Enhancing the Use of Wood Fibre
PURPOSE: to utilize dead or fire damaged fibre to create electricity
PARTNERS: Forest Enhancement Society of BC, Drax, Cariboo Pulp, Atlantic Power Corporation
STATUS: complete
BENEFITS:
1. Jobs for local community members
2. 75,000 cubic metres of fibre recovered
3. Addressing fibre shortages for local pellet and biomass production facilities
4. Innovative partnerships
Traditional harvesting for saw logs in beetle salvage typically has an average recovery of 60-80% of NET cruise volumes, wasting massive amounts of wood fibre that is piled and burned. CCR discovered that when afire hazard reduction / stand rehabilitation program is paired with a haul differential program, total fibre recoveries are increased to maximum levels.
Haul differential makes utilization outside of the traditional economic radius attainable. In the current state of the forest industry, secondary fibre facilities are fighting to secure and attain fibre and look to build partnerships to work together to generate long term agreements.
When and where enough fibre remains, the tops of trees and harvest operations debris are put through a grinder and delivered to a processing plant for manufacturing for 100% utilization. Areas where the piles are small and/or isolated, they will be burned or the debris will be scattered.
To date, CCR through haul differential programs, has delivered approximately 75,000 cubic metres (equivalent of 1,875 logging trucks) of pulp and biomass to Drax (formerly Pinnacle Pellet) in Williams Lake, Cariboo Pulp in Quesnel, and Atlantic Power Corporation in Williams Lake.
This program is changing the way industry operates. We are able to create a stream to maximize fibre utilization. Industry is working with us, allowing us to process and deliver pulp while making debris piles available for grinding opportunities.
CCR has harvested stands, delivering saw logs to Tolko in Williams Lake and pulp logs to Cariboo Pulp in Quesnel. The logging and trucking jobs sustained has been a big win for the local economy and First Nations communities.
The investment by FESBC kept local contractors and their employees working on site for four months and associated hauling positions that otherwise would not have been feasible. The facilities receiving the fibre are still in operation and a 3-year contract with Cariboo Pulp has been agreed upon for delivery of pulp.