THE FOREST HARVEST RESIDUES BIOREFINERY AS A DIVERSIFICATION POTENTIAL FOR THE TRADITIONAL FOREST INDUSTRIES - CHALLENGES AND SOLUTIONS

摘要

Quebec, similar to other Canadian provinces, has access to millions of tons of renewable biomass in the form of harvest forest residues. The Quebec chief forester has evaluated that, for the forest area around La Tuque (area 04), the capacity of unused harvest residues ranges from 1.1 to 1.8 (including foliage and needles) green metric tons per year. To valorize such unused biomass, BioEnergy La Tuque (BELT) has undertaken a large-scale biorefinery project - a 1.2 B US$ - that aims at converting the renewable, unused forest residues into "drop-in" quality fuels. The forest-based biorefinery project being the first of the kind in Canada, BELT, as the project promotor, has initiated a thorough due diligence techno-economic evaluation in order to mitigate and de-risk the project and attract potential investors. BELT main objective is to provide a no-compromise optimum techno-economic solution for the refinery. The thorough evaluation of all project facets is required both to select the best available process line but also to validate the availability of biomass at a low cost and over a long period-of-time, i.e. 25 years, exceeding the amortizing period, usually 15 years in the petroleum industry, of such projects. The BELT Project has presently the full support of both the Canadian federal and Quebec province governments, as there is a need for a political coherence between the renewable energy policy and regulations and the development of the renewable energy industry. Our experience proves the full feasibility of such a project. The presentation will outline the BELT project and use it as a case study to elaborate on all the techno-economic-political aspects required to successfully develop the forest harvest residues-based energy industries.