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■ table of contents
www.woodbioenergymag.com
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IN THE NEWS Clyde Stearns Dies At 66
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WOOD BIO AGENDA From In-Woods To Air Emissions
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ALL ABOUT DRAX From Pellet Mill To Port
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PRODUCT NEWS Several New Developments
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DOMINION’S WAYS Three Conversions Is A Charm
Cover Photography: Drax Amite BioEnergy (Rich Donnell)
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WOOD BIO CONFERENCE North America Leaders To Meet
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WOOD BIO KEYNOTERS Eight Great Talks Scheduled
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table of contents ■
advertising index Advertiser Index is a free service for advertisers and readers. The publisher assumes no liability for errors or omissions.
Volume 8
Number 2
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■ from the editors
Wood-To-Energy
Discussion Heats Up I
f you read through this issue and still don’t have a handle on wood-to-energy and the renewable energy movement, then “forget about it.” Because it’s all in here. We give over lots of space to Drax Biomass and its UK parent Drax Group for two reasons: one is that this was our first opportunity to tour the new Drax pellet handling and shipping facility at the Port of Baton Rouge, followed by our first visit to the new Drax pellet plant at Gloster Miss., known as Amite BioEnergy. It was all very in-depth thanks to the participation of a dozen or so personnel at the port and at the mill, who didn’t hold back in their explanations as to how it all works. If you make it through the article that begins on page 16, you’ll have a better understanding of the ebb and flow as the world’s renewable energy industry continues to solidify itself. And that’s the second reason we’ve devoted so many pages to Drax: It, as much as or more so than any other company, is at the center of the wood biomass energy universe, given the magnitude of its upstream-to-downstream portfolio, from its log scales at Gloster to its generator transformer at its power station in Selby, England. We’re not saying Drax carries all of the weight of renewable energy on its back, but it’s toting considerable poundage. That’s why the article also delves somewhat into the shifting regulatory and policy challenges the company constantly faces as it maintains its commitment to biomass power. Our second feature article in this issue is about Dominion’s conversion of three former coal-fired power stations in Virginia to 100% biomass fuel, with a specific look at its Hopewell, Va. facility. The conversions, originally announced in 2011, are in response to the state’s voluntary Renewable Portfolio Standard, which called for 15% of the company’s generation to be from
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renewable resources by 2025. Also in this issue, beginning on page 38, is some preview material for the Wood Bioenergy Conference & Expo to be held April 5-6 at the Omni Hotel in Atlanta, as hosted by Wood Bioenergy magazine. You’ll notice some of the conversation during the event will be about conversion to biomass from coal and even co-firing with coal. The event comes at a time when the U.S. government, in its EPA Clean Power Plan, has made at least a modest effort to include biomass in the equation toward carbon dioxide reduction. Events such as the Wood Bioenergy Conference & Expo serve to bring further understanding to the technologies, issues and participants involved in this still evolving industry. But let us emphasize that there’s much more to this conference than discussion of policy and regulation. This is a very nuts and bolts event—from new knife configuration in in-woods chippers to new auto lubrication systems on pellet mill rolls. See you in Atlanta.
Wood Bioenergy / April 2016
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■ in the news
Stearns’ Death Ripples Through Industry The recent death of a great innovator, Clyde W. Stearns, shocked the wood bioenergy and wood products industries recently. Stearns died February 18 due to an undiagnosed heart condition. He was 66. Stearns’ career spanned more than 40 years in sales, design, manufacture, installation and plant startup, with his most recent years devoted to the wood-to-energy industry. Stearns was president of his consulting firm, BioGreen Engineering in Houston, Texas, upon his death, and prior to that, from 2011-2015, was vice president of engineering for Zilkha Biomass. He was instrumental in the engineering and startup of the Zilkha “black pellets” manufacturing plant in Selma, Ala., which implemented new steam explosion (thermal treatment) technology. Stearns commented in Clyde Stearns at the Zilkha Biomass plant in 2015 to Wood Bioenergy Selma, Ala. in early 2015 magazine: “I personally believe once this is a commercially available product and the world can see that it can be produced in large quantities, I believe that in the next five years 75% of the industry will convert to a second generation pellet of some kind—a second generation pellet being one that has the attributes that we’ve got here, the higher energy content, behaves more like coal, water resistant, low dust. I believe this is a game changer.” In 2014 Stearns was a finalist for the World Bioenergy Man of the Year as selected by the World Bioenergy Assn. Previously, Stearns was sales manager over biomass and wood pelleting machinery for Bühler. He served the wood products industry as an engineering manager at Teal Sales Inc. (TSI), as general manager at WPS Industries, and as operations manager at Globe Machine Manufacturing. He shared patents for an end dogging feeding device and board edger optimization in the sawmill industry. Stearns was a warm-hearted gentleman with a quick wit and sense of humor, and very much a family man. Born in Kalispell, Mont., Stearns met his high school sweetheart, Candi Hart, to whom he was married for 45 years. He earned a Bachelor of Science in engineering from Montana State University. Stearns was an avid outdoor enthusiast who enjoyed hiking, skiing, camping, fly fishing, rock climbing and biking. He earned his pilot’s license as a teenager. He is survived by his wife, Candi; his daughters, Brittany Johnson and husband Tory, Brooke Stearns Lawson and husband Jelani; five grandchildren; his mother, Beulah Clothier; his father, George Stearns and wife, Fran; a sister, Linda Robinson and husband, Royce; his twin sister, Claire Svejkovsky and husband, Toby; nieces, nephews and cousins; and countless friends. A celebration of his life will be held in the Flathead Valley this summer.
