Re: Real project or pipe dream? Making a run at low carbon jet fuel in N.S
Jennifer Henderson in the Halifax Examiner Intro in Morning FileMay 14, 2026
Bradley Toms
When a company or consultant makes a map that specifically excludes a ton of publicly available data of protected areas to show how many protected areas are around a site…they are choosing to obfuscate. The map they have shows about half or less than half of the protected areas around the proposed energy generation zone. A way to quickly erode trust with the public is to purposefully exclude information for materials that they can easily access themselves.
‘Low grade wood’ is also known as ‘nutrients the forest needs to grow more trees’. It’s a propaganda term to make is sound like these trees need to be taken out of the forest. No forest ‘needs’ to have nutrients removed especially where we already have poor soils for growing trees.
The only sustainable forestry residuals to could used in this process should be sawmill waste and wood cut for powerlines, agriculture, housing etc that would otherwise not be used for other wood products. Not a single stick of standing wood should be cut to make jet fuel. Thinning should require the trees to be left in the forest to feed the soils. The forest soils need it more. SFI and FSC standards only exist to keep horrific practices in check…they do not actually require truly sustainable or ecological forestry to occur on certified lands.
Currently I’m not aware that NS has identified a need to process more residuals. They are being used at the biomass plants in Brooklyn and Port Hawksbury and a few other places and I’ve not heard of any great need to have another source to send them since Brooklyn came back online.
285 million a year in revenues for the province doesn’t even pay the operating budget at the IWK. Peanuts. If we’re serious about resource projects benefitting Nova Scotians long term they need to be paying out big bucks instead of letting it all go offshore to already wealthy investors. At a minimum Guysborough municipality should be demanding a big multi-million dollar self sustaining community fund from the company. If this is the great revenue generator that it claims to be we should create a provincial ‘crown corporation’ and take 100% of the profits. Billions in profits right into government coffers.
JackPine22
Thx for providing many of the details related to Nova Sustainable Fuels plans for producing green jet fuel. No doubt it would be a huge benefit for the local economy, employment etc. However, the claims about sustainability need to be examined very critically to avoid future lawsuits against the company and perhaps the province &/or the province (us) being forced to harvest our forests to oblivion to make people feel good about flying. Perhaps we could support 750,000 tonnes for this project, but what about all of the other biomass projects committed to or envisaged for NS? By my rough accounting they add up 6,825,000 tonnes//annum*, which is more than the 2016 estimate of the sustainable wood harvest for NS (5.7 million cubic meters/annum, roughly equivalent to the same number of green tonnes). That number (5.7 million cubic meters/annum) is presumably the basis of Deloitte’s comment that “35% of the wood allowed to be cut in Nova Scotia at a sustainable rate is currently being harvested” There are many reasons to expect that an objective, updated estimate of the sustainable wood harvest would be much lower, likely more on the region of 3,000,000 cubic meters/annum.** If we are maintaining a significant sawmill industry, about half of that would be available for biomass – for the whole province! So the 750,000 tonnes would represent 50% of what’s available all-told for sustainable biomass uses in NS. These are back of the envelop estimates, but using the 2016 estimate of the Sustainable Wood Harvest is not any better. What’s clear is that we are in dire need of an updated State of the Forest Report including fully transparent estimates of the sustainable wood supply broken down by region and use. *https://nsforestmatters.ca/bioeconomy/biomass-supply-demand-estimates-for-ns **https://nsforestmatters.ca/whence-the-new-number-based-on-the-triad-model-for-the-sustainable-forest-harvest-level-in-nova-scotia-2feb2026
Dennis Keay
This is another pipe dream.
*750,000 wet tonnes or 375000 dry tonnes of biomass equates to ~40 tonnes of biomass per hectare from an area that only had ~50 tonnes per hectare of living biomass in 2008.
*Emera/NSPI reports 10,705 GWh were sold to Nova Scotians in 2025; this equates to 1.22 gigawatts per year of electricity. Why does the project expect NS ratepayers to invest in this project to provide it with 525 GWh of dispatchable electricity?
*300 MW of solar and 800 MW of wind only generate 40% of the time; this translates to 440 MW * 8760 hours per year = 3,854,400 MWh or 3854 GWh = 36% of all the electricity sold in NS in 2025.
*750,000 tonnes of biomass equates to 25,000 x 30 tonne truckloads and very well more than155 jobs. Who is building the (housing) infrastructure and when/where?
*A water need of 575 m3 /hour equates to ~5 million cubic meters of water per year; what is the project plan for this? Does it include a desalination plant??
*There will also be 1500 acres = 600 hectares for the solar farm where there will also likely be NO harvestable biomass; how many hectares are needed/ devoted to the transmission right-of-way for all this renewable electricity to get to Goldboro.
*This project demonstrates a lot of poor project definition and very little viability.
Jeddore John
So, why not site the project in Sheet Harbour? The site there already has a dock, truck access, and a large wasteland to store biomass. To re-phrase, why create another another wasteland where there already one that is better located? Please pardon my sarcasm.
Ann Tagonist
The government has created a public consultation process bias for industry where the public is talk at and told versus prior and informed consent.
Bob Bancroft
Over 300 years we’ve degraded the woods in NS with repeated removals. Now they propose more removals of young softwood forests that bear no resemblance to healthy forests.These forests need a chance to heal back to healthy, mature hardwood/softwood trees with wildlife habitats. Give them a rest!