their land har­vest­ed at the low stumpage rates offered by the pulp and paper mills and now also by Nova Sco­tia Power’s con­trac­tors, who are sup­ply­ing biomass.

As a result of all these forces, plus the fact that more lands are now under provin­cial pro­tec­tion, there is grow­ing pres­sure on the cur­rent­ly avail­able sup­ply of timber.

More pres­sure is build­ing as sawmills, inde­pen­dent ener­gy pro­duc­ers and man­u­fac­tur­ers con­sid­er using bio­mass to gen­er­ate steam and elec­tric­i­ty for exist­ing oper­a­tions or as mate­r­i­al for mak­ing wood pel­lets for export. A vari­ety of such projects are in the works and may add to demand for for­est fibre, albeit modestly.

A key ques­tion is whether sil­vi­cul­ture fund­ing and ser­vices will also expand to replen­ish the tim­ber sup­ply as har­vest­ing resumes on the old Bowa­ter lands.