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Wood Bioenergy / April 2016
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■ in the news German Pellets Fate Hangs In The Balance
German Pellets pellet plant at Woodville, Texas
A week after an insolvency court in Germany initiated proceedings against the assets of German Pellets GmbH, one of German Pellets’ affiliate wood pellet operations in the U.S., Louisiana Pellets (also German Pellets Louisiana), commenced filings on February 18 for Chapter 11 with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Western District of Louisiana. Peter Leipold, leading family principal and CEO with the privately owned German Pellets, in a declaration statement notes that construction of the pellet plant in Urania, La. was planned for two startup phases for a total production capacity of 1 million metric tons. He also notes a contract was in place with E.ON UK, a United Kingdom utility company, to purchase the wood pellet production from the facilitiy. Leipold says phase one of the project for startup of half of production was substantially completed in late 2015 and put into limited production to conduct required emissions and production tests. However, according to Leipold, those tests revealed defective and substandard electrical work. After those issues are addressed, the plant expected phase one production to reach capacity by this summer. Leipold notes that phase two is still under construction and may require an additional 12 months to complete. Leipold says the project has experienced numerous cost overruns and delays, including the electrical deficiencies, weather events, delays in steel deliveries, and other subcon-
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tractor delays including delays in earth and concrete work, and the insolvency and liquidation of project subcontractors. Louisiana Pellets defaulted under taxable finance bonds due to an inability to make a required payment of more than $4.2 million at the first of 2016. Louisiana Pellets is exploring options to address the need for liquidity to complete phase one and two construction, including a potential transaction with one or more interested parties—discussions which are ongoing, according to Leipold. German Pellets started up its first pellet plant in the U.S. at Woodville, Texas last July and built a handling and shipping facility at Port Arthur. Meanwhile the German insolvency court appointed an attorney from the German law firm White & Case as provisional solvency administrator. The court instructed the attorney to safeguard the company’s assets while ascertaining whether there are sufficient grounds to commence proceedings and assessing the prospects for the company’s continued existence. German Pellets expects those proceedings to commence in May. German Pellets is one of the largest producers and suppliers of wood pellets worldwide. The owner-managed family company was founded 11 years ago and has established numerous plants in Europe as well as the two in the U.S. The company reported 442.5 million euros in revenue through the first three quarters of 2015 and an operating profit of 38 million euros, but increased debt and decling value of bonds issued by German Pellets is apparently anchoring the business. Before the German court intervention, German Pellets apparently offered a refinancing proposal to bond creditors that a bearer bond due at the end of March be revaluated and adjusted. Apart from the extension of the term by two years, German Pellets owners, the Leibold family, offered to put up as collateral 50% of their shareholdings.
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in the news ■
“This revaluation of what was a non-collateralized bond brings about a risk-reduction for the investors and forms the basis for the planned adjustment of the interest rate, setting it at 5.25% for the extension period (compared to the existing 7.25%),” the company stated. The insolvency court could still consider elements of that plan. German Pellets stated that despite the current development in oil prices, the market opportunities for the pellet sector remain positive, citing market forecasts for global pellet demand to reach 49 million tonnes in 2019 (from 29 million in 2015).
Renewables Group Seeks Tight Policy The European renewables industry has weighed in on a call from the European Commission for input on an EU policy for sustainable bioenergy from 2020 to 2030. The Commission earlier announced it will present an improved EU policy for sustainable bioenergy for the period after 2020, as part of the revision of the renewable energy directive due by the end of 2016. This relates to the EU’s climate and energy targets for 2030, including cutting greenhouse gas emissions by 40% com-
pared to 2005, improving energy efficiency by at least 27% and increasing the share of renewable energy to at least a 27% in overall energy consumption. Elements of the European renewable industry have collectively presented 10 priorities while stating that the European Commission should propose an ambitious post2020 renewable energy package that fosters a vibrant home market with clear growth perspectives. The renewables consortium expressed cocnern that investment in renewable energy assets in the EU dropped by 18% in 2015. However, it noted that the recent Paris climate treaty signed by 195 governments provides a clear signal that highcarbon assets are not viable and that transition toward a renewablebased economy should be accelerated. “The EU has played a key role in brokering the Paris deal. Yet it needs to translate its climate leadership into domestic policy,” the renewables consortium said. The renewables consortium is calling for increased binding measures in legislation and regulation to ensure predictability for producers and investors. It says the Commission should propose ambitious mechanisms that protect and incentivise Member States to pledge hig-
her than 27% renewable. It says the Commission should offer a uniform template for climate and energy plans to ensure consistency and comparability among Member States. European Biomass Assn. (AEBIOM) is one of the signatories on the proposal, as are wind and solar representatives.
