The 2019 BDC Spring Forum was held on Tuesday, March 12 at the DoubleTree Hotel, Jacksonville Riverfront Downtown, and a tour of LignoTech Florida was taken on Wednesday, March 13.

The Forum focused on Commercial Progress of value adding biorenewable processes represented by Velocys, Canfor Pulp/Licella, RYAM/Borregaard-LignoTech, Attis Innovations, PureVision, Prisma, MetGen, and Head Engineering.

There was also significant focus on efforts being made to remove policy barriers to the Forest Products Industry, initially focusing on getting agencies to allow (1) Co-mingling of eligible RFS wood in existing pulp mills, (2) Production of BioIntermediates for final processes at a second location, and (3) Co-processing of the BioIntermediates at the second location.  These changes would be extremely important to get the participation of the Forest Products Sector in producing Advanced BioFuels.

The meeting was very well attended, achieving record attendance for BDC.  The attendees commented about the quality of the program and networking opportunities.

Martin Pudlas, Vice President, Pulp and Paper Operations and Innovation for Canfor Pulp provided an excellent keynote address.  Canfor is progressing toward a commercial project with Licella in Prince George, British Columbia to convert wood wastes and other organic mill streams to bio-crude oil for refining by petroleum refineries.  Martin inspired the group with his enlightened view of the forest products industry.

The roundtable discussion in Panel 1 focused on policy barriers that are holding the Forest Products Industry back and the effort being made to change them.  The strong panel included moderator Paul Argyropolous, President of Nexus Advisors and formally of the EPA.  Panelists included Michael McAdams, President of the Advanced BioFuels Association (ABFA), Doug Faulkner, Co-Chair of Biomass Research and Development Technical Advisory Committee (TAC) who advise the USDA and DOE agencies on the direction of policy, and Thomas Howard, VP Goverment Relations for Domtar Pulp and Paper.  BDC is supporting CARRI, a Coalition for removing the barriers mentioned earlier.

The Coalition is seeking additional support from the Forest Products Industry to help achieve the changes.  See the documents below that include the CARRI Flyer, the Final TAC report to the agencies, and a document BDC presented to the TAC at their November meeting.