Opasatika's biomass attracts two energy companies.

Two bioenergy companies have expressed an interest in constructing energy facilities in Opasatika--a welcomed lifeline for the township of 300 residents as they struggle to recover from Tembec's departure.

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Scarborough-based Gilead Power Corp. and Fabrication Ecoflamme Inc. from Temiscaming, Quebec have announced their intention to join Palmarolle, Quebec's Cyclofor at the defunct Tembec site, which employed 78 people before shutting its doors.

"If you look at the softwood industry in our neck of the woods, it's really taken a bad slump in the last few years, so we have no choice but to try and be innovative and reach out for the future," says project manager Paul Nadeau.

Cyclofor is slated to be the site's anchor tenant as the company would enter the nearby Gordon Cosens and Hearst forests to recover the slash and residue left over from other forestry operations. The material would then be returned to the plant to be processed and ready for use by Gilead Power and Ecoflamme.

This proximity to readily available biomass fuel drew the interest of Gilead Power, which is considering building a $150 million, 10 megawatt (MW) biomass energy generation facility in the 69,000-square foot Tembec site.

"One of the biggest things that kills the economics for almost any wood project is how many times you handle it," says Paul Pede, president, Gilead Power. "The less times you move it, the more economic a project tends to be, and with this proposed site, there would be one move only."

The possibility for sharing resources also acts as a significant draw for Gilead, as the wood rooms and other facilities represent a healthier bottom line and therefore, a more attractive investment.

"Rather than taking that hog fuel and shipping it to a different location, you have essentially on that one site two different facilities. You have these tremendous cost savings, because you only have (to buy), one front-end loader and one set of conveyors, rather than multiplying that across different facilities."

Currently, Gilead Power is undertaking a series of engineering, legal and hydro studies to determine the economic viability of building the proposed facility, which may well exceed the projected 10 MW if the studies provide positive results. This would create between 14 and 25 permanent jobs, with a construction date starting in 2008.

"As it seems right now, the project is in the black; we just want to make sure it stays in the black," Pede says.

Ecoflamme would also be able to make use of Cyclofor's biomass output by converting it into wood pellets for use in heating systems and pellet stoves. Although the company is primarily looking at European countries as a target market, the need for pellets is widespread and growing.

"As an example, there's a shortage of 250,000 tons of pellets in California, because they're also being hit by the downturn in logging operations, and they're selling more and more pellet stoves," says Claude Brisson, president, Ecoflamme. "The only way they're managing to get any real supply right now is through British Columbia, and that's only because of that province's problems with the pine beetle."

Ecoflamme's proposed facility would require 20,000-square feet of the Tembec site, and would employ up to 30 people in the processing site, with an additional 30 working to collect additional material from the nearby woodlands.

Pellet plants traditionally make use of sawdust and sawmill residue to create their product. As a result, the Ontario government is discouraging the establishment of new plants as sawdust becomes a hot commodity for a variety of value-added projects, Brisson says. This discouraged him from his plan to open a facility near Huntsville, and turned his eye to Opasatika.

In fact, by making use of forest slash, rather than sawdust, Ecoflamme would be the first pellet producer of its kind in North America.

"We strongly believe the potential is there," he says. "It's going to be new, but like all new things, it takes time. We think it's going to break (open) some doors."

While Brisson tentatively says the project may begin construction within the next year or two, the company must wait on a variety of factors before committing to a specific timeline. This includes the mid-summer completion of Opasatika's mid-summer acquisition of the Tembec facility and Cyclofor's study on the local availability of biomass, as well as the Ontario government's regulatory approval for Ecoflamme to start its plant in the province.

Nadeau says such efforts can't come fast enough, as the lack of any local employers is turning Opasatika into a retirement community.

"These kinds of developments are a big, big relief for us here," he says.

www.ecoflamme.ca

www.gileadpower.com

www.geocities.com/opasatika_ontario

By NICK STEWART

Northern Ontario Business