TEAM Safe Trucking: Elevate The Standard Enthusiasm is building for the ambitious plan of TEAM Safe Trucking (TST), a broad-based nonprofit group seeking to elevate the standard and performance of the American forest industry’s deeply troubled transportation sector, which organizers contend is the most serious problem confronting the wood fiber supply chain. TEAM Safe Trucking is developing a module program that will embrace awareness/education and intensely focus on driver training. It can be tweaked for use in different regions and sub-regions and will be available to those who have log/chip transportation operations or are exposed to such operations. Drawing on a $5,000 commitment from Forest/Loggers/Mauck Insurance Agencies, based in Newberry, Mich., along with other resources,
April 2016 / Wood Bioenergy
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■ in the news
the group expects to launch a web site by spring and have the program in gear by August. Now regional in scope, TST expects to expand its program nationwide as it secures additional funding through donations from stakeholders and from grants. Virginia Tech University has committed funds and a graduate student to conduct log/chip truck accident research, beginning later this year. The two-year study will help guide the project’s work going forward. Consisting of logging companies, paper/wood products manufacturers, truck and trailer manufacturers, insurance companies and logging and forestry association representatives, the organization aims to emulate the success of TEAM Fire, another cooperative effort created 20 years ago that eventually drove down logging equipment fire incidents and claims, lowered insurance premiums and helped make automatic fire suppression systems more affordable. TSI is guided by Rick Quagliaroli, owner of Swamp Fox Agency, Inc., an established South Carolina-based business that interfaces with forest industry interests in three states. According to him, many loggers and log truckers now do a commendable job but the industry’s trucking segment overall is performing poorly, resulting in increasing mishaps and multiple forms of costly, disruptive, traumatic fallout. This is forcing some truckers to the side of the road and causing some insurance providers to abandon the market. “TEAM Safe Trucking’s goal is to set a high standard for driver training and continuing education, and we’ll focus the training program specifically on hauling logs and chips,” Quagliaroli comments. “The program will be designed to help make the industry’s log and chip trucking segment safer and more efficient, and every party that has an interest in trucking will need to ‘buy in’ for it to be truly successful. It will take some time.
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in the news ■
For the good of the industry as a whole, we’re asking for support up and down the line.” For more information, e-mail or call Quagliaroli: rick@swampfoxagencyinc.net, 843-761-3999; or Jimmie Locklear: jlocklear@forestrymutual.com, 910-733-3300.
tation guidance to States. “EPA states in the preamble to the CPP that biomass is part of the solution in helping states meet their carbon-reduction goals yet provides no useful direction in draft guidance to states on how
they can include biomass as a compliance option,” says Dave Tenny, NAFO President and CEO. “In fact, EPA excludes biomass from much of the guidance while seeking public comment on unprecedented and potentially com-
EP UK Purchases Lynemouth Power EP UK Investments Ltd., a subsidiary of Energetický a průmyslový holding, a leading Central European energy group, is purchasing Lynemouth Power from RWE Supply & Trading GMBH. Lynemouth Power was a 420 MW coal fired station that is currently converting to biomass fuel, having received clearance from the EU. The UK Government intends to support the project in the form of a premium paid on top of the market price of the electricity generated (a so-called “Contract for Difference”). The project will receive aid until 2027 and will use approximately 1.5 million tonnes of wood pellets per year, mainly sourced from the U.S., Canada and Europe.
Euro Pellet Group Names Leadership European Pellet Council (EPC), which represents national pellet associations and related organizations from 17 countries, named new leadership. Eric Vial, Director of Propellet France, was appointed as EPC President. Didzis Palejs, Chairman of Latbio’s and AEBIOM’s boards, was named Vice President.
