Led by British Columbia, Canada emerged as the largest exporter of lumber in the world to China in 2011, surpassing Russia as the Middle Kingdom’s No. 1 source for lumber.

“We are king of the hill,” Gerry Van Leeuwen, of the Vancouver consultants International Wood Markets Group, said Tuesday. “We are No. 1 in total lumber imports into China.”

The trend has continued in 2012, Van Leeuwen said. According to the latest statistics from China Customs, Canada supplied 1.45 million cubic metres (about 900 million board feet) of soft-wood lumber during the first quarter of 2012, corralling 47 per cent of the market share for softwood lumber in China. Russia is second at 35 per cent.

Softwood lumber – lumber made from coniferous species like spruce, pine and fir – is the dominant wood product manufactured by British Columbia sawmills. B.C. softwood lumber accounts for about 95 per cent of all Canadian softwood shipments to China, making this province China’s largest global supplier, surpassing Russia, which exports both hardwood and softwood lumber, for the first time.

International Wood Markets tracks Chinese statistics and on Tuesday released a report, China Bulletin, on the latest figures.

Canada’s emergence as the top supplier has been meteoric. In 2011, Canada shipped 6.8 million cubic metres of lumber to China, up 20-fold from 2006, when Canada shipped only 331,000 cubic metres of lumber.

“A number of issues have driven our success but one of the biggest ones is price,” Van Leeuwen said. “As the North American lumber market collapsed in 2005/06 and lumber prices went south – from US$400 a thousand board feet to US$188 – suddenly our lumber became very attractive.”

When the U.S. housing market eventually improves, Van Leeuwen said he thinks B.C. sawmillers will not abandon their new markets in China.

“We are subject to this softwood lumber export tax. We have been burdened by this for the last four or five years and I think Canadian lumber producers are much more conscious of the dangers of being too dependent on the U.S. market. So we think they won’t move as quickly.”

If prices in the U.S. increase significantly, however, it’s unknown how B.C. producers will react, he said.

China’s total demand for wood has been growing at a rate of 10 to 15 per cent a year. It has been buying logs from around the Pacific Rim to meet that demand, pushing up log prices globally, which made the depressed price of B.C. lumber even more attractive, Van Leeuwen said. He added that China now accounts for 26 per cent of Canadian lumber exports, not enough to influence the price significantly. The U.S. accounts for 63 per cent of Canadian lumber exports.

B.C. is also a major exporter of logs to China but it pales in comparison to Russia and New Zealand. Russia exported three million cubic metres of logs to China in the first quarter of 2012 while B.C. exported 594,000 cubic metres during the same period.

But housing construction statistics show a dramatic slowdown is under-way in China. Floor space in newly-started residential buildings dropped by 5.2 per cent in the first quarter of 2012.

International Wood Markets is holding a Global Softwood Log and Lumber conference Wednesday in Vancouver, part of the weeklong Global Forest Products Leadership Summit now underway in the city.

ghamilton@vancouversun.com Blog: vancouversun.com/industry

By Katie Fehrenbacher May. 9, 2012, 11:21am PT

Despite continued struggles for next-gen biofuel makers, venture capitalists are still putting money into startups, particularly when it comes to follow-on rounds. On Wednesday EdeniQ, which was spun out of AltraBiofuels in 2008 to focus on cellulosic ethanol processing, announced that it has raised another round of more than $30 million in equity and debt from investors including Kleiner Perkins, Draper Fisher Jurvetson, and The Westly Group.

A large ethanol producer and subsidiary of Koch Industries, Flint Hills Resources Renewables, also joined EdeniQ’s round as a new investor. Comerica and ATEL Ventures provided the debt. Flint is interested in EdeniQ because the startup has technology that can help a corn ethanol producer transition to cellulosic biofuels, which are made from energy crops or waste and are widely considered the future of biofuels.

EdeniQ originally raised $30 million when it launched back in 2008, and later raised $12.4 million, so the company’s total investment is close to $75 million. AltraBiofuels was also backed by substantial money — some hundreds of millions of dollars.

Cellulosic ethanol is facing a really tough road in the U.S. Amyris, which was one of the leaders a few short years ago after it went public, has hit a wall and recently reorganized its management team. MIT Tech Review reported that Amyris was very far away from being able to produce biodiesel profitably, leading to the company getting out of the biofuel business for the time being. Amyris’ stock is trading at $1.96 per share, far below its $16 per share price debut.

