The partners in a proposed $50-million bioenergy plant slated for the BCR industrial site are waiting for approval from the B.C. Utilities Commission before beginning construction.
The BCUC is evaluating an electricity purchase agreement between PG Interior Waste to Energy Ltd. and B.C. Hydro. The Prince George project was one of four winning proposals in B.C. Hydro's first phase call for power generated from wood waste.
A decision from the BCUC is expected by summer's end or early fall, said Gregory Deron, one of the project co-ordinators for the PG Interior Waste to Energy Ltd.'s proposed bioenergy plant.
"There's been some delay, but it's not up to us," noted Deron on Tuesday.
The projects partners include Victoria-based Organic Power Technologies, where Deron is an official, and Grant and Mark Dakus, who own the P.G. Sort Yard.
The project had been used in late April as the backdrop for campaigning provincial Prince George Liberal candidates. At that time, the company said the project would begin construction in early May, later clarifying the first three months of construction would involve decommissioning the sawmill site on Willowcale Road, including the removal of 300 tonnes of steel.
The project, expected to create at least 70 jobs, is to be built on the site of the old Netherlands sawmill, which had still been producing lumber last winter. The new bioenergy plant is meant to produce eight megawatts of power, as well as charcoal and bio-oil.
The plant will be fuelled largely by logging debris, which is normally burned in slash piles on logging blocks.
During the announcement in April, the company said the plant, to be built in modules, is expected to begin producing electricity in the spring of 2010 and will be fully operational by the spring of the next year.
The project will also require an air pollution emission permit, a process that would take months, B.C. Ministry of Environment officials have said.
The B.C. Ministry of Environment's Prince George office said Tuesday the company has not applied for the permit yet.
Deron said they are still in the midst of producing complex computer modelling of the impacts of the plant's emissions on the Prince George airshed.
Air pollution, particularly fine particulate air pollution, is a key environmental issue in Prince George.
The province's ministry of environment set guidelines more than a year ago stipulating that projects that emit significant levels of fine particulate should be located outside the Nechako and Fraser river valleys, or at least 30 kilometres from Prince George's city centre.
Smaller projects would require offsets, with a two-to-one offset being suggested for projects in the BCR industrial site. That means, for example, if a project produced one tonne of fine particulates, another two tonnes of particulate would need to be reduced in another area.
The PG Interior Waste to Energy Ltd. proponents have already said they are confident in their technology -- which uses decomposition rather then burning to break down the wood residue -- and its ability to limit air pollutants.
Company officials have said that they believe, eventually, emissions can be taken to zero.
For now, the project proponents have claimed the bioenergy plant will have air pollutant emissions that are 70 per cent less than those in the existing provincial government-approved permit for the old sawmill at the Willowcale Road site.
A Prince George air quality advocacy group had cited concern last April that the project was announcing construction without an air pollution permit in place.
The People's Action Committee for Healthy Air said their concern is that a construction start on the project without a permit could put pressure on the city and provincial environment ministry officials to grant approval. The group raised this concern two years ago when PacificBioenergy started construction on a wood pellet plant without an air pollution permit.
The group noted that potentially the project could be positive for the airshed -- as well as creating jobs -- but they want to be certain.
Copyright © 2009 The Prince George Citizen