Forest Owners Want EPA Clarity On CPP National Alliance of Forest Owners (NAFO) is urging the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to clarify its policy on forest biomass as set out in the Clean Power Plan (CPP) in its implemen-
April 2016 / Wood Bioenergy
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■ in the news
plex sustainability and verification requirements that increase uncertainty among states. EPA now must clarify its guidance to the states to avoid confusion and jeopardize the ability of states to fully capture the carbon benefits of biomass energy under the CPP.” The science on the carbon neutrality of forest biomass is clear, according to Tenny: EPA’s “Carbon Pollution Emission Guidelines for Existing Stationary Sources: Electric Utility Generating Units,” also called the “Clean Power Plan,” was published in the Federal Register in mid-October. It has since temporarily stalled in the courts. According to EPA, the Clean Power Plan will reduce carbon pollution from the power sector by 32% (870 million tons less) by 2030, while reducing emissions of sulfur dioxide from power plants by 90% and nitrogen oxides by 72%. The Plan provides guidelines for the development, submittal and implementation of state plans, allowing renewable energy standards and programs as part of those plans. It also allows for “emissions trading” between states and power plants. The EPA plan cracks the door open for new forest biomass power generation as part of renewable energy considerations in the state plans, but doesn’t guarantee acceptance of biomass as carbon neutral. The Plan states, “While the EPA believes it is reasonable to consider generation from these fuels and technologies to be forms of RE generation, the fact that they can produce stack emissions containing CO2 means that a section plan seeking to permit use of such generation to serve as the basis for issuance of ERCs (emission rate credits) must include appropriate consideration of feedstock characteristics and climate benefits. Specifically, the use of some kinds of biomass has the potential to offer a wide range of environmental benefits, including carbon benefits. However these benefits can
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only be realized if biomass feedstocks are sourced responsibly and attributes of the carbon cycle related to the biomass feedstock are taken into account.” The Plan also states, “It is not scientifically valid to assume that all biogenic feedstocks are ‘carbon neutral’ and that the net biogenic CO2 atmospheric contribution of different biogenic feedstocks generally depends on various factors related to feedstock characteristics, production, processing and combustion practices.” The Plan adds that State plan submissions must describe the types of biomass that are being proposed and how those feedstocks can control increases of CO2 levels.
“low cost, easily deployable, dispatchable and sustainable solution” for lowering carbon emissions from coal power plants. The U.S. is already a major player in the industrial wood pellet sector, Strauss says. “But every
tonne of industrial wood pellets produced in the U.S. is shipped overseas. The U.S. could very easily suppy its own power stations with industrial pellets” while maintaining the integrity of the coal industry.
Consultant Says EPA Plan Is Foundation An internationally renown consultant to the wood-to-energy industry says the recently released EPA Clean Power Plan is a “rational and pragmatic off-ramp towards a more decarbonized future” and calls for those who oppose it to reconsider. Noting that the increase in carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere in recent decades is unprecedented in measurable geologic history, and even if there is justifiable debate over the timing of the impacts on oceans and climate, consultuant William Strauss of Future Metrics says the EPA Clean Power Plan is an official indicator that the U.S. has joined the global community with regard to compliance strategies and deployment to combat CO2 emissions. “Even those that are skeptics of the science should assess the risk of doing nothing,” Strauss says. “The Clean Power Plan is the foundation…but can the U.S. as a nation actually have a strategic plan for environmental stewardship?” Strauss adds—as he has stated earlier—that one action strategy in the U.S. would be to blend industrial wood pellets with coal as a
April 2016 / Wood Bioenergy
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Drax Biomass
Surging In The South By Rich Donnell
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pellets article â–
GLOSTER, Miss.
D
rax Biomass, a North American subsidiary of United Kingdom-based Drax Group, continues to fine-tune operation of its 450,000 metric tons annual production capacity wood pellet plant here, known as Amite BioEnergy, while a nearly identical Drax wood pellet plant at Bastrop, La., called Morehouse BioEnergy, is in a similar phase of production. Amite BioEnergy broke ground in 2013, produced its first pellet in December 2014 and was commissioned in August 2015. The plant has backed off some from production capacity as it continues to enhance the quality of its wood pellet while gradually turning back up the production volume.
Three lines from dry chip silo go to hammermill island.
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■ pellets article
The Gloster operation trucks its pellets—about 57 trailer loads daily at peak production—to Drax’s new Baton Rouge Transit LLC facility at the Port of Greater Baton Rouge, which is 60 miles south of Gloster. From the port, pellets are shipped to the UK ports of Tyne, Immingham or Hull and transported by rail to the Drax Power Station at the town of Selby in North Yorkshire, England, which is an hour’s ride from the east coast off the North Sea.
Background What Drax has accomplished in the UK and in the Southeast U.S. in less than five years is remarkable. A little history is in order. Drax Power Station, when it was built and started up with three boiler lines in 1974, was state-owned, and still was when it added three more boiler lines in 1986. Each of the coal-burning units had a capacity of 660 MW. Drax Power became not just the largest power station in the UK, but the last coal-fired power station to be built in the UK.
level to prove out the technology, the impact on boiler operations, heat rate and other efficiencies. The situation ramped up even more when the European Commission set forth the 2020 Climate & Energy Package, which became legislation in 2009, and which set three targets to be met by 2020: 20% cut in greenhouse gas emissions from 1990 levels; 20% of EU energy from renewable sources; and 20% improvement in energy efficiency. As these policy targets trickled down to the member states, the UK government was handed a 15% renewable sources target by 2020. Drax began looking at biomass in earnest and in 2012 announced it would pursue the total and sequential conversion of three of its boiler lines from coal to biomass fuel, including the installation of new raw material handling infrastructure—a whopping investment of more than $600 million. Drax has completed the conversion of two boiler lines and a third is operating primarily on biomass with a full conversion awaiting a green light from the European Commission. Drax has also announced a desire to pursue additional conversion. In 2015, Drax Power Station procured 5 million metric tons of wood pellets annually from a broad supply chain of countries and companies. Once the third unit is fully converted, this figure will rise to 7 million metric tons annually. Its two new Southeast U.S. plants will supply 900,000 metric tons when in full production.
