Canada

Federal regulations requiring an average renewable fuel content of 5% in gasoline have been finalized and will come into effect starting December 15, 2010. The 5% renewable fuel content requirement in gasoline will require about two billion litres a year of renewable fuel across Canada, a volume estimated to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by about one megatonne a year.

On Thursday the province announced it has directed Ontario Power Authority to negotiate an agreement with Ontario Power Generation, the plant’s owners, to buy the power produced at the Atikokan plant.

MPP Bill Mauro (Lib., Thunder Bay-Atikokan) said with the plant making up 40 per cent of Atikokan’s municipal tax base, the province’s decision to keep it open means the town’s survival.

Unemployment among forestry workers and amount of denuded timber harvest land will rise dramatically over next 20 years, a report says.

One of the major clouds hanging over British Columbia’s economy and forest products industry is uncertainty about the mountain pine beetle epidemic.

To date, the pine beetle has killed an estimated 50% of the province’s mature lodgepole pine.

In a recent economic analysis that focused on the pine beetle epidemic, Central 1 economist Bryan Yu noted that over the past 90 years there have been four or five major mountain pine beetle infestations.