These were central questions at “Realizing the Bioenergy Opportunity,” a Canadian Bioenergy Association conference that drew about 150 Canadian and European bioenergy and forestry experts to Toronto last month.
European experts shared innovations, from harvesting equipment such as tractors that pull tree stumps out of the ground, to the EU’s Carbon Emissions Trading Scheme.
Delegates looked to the Nordic countries for best practice for integrating bioenergy into forestry. However, importing European methods to Canada isn’t straightforward. Tempers flared over two presentations which warned that large-scale biomass harvesting could be unsustainable and socially unacceptable in Canada.
Evelyne Thiffault from the Laurentian Forestry Centre of the Canadian Forest Service said that removing nutrient-rich biomass residues, like left-over branches, foliage and stumps, from forests can strip nutrients needed for regrowth. She also added that Canada should follow France and Britain to design guidelines preventing biomass residue harvesting on nutrient-poor sites.
Thiffault has designed nutrient indicators which show that only a fraction of Québec’s forests could be suitable for biomass-residue harvesting. This spring, she began a project led by Suzanne Brais, director of applied science at the Université du Québec, to create site sensitivity maps for Québec, and eventually all of Canada. “We’ve received signals from the Québec government that it wants indicators of soil sensitivity to be implemented in forest management plans in the near future, and they look eager to see our results,” said Thiffault.
The province of New Brunswick is even further ahead. Shawn Morehouse, a forester in the province’s Natural Resources Department, showcased a “forest biomass decision support system” now under development, similar to Thiffault’s indicator. The results, expected to be released in April, will be used to create sustainability indicators for the province.
Both studies came under fire from delegates. “Some Canadians seem to have a holy attitude to harvesting biomass,” said Martin Junginger from the University of Utrecht in the Netherlands. “But you should take a good look at Sweden and Finland. They are responsible about forests. They do it sustainably and have been doing it for 20 to 30 years,” he added, to a round of applause.
Many delegates argued that ash recycling would solve the problem. Fertilizing the original site with biomass ash returns most nutrients, apart from nitrogen and carbon.
Morehouse said that the New Brunswick system doesn’t consider ash recycling because “significant research needs to be completed to examine the possible ecological and health impacts of spreading material like ash”.
Thiffault agreed that ash recycling could help. Studies on ash recycling are underway in some parts of Québec. Today, Canada’s extensive tracts of forest make it costly and impractical but this could change in the future, she explained. “But ash recycling doesn’t address other issues related to the intensive removal of forest biomass like biodiversity and carbon,” continued Thiffault. “Forests are more than just bank accounts where you take out nutrients and put them back as ash. Ash recycling cannot be used as a blanket license to allow biomass removal everywhere.” She also warned that Canada’s environmental groups would not support it.
Richard Brookes from Greenpeace Canada told environmentalresearchweb that “ash should be left on the forest floor.” Intensive forestry in the Nordic countries, where ash recycling is commonplace, can’t be compared to extensive Canadian forestry, where fertilization doesn’t happen, he added.
As the Canadian bioenergy industry grows, this debate shows that sustainability will be front and centre.