Back In The U.S.
Primary CPM hammermills supported by exhaust air systems.
In 1990 the UK power sector became privatized and the Drax Power Station came under the ownership of National Power, one of the newly formed generating companies. Nearly a decade later, in 1999, National Power sold the plant to the American electrical power generator and distributor, AES, but regulatory challenges, a drop in wholesale electricity prices and resulting financial problems forced AES to walk away from Drax in 2003, leaving it to be restructured under the ownership of a number of financial institutions. In late 2005 Drax underwent refinancing and became publicly traded on the London Stock Exchange. The Kyoto Protocol in the 1990s started the momentum to fight global warming through the reduction of greenhouse gases. The UK and a number of other European governments signed on. As far back as 2003, Drax, seeing the writing on the wall, started experimenting with biomass and began co-firing at a limited
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At the same time that Drax committed to biomass at its UK power station, it also decided to invest in the upstream supply chain. One reason was to gain the security of supply that comes along with vertical integration; it also wanted to test out pellet manufacturing technology and develop a process to produce a consistent high quality pellet. Drax combed the Southern U.S. with the idea of placing facilities in established timber industry areas that had experienced decline and consolidation in the pulp and paper industry. Thus it would not be adding fiber consumption but replenishing a portion of what was lost, and meanwhile benefiting from an experienced logging, hauling and fiber procurement infrastructure. Each of the new Drax pellet plants would require about a million short tons of fiber at full production. Drax decided on Gloster and Bastrop, two areas heavily hit by paper mill contraction, both with abundant fiber supply inventory and favorable growth-to-drain ratios, and both with appealing timberland ownership proximity, ranging from a large landowner like Weyerhaeuser to a variety of family owned timberland operations. And as importantly, each community received Drax and its potential economic development with enthusiasm. From the outset Drax has made it a point to be active citizens in the communities and contribute to them whether
Wood Bioenergy / April 2016
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■ pellets article
Dieffenbacher dryer reduces moisture to 12%.
through donations to parks and recreation, libraries, schools, charitable fundraising efforts and in numerous other ways. Meanwhile Drax had settled on the Port of Greater Baton Rouge at Port Allen to build a new wood pellet receiving and shipping facility. It fit Drax’s needs perfectly for a deep water port capable of handling the large Panamax style cargo vessels and with rail and truck transportation. The pellet plants and the port facility would represent an impressive $350 million investment.
Amite Bioenergy Drax Biomass VP-Fiber Procurement, Rusty Booker, and Amite BioEnergy fiber procurement manager, Jason Spigner, a former logger, have pulled together the logging force, roughly 35 crews, to supply the mill at Gloster. The mill is designed to handle 80% pulpwood logs and 20% biomass chips (forest residuals) toward the 1 million tons demand at full capacity. That represents about 150 truckloads per day. However, today the mill is bringing in exclusively pine pulpwood for processing into chips on site. Booker notes they’ll ultimately bring in in-woods chips once the manufacturing process has been optimized. Actually the Morehouse facility may turn to in-woods residuals sooner than Amite because of more existing in-woods chipping capacity in that area. As is typical with the ebb and flow of most mill startups, along with pulp and paper mill outages and weather issues, the logging force has experienced some disruption, but Spigner manages those relationships and notes there’s a lot of capacity not being utilized and he’s anxious to see the supply base flex its muscle. MEGTEC RTO The Gloster plant is a fairly tight layout
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(compared to the more spread out Bastrop facility), but the flow was good when Wood Bioenergy visited in January. A Price LogPro 25 ton capacity crane unloads trucks and feeds the Price LogPro drum debarker line. Bark drops off and runs through a bark hog and is conveyed to the automated bark stackerreclaimer with 200,000 cu. ft. of storage. BRUKS Rockwood supplied the bark processing and handling equipment. (In fact BRUKS supplied the wood yard system also including the truck dump, rotary drum screen, chip stacker reclaimer and associated conveying equipment). From the stacker-reclaimer, the bark fuel moves to a Dieffenbacher furnace with flue gas recirculation for heating a Dieffenbacher drum dryer. Logs from the debarker move through an Andritz HHQ chipper, 132 in. diameter with 16 knives, running 315 RPM. It’s equipped with four 500 HP motors to produce 10 mm long chips with 2-3 mm thickness. It’s followed by an Andritz chipper surge bin and metering screw. Chips go on the belt weigher and then drop onto a conveyor and move up to the BRUKS chipper stacker reclaimer with 2 million cu. ft. of chip storage. From the pile, chips come on another belt weigher and go to an Andritz CS1000 gyratory chip screen for oversize removal, followed by two Andritz HQ sizers (re-sizers) for reducing oversized chips based on thickness to approximately 3 mm. Chips go to a Dieffenbacher wet chip silo with reclaim screw and a storage volume of 7,660 cu. ft. Chips come in at 50% moisture content to the Dieffenbacher rotary dryer and leave at 12% MC. The gas exhaust from the dryer is treated by a B&W MEGTEC wet ESP and MEGTEC CleanSwitch RTO for VOC removal. Material from the dryer moves up a BRUKS conveyor (BRUKS supplied the dry side chain conveyors)
