This year we intend to do very specific things. For example, the Arctic Energy Alliance is going to be going into the communities to set up workshops for training and certification programs for wood burning appliance installers and inspectors, as well as looking at how to facilitate the delivery and supply of wood pellets to remote communities. We’re going to work with the forest management division to conduct woodlot planning and inventory activities to assist once again with the firewood and wood pellet production business development.
We want to work with communities once again, through the environment division, to prepare business plans for electrical power and heat distribution cogeneration systems biomass supply. I think we’ve put almost a million dollars into this area to try to move forward on this.
The capacity issue is twofold. There is the capacity issue of the government to get the planning in place and get the support in place, but the other capacity issue is communities. Once you have more detailed and thorough discussions about biomass, the recognition that it’s going to require a significant commitment if you’re going to move to biomass. For example, in Jean Marie River the chief was telling us the difficulty of, the enthusiasm, some people have moved. Those that were keen aren’t
necessarily around. The concern is to commit to that type of change of infrastructure also requires a significant community commitment. And there are capacity issues there as well. So those are two areas we have to work on as we move forward.