Another charticle from the MIT Tech Review this week shows just how far away the U.S. is from meeting its (ridiculous) renewable fuel mandates, particularly because very little cellulosic ethanol is being produced. Biofuel exec, and blogger, Robert Rapier tweeted to me that he predicts that the actual amount of cellulosic ethanol production in 2012 will be less than 5 million gallons (and probably less than 2 million gallons). The EPA is predicting the industry will make 10 million gallons 2012, down from the amazingly-off prediction goal that the industry would make 500 million gallons of cellulosic ethanol in 2012.

Thu 5/3/12 5:59PM / last updated Thu 5/3/12 6:12PM

Northern Michigan University is building a power plant based on wood biomass. The plant project has been on the drawing board since 2004. The school held a groundbreaking this morning, but construction started in March.
“This is not just a historical moment for Northern, but for me as the university’s president,” said NMU President Les Wong. “One of the first project ideas I heard about when I came to NMU was of a renewable energy facility. So for as long as I’ve been here, which is now eight years, this has been a strategic goal of the university and we appreciate the partnership we have with Johnson Controls to make it a reality. NMU is committed to being a campus that works hard at its sustainability measures and this facility will help us within that area.”
Cloyd says that coming out of the recession, he’s excited the project is getting underway to not only continue the school’s commitment to renewable energy but also to add local jobs.
The facility will produce up to 87 percent of the campus steam consumption currently supplied by burning fossil fuel at the adjacent Ripley Heating Plant. It will also produce up to 16 percent of the university’s electricity needs, reducing the amount that must be purchased from the Marquette Board of Light and Power.
The project is funded by internal or bond proceeds paid back through operational cost savings guaranteed by Johnson Controls. In addition to the new construction, work will address $800,000 in long-term maintenance at the Ripley plant, which relies primarily on natural gas with fuel oil as a backup and will be used to meet peak steam demand.
“By being able to burn multiple types of fuel, the university has a critical ability to fiscally react to significant changes in the fuel source marketplace,” said Brian Cloyd, chair of the NMU Board of Trustees. “The new plant will also incorporate the best available control technology and meet federal EPA and Michigan Department of Natural Resources and Environment standards.”
The new plant won’t replace the existing Ripley Heating Plant but will instead operate alongside it. It should help reduce NMU’s operating costs. It’ll produce more than 85% of the heat needed on campus and about one–sixth of NMU’s electricity.
The plant will cost $16.4 million. NMU officials expect to do the first test burn next January. It’s scheduled to be fully operational in June 2013.
Posted by: Mike Hoey

Published on May 3, 2012
Nancy King

Arrival of steam turbine generator marks ‘major milestone’

POINT TUPPER — Construction of a $208-million biomass cogeneration plant has reached a significant milestone with the arrival of the steam turbine generator that will produce electricity.

Topics : 

Nova Scotia Power Inc. , NewPage Port Hawkesbury , Mitsubishi , Japan , Halifax , San Diego

CTBR Staff Writer

Published 01 May 2012

NTE Energy has secured a patent from the US Patent & Trademark Office for its biomass hybrid renewable energy technology.

Patent number US 8,161,724 was for the technology that revolutionizes the production of renewable energy by allowing the simultaneous operation of a biomass energy cycle in concert with a traditional power plant.

NTE Energy will utilize the new technology in the development, construction and operation of new hybrid renewable power generation facilities located throughout the US.

NTE Energy president and CEO Seth Shortlidge said the US patent represents a game-changing moment for the renewable energy industry.

“Our technology will help generators provide reliable, low cost, efficient electricity, while creating new economic opportunities and jobs,” Shortlidge said.

“NTE Energy’s hybrid technology creates significant benefits by decreasing use of fossil fuels in power generation, increasing domestic renewable energy production, and providing the forestry and agriculture sectors with solutions for their biomass residuals.”

NTE Energy Sales and Marketing executive vice president Mark Daley said hybrid technology allows utilities to provide renewable, baseload power from a native biomass fuel that also helps to diversify the regional generation portfolio.

“Each facility will also create more than 120 permanent jobs, with hundreds of additional construction jobs to build each plant,” Daley said.

NTE Energy’s patented hybrid technology integrates biomass and conventional steam electric generating technologies into a single efficient hybrid renewable power generation facility.

Imagine a company that says it can produce virtually limitless amounts of cheap gasoline, create arable land for food production and solve the climate crisis — all at once.

That’s the promise of CoolPlanet BioFuels.

Mike Cheiky, the company’s founder and CEO, spoke about CoolPlanet’s “negative emissions technology” at Brainstorm Green, FORTUNE’s conference about business and the environment. Yes, negative emissions.

Does that mean, I asked him, that the more you drive a car powered by CoolPlanet’s biofuels, the more CO2 will be pulled out of the air? Yes, he replied.