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Price LogPro crane and drum debarker
supply one cooler). After cooling, the pellets are discharged onto Rotex screens to remove the fines and then conveyed to the top of one of two ACT load-out silos. Western Pneumatics supplied all of the components and ducting for the air systems for the hammermills and cooling process. Firefly spark detection and extinguishing zones begin just after the dryers and are located throughout the process risk zones all the way to load-out. Firefly multi gas detectors (MGDs) are placed inside the storage silos at Amite and the port. Each pellet silo has 1665 tons of storage capacity. The design calls for loading out of one silo while filling in the other, which provides pellets more time to cure and cool. Material coming out of the bottom of the silos is screened yet again for fines before going to truck load-out. All of the screened out fines at the pellet mills and at load-out are recycled back into the process. The mill performs various tests on its materials for durability, moisture content, particle distribution and other properties. “We want to make the pellet with the smallest particle size we can so that when they get it over there (in the UK) and grind it up, it burns with very little ash,” comments plant engineer Tommy Taylor. “We have all kinds of lab tests, but after you get experienced with a pellet mill there is a lot of look, touch and feel to see what you’ve got.” Taylor says they currently use a 6 mm pellet die and are experimenting with chamber lengths between 48 to 56 mm to identify optimal production conditions. Alex Swift is the plant manager at Amite BioEnergy, overseeing a workforce of 55. The Morehouse Bioenergy operation employs a similar number.
into a Hoffman dry chip silo with a Laidig screw and reclaimer system that sends chips to three hammermill lines. Each of three hammermill stations has two CPMRoskamp HM 5448 hammermills for a total of six hammermills. After the feeder distributes the chips across the width of the system, the chips pass through the air density separator that assists in removing uncrushable foreign material. The 54 in. diameter rotor in the hammermill reduces chips to a nominal less than 5 mm particle size with a majority being less than 3 mm. Material drops onto a BRUKS drag chain and is bound for one of two Hoffman dry fiber silos. Three Rotex screens remove properly sized material while oversize material is conveyed to three secondary CPM-Roskamp hammermills. Material from the secondary hammermills and material that bypassed them then come together. Each stream of fiber (three lines) goes through a CPM pre-conditioner for the addition of water to ensure proper moisture for pelleting, and then the material is conveyed to CPM ripening bins that allow the moisture that was added to homogenize before entering the pelletizer. (At each of three vertical stack pellet production stations, you have a pre-conditioner feeding two ripening silos, with each ripening silo feeding two CPM pellet mills, for a total of four pellet mills at each station, making 12 pellet mills in all.) The CPM gear driven pellet mills are equipped with 450 HP motors and will produce 5 MTPH of finished pellets. The dies are 32 in. inside diameter with a 5 in. wide track. Two rolls, which are greased with an auto lube system, compress the fiber through the dies. The vertical stack design helps to limit pellet handling prior to cooling, resulting in a more durable pellet that is less likely to break down during the transportation process. The pellet mills are equipped with hinged doors for easy access along with a pneumatic hoist for maintenance. The 6 mm diameter pellets are discharged diBRUKS Rockwood chip stacker reclaimer rectly into the top of CPM coolers (two pellet mills
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Andritz re-sizers for oversized chip reduction at Gloster
Port Facility
the rail car unload, and pellets pass underneath an Eriez magnet. Sensors detect any hot material. Material 140° and above will shut down the process. They prefer that the temperature not exceed 130° by much. Firefly IR detectors are located in all the transfer towers (between conveyor belts) and at the inlets into the silos. If necessary, there are three fire dumps along the way, with everything on the belt going on the ground. Pellets are programmed to move into one of two 40,000 metric ton domes designed by Dome Technology and ES2 (Engineering Systems Solutions). Inside the domes an Integris temperature control system monitors the pellets as they’re stored. Fifty-two cables with 411 sensors hang from the ceiling and provide feedback on temperature and conditions. Each dome has multiple fans to help cool pellets and control the heat. The domes are currently implementing Laidig cleaning/sweeping reclaimers for forwarding the pellets. Conveyors come out from underneath the domes to one outbound conveyor, which brings pellets to the water side belt conveyor that runs parallel to the river and transfers pellets up into the hopper at the BRUKS traveling, shuttling, luffing ship loader. The loader has 520 ft. of travel and can hit all seven holes on a Panamax with its spout, which has 82 ft. of line. The system can load a vessel at 1200 metric tons an hour.
