Financial viability of incorporating different bioenergy systems to an existing sawmill

The mountain pine beetle has devastated the forests of northern British columbia. As this fibre deteriorates, there will come a time when this timber is no longer economical to harvest for dimension lumber. The government of British Columbia has tried to get new entrants to utilize these damaged stands before the fibre is no longer economical to harvest. The provincial government has also been promoting bioenergy as a source of clean electricity to ensure that British Columbia (B.C.) becomes energy self-sufficient by 2016. The provincial government has also introduced carbon taxes to try and curb the use of fossil fuels. As a result of these government initiatives, the primary objective of this study was to determine if bioenergy systems could be incorporated into an existing sawmill the second objective was to determine under the condions under which bioenergy systems could become financially viable. The data used to determine capital cost of bioenergy systems was from existing publications, which investigated the viability of bioenergy systems using mountain pine beetle damaged timber. An analysis of the data concluded that, under all scenarios bioenergy production as a financial endeavour, is, at best, marginal.