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Biomass Research and development summit next step for Atlantica Bioenergy Task Force

ST. ANDREWS - As many of the region's most important politicians and forestry industry leaders were leaving St. Andrews Tuesday morning after a successful meeting of the Atlantica Bioenergy Task Force, the event's chief organizer warns the real heavy lifting still lies ahead.

Task force members gathered at the Fairmont Algonquin to discuss the recommendations of a study by PricewaterhouseCoopers.

"This study is the beginning of something; it's not the end," said Thor Oleson, the task force's executive director. "It's a great platform to create conversation because it's not a simple subject matter - it's highly complex.

"It will take a concerted, sustained effort over time to bring these recommendations into results. I think the best thing out of this session has been that we now have a fairly unified voice that this needs to continue. People found the process - although not perfect, because that's impossible - very productive and they saw their ownership in it."

Oleson said the next step along the road to addressing the future of the region's biomass potential is a research and development summit to be held early next month in Maine.

This week's session was attended by top politicians from New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Maine - including Premier Shawn Graham and Governor John Baldacci - along with the major players from forestry companies and the University of New Brunswick, Dalhousie University and the University of Maine.

Oleson said it was nice to see that a group with such varied interests was able to agree on many issues.

"What I heard (Monday and Tuesday) is that the challenge now it to continue to find the resources to move forward."

Oleson admitted the current economic climate will make it challenging for many of the companies to find the money that will be needed to push the initiative forward.

"When times are tough, companies are risk-averse," he said. "People get focused on today. So marketing budgets and research and development money is under even more scrutiny - it's all under pressure. People tend to get very conservative.

"Unfortunately, one of the characteristics we need to have is that we need to embrace innovation in these times of turmoil. As we heard from (keynote speaker) Gary Reiner (a top executive at GE, who spoke Monday night) companies need to embrace change in these times - it has to be part of the fabric of an organization.

"We have to foster that environment and find a way to encourage that and it falls on everyone's shoulders to do it - not just government, or industry or the universities."

Oleson said the regional approach is paying dividends.

"What we've shown with this project is that you can be a lot more effective and do things at a much more intense scale if you pool resources. The provinces of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick and the state of Maine are not that big. Together, we've been able to get some momentum going by pooling resources."

Oleson says now it's up to the key players to keep the momentum moving in the right direction.

"We have to continue the good work that's being done and there seems to be a will, but what has to happen is that there has to be someone who drives this," he said. "The biggest challenge is finding out where the resources are to continue the conversation and we have to challenge individuals to take responsibility for pieces of the equation and ask people to take action.

"The study's the easy part. The action that follows - that we're all hoping and expecting will take place - that is the difficult part."