Baton Rouge Transit LLC, a Drax subsidiary, can process 2 million metric tons of pellets per year and load and ship 40 cargo vessels per year. The facility made its first shipment in April 2015. Initially, as it started up, it was bringing in pellets from third party suppliers, but currently it’s all Drax pellets. Drax contracts with Host Terminals for port operations, with Brian Taylor as Terminal Manager. Drax owns the storage and handling equipment, but leases the land from the Port of Greater Baton Rouge. Power Station The facility receives trucks from the Gloster mill and Once pellets arrive at the UK ports, they travel on rail cars from the Bastrop facility. Drax has streamlined specially designed Drax rail cars to the Drax Power Stathe port road and entry infrastructure for incoming trucks. tion. Drax pellets are often aggregated with third-party A truck driver drives into the unload building, scans the pellets at the port facilities and at the power station storticket he received at the mill, verifies the information, the age domes. conveyor system starts and he opens his two hoppers. It’s Drax invested heavily to streamline taking the driver an average of seven pellet handling infrastructure at its UK minutes from driving in to leaving, power station, from the special trains to though they’ve gone as low as under rail unloading, to screening, storage five minutes. domes, transfer tower, more screening Rail cars come in by Union Pacific and then feeding into the boiler house, from Morehouse in 45-car trains. They where pellets are pulverized back into sit outside the port until they’re brought wood fuel for the boilers. Drax Biomass in and set up on the Drax tracks. They Director of Communications and Policy, all unload in seven to eight hours, well David Malkin, comments, “Apart from below the required 12 hour window. The just the massive investment, what is cars advance one at a time through the most noteworthy is that in the process of unloading pit, and the four bottom hopconverting those boilers to run on 100% pers in each car open and unload the pelbiomass, we were able to make technical lets, about 1,000 metric tons an hour. modifications to greatly minimize any The facility is designed to receive a impact on efficiency and (power) plant combined 1600 metric tons per hour beoutput.” tween truck and rail car deliveries. Drax He adds that one of the benefits Drax is awaiting the construction of a chamsupplies to the UK is flexible output, as bering yard to support its contracted 80each unit can ramp up or down to becar trains. tween 200 MW and 645 MW. Two conveyors from the truck buildCPM ripening bin above pellet mills “As the UK makes that transition to ing converge on a main conveyor from
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Terminal Manager Brian Taylor
Pellets unload from rail car
Firefly IR detector during pellet movement
One of two Drax pellet storage domes at the port facility
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BRUKS-Rockwood traveling loader can handle all vessels.
Pellets are loaded into one of the ship holes.
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Tedrick Ratcliff, executive VP of Mississippi Forestry Assn., at left, checks pellets with Tommy Taylor, Drax plant engineer.
15% renewable generation, a lot of that is coming from wind and some solar; that generation is intermittent, it can’t be dispatched,” Malkin explains. “So you’ve got to have some baseload generation in place that can be ramped up and down on short notice to balance that intermittency. We would argue that this is one of the major value propositions of the Drax Power Station in addition to its contribution to the UK’s overall renewable energy generation.”
Environmental The Drax Power Station accounts for 7-8% of total UK electricity demand, and of all the UK renewable electricity generated in the UK last year, Drax accounted for 12%. Malkin adds, “When you look at the carbon emissions reductions we’ve been able to achieve with these three (boiler) conversions, it’s an 86% reduction.” This includes any greenhouse gas emissions associated with the manufacturing of wood pellets by Drax Biomass and any of its other pellet suppliers, and the transport of these wood pellets. “We have a large number of controls in place and are subject to a number of regulatory regimes from the UK and elsewhere in Europe that assures that’s the case,” he adds. Malkin notes that the 86% reduction in the Drax carbon footprint stems from the assumption that biomass is carbon neutral. “It’s carbon neutral provided that it’s sourced from sustainably managed working forests in which the forest cover is stable or increasing,” he says. Sustainability is a cornerstone of the business, says David James, sustainability manager, and there are many pieces to the puzzle. When it comes to forest management certification on the ground in North America, there’s the Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI), American Tree Farm System for family forest landowners, and Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) programs. James stays on top of the developments in these certification programs, and communicates with managers and procurement on the collection of data and monitoring activities. Drax has received SFI and PEFC chain of custody cer-
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tifications, as audited by NSF, as well as FSC chain of custody and controlled wood certifications, as audited by SCS Global Services. These certifications cover fiber sourcing, as well as the manufacturing, distribution and sale of wood
pellets across Drax Biomass operations. Right now, Drax is on the verge of gaining its Sustainable Biomass Partnership certification. SPB is a certification scheme for large-scale Europe-based energy producers
using woody biomass such as pellets and chips. It basically provides assurance that woody biomass is sourced from legal and sustainable sources, while also standardizing data inputs for calculation of greenhouse gas emissions Sustainability regulation in Europe has mainly been a memberstate-by-state basis, James notes, and there’s concern that the situation could become unwieldy. Also, the European Commission is embarking on the development of a biomass sustainability policy. To get in front of all that, the Euro generator companies banded together and formed SPB. “It is flexible enough to allow a regional risk based approach,” James says. “If you look at Drax and the range of countries from which we source, you can see why we believe that is the best approach.” As confusing as the multiple certification programs can be, James comments, “I like the competition that goes on. Best practices come out of it. Some things have been simplified through stakeholder engagement.”
