KEMPTVILLE — The use of corn to produce ethanol won’t last, says Peter Milley, because it isn’t sustainable. Speaking at the Woodlot Conference in Kemptville last month, the founder of the wood products consulting firm, Halifax Global, said the replacement will be in cellulose extracted from trees. "Ethanol will come from wood."

He said six or seven plants in the U.S. are in the planning stages, with one plant in southern Georgia coming on stream in a year’s time. No plants are operating in Canada, though experimentation is in progress here.

Market demand for wood ethanol is "significantly less" than 10 years away, he said.

He says the best source of woody bio-mass for ethanol will come from hybrid willows, which have the ability to be rotated every three or four years. They grow well on land not suitable for crop land, but the land should be flat for harvesting.

Traditional markets for wood are in the doldrums but new markets are poised to offset this decline. The use of newsprint, undermined by e-Bay and its like, has dropped by 17 per cent over the past year while housing starts have decreased by 20 per cent over the past year in North America.

The consequence is that woodlot operators can expect to get less for their wood until the market turns upward in 2010. The industry is in the midst of a fundamental restructuring, he says. The new hope will come from innovations in technology. Wood will be used in everything from diapers to acids. Some products will be ready for market in a few years, he said.