LIIDLII KUE/FORT SIMPSON - Two Fort Simpson businessmen are teaming up in hopes of creating the first made-in-the-NWT supply of wood pellets.

Last week, McKay and Simons had completed installing this 40 foot by 100 foot tent that the test mill will be assembled in. - photo courtesy of Wayne McKay

Wayne McKay, owner of Checkpoint, a former rest stop located at the junction of the Mackenzie Highway and the Liard Trail, has joined forces with Ivan Simons, owner of HR Thomson Consultants. The two long-time advocates of wood pellet boilers are currently assembling a small-scale pellet mill at the Checkpoint site, which McKay now operates as a camp, renting it out to exploration companies and other clients for months at time.

Their ultimate aim? To use biomass culled from McKay's 10-acre lot for experimental production of pellets this spring and, if all goes well, eventually establish a small-scale wood pellet production facility that will supply retailers across the territory.

"In the end, when it's all said and done, we want to be able to produce wood pellets from local biomass," said McKay. "It's never been done in the Northwest Territories. We'll be the first."

Half of the heat generated at McKay's Checkpoint site now comes from wood pellet boilers. But the cost of transporting wood pellets to the NWT – primarily from La Crete Sawmills in northern Alberta – remains high, said McKay.

"Fifty per cent of the cost of burning a wood pellet is transportation. If your source is in your backyard, it makes sense to utilize it," he said.

For Simons, this isn't the first time he's considered starting a mill up North. Twenty years ago, he approached residents of Fort Simpson about forming a co-op to do just that. But the idea was met with scepticism, he said.

"It didn't go because nobody at that time knew what wood pellets were, basically."

Earlier this year, the GNWT unveiled its NWT Biomass Energy Strategy, which, among other things, aims to "work with the private sector and Aboriginal development corporations to identify viable business models to produce pellets and/or woodchips in the NWT."

Under that strategy, the territorial government has given McKay and Simons $100,000 in funding to buy the mill, capable of cranking out approximately 1,000 tonnes in pellets a year.

Producing wood pellets at a cost-competitive price would help stabilize the territory's supply of pellets, said Jim Sparling, manager of climate change programs for the GNWT's department of Environment of Natural Resources.

"If you're buying in bulk from La Crete, you can get them delivered in Yellowknife for about the equivalent of 60 cents a litre for heating oil right now. But there's some concerns about the long-term sustainability of that..." said Sparling.

Simons' ambitions extend beyond a mill in his home community.

"If we can eliminate just the cost of transportation for a winter fuel haul, it could pay for a small pellet plant in each community in the North, in one year," he said.

The NWT currently consumes between 15,000 to 18,000 tonnes of wood pellets a year, compared to the 60,000 tonnes of churned out at the La Crete sawmills every year, according to Sparling.

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