of a digitized forest industry future

containers sitting at the top of the hillside, and you’re getting away from this by-yourself operation in the dark to a more communal operation of equipment.”

Machine automation is already being utilized on modern forest machines and Roeser says it’s only a matter of time before there is broad adoption of fully automated equipment in Canadian forests.

Since the 1950s, the number of human-hours it takes to harvest trees has declined almost every year due to advances in mechanical equipment that made harvesting operations more efficient. But that curve has flattened or declined every year since the early 2000s, which Roeser says is a reflection of societal demands for more stringent environmental regulations that have had an impact on logging activities. The evolution of new technologies combined with digitization gives the forest sector hope that trend will be reversed.

Advances as simple as a mobile phone app that instantly determines the volume of a loaded logging truck is an example of supply-chain tracking tools that could save costs for B.C. companies that have long distances to overcome.

“This has been standard on cut-to-length operations for 15 years in Nordic countries and we’re starting this now, and that’s where we should take a step back and think about a lost opportunity,” said Roeser. “I think one of the challenges we’ve always had in B.C. is we’ve had always so much wood, we never had to be superefficient. In Europe, everything is more scarce and you learn to deal with that scarcity by getting real good and very efficient.”

Until recently, when economically viable tree supplies were abundant in the B.C. Interior, there was no pressing need to innovate.

“Now, with all these challenges we’re seeing, especially in B.C. - the mountain pine beetle and the wildfires - I think we’re forced to think that way and it’s a really big opportunity because the tools are there,” Roeser said. “The context we’re in doesn’t compare to Europe, where (there is) phone coverage everywhere. But I think having that tool and having that visibility in the supply chain is a gamechanger.”

Technology is already radically changing how forests are mapped. The B.C. government is undertaking a project to map the entire province using LiDAR (light detection and ranging) and its lasers to accurately map inaccessible areas to help professionals manage for a range of values across the entire landscape.

Ted Clarke/Glacier Media

An agreement to proceed with a plan to build a $5-7 billion hydrogen plant located on the Kerry Lake East Indian Reserve, 90 kilometres north of Prince George, could be in place by Sept. 30.

Harvey Chingee, chief of the McLeod Lake Indian Band, says negotiations are continuing with Mitsubishi Power to complete the deal and he expects it will be done before that deadline.

Chingee says all the necessary infrastructure to operate the plant is in place at the site, which is about two kilometres east of Highway 97.

“It will be huge, like a big pulp mill,” said Chingee. “We’ve got the electricity, we’ve got the water, we’ve got the highway and we’ve got the railway, and the pipelines are all there.”

The plant will use electricity to split water molecules into their basic elements – two parts hydrogen and one part oxygen – using a process called hydrolysis. The problem with hydrogen is it is the lightest element on earth and it’s not feasible to compress the gas enough for it to be transported.