Mike Cheiky

“The world doesn’t have too much carbon,” Cheiky explained. The problem’s is that the carbon’s in the wrong place. There’s too much in the atmosphere, causing global warming,  and not enough in the soil. Essentially, Cool Planet has a plan to use plants to remove it from the air and then restore it to the land.

Before you decide that this is too good to be true, you should know that Cheiky, a veteran entrepreneur, has persuaded Google, General Electric, BP, ConocoPhillips, NRG Energy, Exelon and venture capital firms Shea Ventures and North Bridge Venture Partners to invest millions of dollars — he won’t say how many millions — in CoolPlanet Biofuels.

“We have been poked and prodded so many ways by so many people,” Cheiky told me. “GE sent 17 people to do their due diligence at a time when we had only 15 employees.”

These investors wrote him checks, he added, because of his track record. “I’ve done six start-ups in my career,” he went on, “and I’ve never had a down round. They’ve all been very successful.”

Cheiky does not lack self-confidence. He and his wife, Charity, started Ohio Scientific, one of the world’s first personal computer companies, in 1975, right after he graduated from college. “I was very successful as an early pioneer in the microcomputer era,” he told me.

He built an electric car in the early 1990s but subsequently decided that “we would not be able to deploy electric vehicles fast enough to combat climate change.” More recently, Cheiky founded Zinc Matrix Power, which became ZPower, a company that makes small rechargeable silver-zinc batteries for mobile applications.

He also started Transonic Combustion, which aims to dramatically improve the efficiency of the internal combustion engine. Venrock and Khosla Ventures invested in Transonic, and former GM exec Bob Lutz sits on its board. Cheiky is no longer involved in ZPower or Transonic — a sign that he is probably better at starting companies than managing them. He says he left Transonic when he realized that “just making the engines more efficient wasn’t going to do the job. I had to crack the problem of the fuel.”

The concept behind CoolPlanet is simple. Begin with biomass, in the form of wood chips, corn cobs or fast-growing crops like miscanthus. Process it through a bio-fractionator using a proprietary thermal/chemical process. Make gasoline that’s identical to the fuel pumped into your car. Then take a carbon-rich byproduct, a solid biochar, and bury it to sequester carbon or use it to enhance soil. (Here’s a long interview with Mike Rocke, VP of business development at CoolPlanet BioFuels, explaining the process.  I’ve also pasted an explanation from the company website, below.)

Cheiky says that CoolPlanet Biofuels will be able to make gasoline for $1 a gallon. Yes, $1 a gallon. The company then will deploy biochar to make more land on which more crops can be grown to make more gasoline, and so forth.

He said:

We have a sustainable model. We can power the world, literally, provide all the liquid fuels need for the world, with land that we can create, basically. You’ve got to take carbon out of the atmosphere and put it back into the ground to have more fertile land to grow more food crops and fuel crops at the same time.

In a decade or two, he told me, as the company gets to massive scale, this new way of making fuels could not only destroy OPEC but offset all of the world’s carbon emissions.

Can this  be true? It’s hard to know, because CoolPlanet is a bit of a black box. The company won’t get into the details of its technology, which is understandable; that’s its competitive advantage. Cheiky also won’t say how much money he has raised, which is unusual; most startups are transparent about their financing. He was also a bit vague when asked about how much water will be needed to grow the feedstock crops. Whether biochar can be used to sequester carbon, and for how long, is yet another unanswered question. (See my blogpost, The carbon negative economy)

Yet Cheiky says the company’s technology is already working, albeit on a small scale, near its headquarters in Camarillo, Calif. His plan is to build a commercial plant somewhere in the midwest next year. Initially, the plant will probably run on waste products like corn cobs or wood chips, but it can also consume fast-growing plants like miscanthus, switchgrass and sorghum.

“A giant miscanthus can grow 20 feet tall in a season,” Cheiky says. The company said recently that it generated 4,000 gallons of gasoline per acre of biomass  in pilot testing using giant miscanthus.

CoolPlanet Biofuels could be a game-changer — or it could prove to be another disappointment in the biofuels business, which has so far has produced more hype than economic or environmental benefit. Let’s hope that Cheiky is right, and that his company is on to something big.

Here’s how CoolPlanet explains its process:

This breakthrough utilizes mild process conditions, with process temperatures comparable to a kitchen stovetop and maximum pressures comparable to a portable tire inflator. Input biomass is coarsely ground from in field air-dried bioenergy crops with moisture content in the 10-20 percent range. Many advanced energy crops retain root structure for several years and are simply cut down once a year for harvesting, dramatically reducing the carbon intensity of agricultural activities versus other bio sources such as algae farming or wood clearing, chipping and drying. The total process time from biomass to fuel is under one hour. Total energy and biomass feedstock cost using today’s commodity pricing is under 60 cents a gallon.