Headquarters In 2014 Drax Biomass established North America headquarters in Atlanta, Ga. In March 2015 it named Peter Madden as CEO. Madden, whose career began in forestry, had most recently served as the vice president of Renewable Energy and Supply Chain for Plum Creek Timber, which is a major fiber supplier to the Drax pellet plants. Director of Communications and Policy Malkin is also based in Atlanta along with more than 30 other Drax personnel. Malkin comments that another reason the business has been vertically integrated is to identify other new business opportunities. “One of the things we’ve been able to prove out is that biomass works,” Malkin says. “It can be cost effective relative to other sources of renewable generation. There are other business opportunities out there.”
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â– biomass power
Dominion
Branches Out By Jessica Johnson
Cutline
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HOPEWELL, Va. know how much material you have in the pile, so you rior to coming on-line as a biomass conversion faknow how much generation capability you have at any cility, there were periods when Dominion Power given moment, so from a control perspective and a relionly operated its Hopewell station approximately ability perspective, biomass is far ahead of the others.” 20% of the time. Originally designed to use coal, conversion to biomass was completed in 2013 and now the 51 Conversion Challenges MW facility is scheduled to run over 80% of the time. The ability to generate more reliable, renewable Following the conversion finalization, there have power for its retail customers was a big driving force been some growing pains, sure, but Johnson says that behind the $165 million conversion project that began overall the facility is working fairly well. He adds that in 2011, Dominion media spokesman Dan Genest exthe biggest challenges have been on the combustion plains. The project took three identical coal facilities loside of generation. cated around Virginia—Hopewell, Altavista and “Initially we had a lot of problems with fuel quality Southampton, called “The Triplets”—and converted and fuel quantity; the first winter was pretty weak. We them to firing biomass. The conversions are helping ended up taking material that had been stockpiled and Dominion meet Virginia’s voluntary Renewable Portfolio Standard, which calls for 15% of generation to be from renewable resources by 2025. The Triplets were all built around the same time period, and in July 1992 Hopewell began commercial operations as a coal-fired plant. Dominion purchased the plant in 2003, and finished the conversion process 10 years later. Originally, all three facilities were built to be cogeneration plants, providing steam for various industries and selling Dominion the electricity. As time went on, each facility lost the steam host and industry it was affiliated with. Add in the fact that each design was not very efficient, and Dominion made The facility brings in 80 truckloads daily. the choice not to run them very often after completing the purchase. exposed to the elements, with debris in it and that gave Hopewell was put into cold storage for five years. us a lot of trouble,” he explains. Winter operations are Genest explains that even after Hopewell was tough, as Hopewell is in a part of Virginia that gets restarted, it still wasn’t running more than 50% of the some snow, but not too large of an amount, so properly time. Largely due to EPA regulations on coal-firing facontrolling the wood yard was a learning curve. cilities, Dominion started looking down the road at the During the first year and a half of operation, carbon rules that were coming, and it just made sense to Hopewell struggled with the in-woods infrastructure in convert the facilities. Hopewell went from being miniplace to supply the facility. Johnson says that now most mally used for decades to operating at full capacity in a kinks have been worked out, and it is better than it has matter of three years. been, but it did take a lot of work on both sides. Genest says, “We’re getting more generation out of Currently, Dominion does not have any contract logthem and that helps our customers. It plays a very imgers, nor does it purchase high amounts of gatewood. Inportant role in our company, even though they are relastead, the facility has a contract with a “fuel aggregator” tively small units. Dominion believes strongly that we who secures the needed wood using its own network. For can serve our customers more efficiently and reliably The Triplets, Enviva Biomass acts as fuel aggregator. by having a good fuel mix, by not putting all our eggs Under the contract with Envivia, Dominion has the in one basket. ” ability to self-supply the plant with up to 10% of the Dominion Manager Operations and Maintenance, needed material. “We did that for a couple of reasons,” Norm Johnson, echoes Genest, saying, “If the wind is Johnson says, “To not have our eggs all in one basket blowing, you’re generating, if the sun is shining, you’re and to keep a hand in the business.” It came in handy generating. Those things you can’t control. But you can the first winter of operation, when Dominion had to use control how much solid fuel you put in a unit. You
P
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Control room operator gets an eye-full.
Norm Johnson, left, and Doug Henshaw
its 10% to bring the wood yard volume to levels where it was comfortable for operation. Another point on the learning curve for Dominion at startup was inventory reconciliation on the materials side. On average the wood yard keeps only 10 days worth of material. Due to a smaller parcel of land, the wood yard is tight and must run very efficiently. During start-up, as machinery was being installed and worked on, the facility could not run a full load of fuel, though it told producers it needed that much—and all of a sudden the facility would be flooded with chips. Operations Manager Doug Henshaw says it was quite a balance. “The fuel yard would be full and we’d be off-line with some kind of problem. We’d get the problem fixed, run full blow and they couldn’t keep up.” Now that the start up is complete, most of the operational issues have tapered down, and communication between the producers, fuel aggregators and facility has greatly improved. