Fortress Paper Ltd.

Canada’s Minister of Natural Resources, Joe Oliver, announced earlier this month that the federal government would invest $53.5 million to “advance the transformation and evolution of Canada’s forest industry.” The investment – which will be divvied up among 24 companies representing 28 pulp and paper mills across Canada – is part of a program the federal government introduced in 2009 called the Pulp and Paper Green Transformation ...

Representatives from diverse Canadian sectors are joining forces to lobby federal, provincial and municipal governments to develop a national energy strategy focusing on bio-energy. The New Economy Alliance, composed of delegates from the forestry, chemical, agricultural, renewable fuels and biotechnology sectors throughout the country, is trying to get governments to realize the potential of using Canadian resources for an energy strategy. ...

Fortress Paper Ltd. CEO Chad Wasilenkoff appeared on the Business News Network this week to talk about the resurgence of the Canadian forestry sector thanks to diversification of products and forward thinking attitudes in the industry. The forestry sector has “gone through a couple of challenging decades,” he said on Tuesday. “So we now need to change that sector and drive forth with new innovation and cutting edge technology to remain ...

A new biomass gasification plant in Vaasa, Finland set the open by December 2012 is on track to be the largest plant of its kind in the whole world. The 140-megawatt, €40 million plant will be used not only to provide heat to the plant, but will also sell off excess power to a grid in the community. Biomass is biological material from living or recently living organisms such as wood. Considered a renewable energy source, biomass is typical...

After several years of downturn, Ottawa’s historic pulp & paper region is on the road to recovery thanks to new innovations in the sector. “The Ottawa region’s forest products firms are rebounding as the industry shifts from an emphasis on pulp and newsprint to specialty, high-end products,” the Ottawa Citizen reported this week. Over the last decade, companies such as Glatfelter Inc. have doubled their plant’s capacity where they...

Two countries looking to expand their opportunities in biorefining have joined forces to help each other seek out the full potential of the industry. Norway and the U.K. have been working together to identify the short and long-term areas for growth and potential within the sector, says an article published by Biorefining Magazine. The report compiled by Innovation Norway and the U.K.’s Technology Strategy Board identified three short-term...

A US-based energy expert speaking on the accelerating crisis posed by climate change said countries pursuing alternative energy sources consider cogeneration as a viable option. Jim Warren, executive director of the North Carolina Waste Awareness and Reduction Network (NC WARN), told a luncheon group in Burlington, NC last week that clean energy and cogeneration could help eliminate the need for nuclear and coal-fired power plants and slow cli...

by CHAD WASILENKOFF Push aside dated notions of our global forestry sector as dominated by lumberjacks focused solely on logging trees and processing the wood. Today’s forests are increasingly high-tech with employees skilled in biochemistry, genetics, computer modeling, satellite imagery, and digital processing. Today’s bio-economy is a dynamic global market that mirrors a paradigm shift to products that originate from natural renew...