Oct 15, 2009

To Whom It May Concern:

Bio-energy Pilot Project

Is it possible to reduce our impact on the planet and benefit our community at the same time?  This question was brought to us by Rainer Muenter, one of our managers, and discussed at some length at a recent meeting dedicated to the topic.  We are enthusiastic about the possibilities.  If this question interests you in any way please read on.

Currently there is a significant social interest in green technologies and this may provide an opportunity for Kaslo and area.  Numerous organizations, both public and private, are willing to invest in "green" initiatives and pilot projects. We have a resource, wood waste, that may lend itself to such a project and our circumstances - a small, rural, somewhat isolated, singular community - perhaps make us a strong candidate for a stand alone project of some type.  We are confident that considerable money is available for such projects.  By now we hope you're wondering what such a project might look like.

Our conversation explored a range of interesting ideas including but not limited to:

- a central  "heat plant" that could provide winter heat to a core of buildings

- a wood pellet plant, the pellets to be used locally for heating or exported for profit

- electrical generation with waste heat used for some other application

- a heat plant in conjunction with a greenhouse facility to simultaneously address the issue of the "100 mile diet" and deal with waste wood in a proactive way.

- a wood drying kiln to serve small local mills

- a facility capable of producing pulp chips, hog fuel, bark mulch and wood "fines" (sawdust used in the production of particle board etc) depending on the market demands

- a facility to promote development on the light industrial land by the airport by "seeding" the site and potentially offering some benefit like heat or power to subsequent development near by.

By the end of the evening we were excited and asking ourselves what the next step might be.  It was agreed that this wasn't something the Community Forest could do by itself; if such a project is to be realized it would need the active participation of other major groups the area.  We decided that what we could do was raise the topic and gauge the interest. 

To pursue the idea further we are seeking expressions of interest from any groups who might like to explore possibilities with us.  If your organization might, in any way, be part of such a project please contact Steve Anderson by phone, 250 353 7140, or email, This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it    before November 30^th.   If there is enough response to this initiative we will take the next step of organizing a meeting for those interested.

If you are not interested you might still help by passing this information on to others whom you think might be.

The Board,

KDCFS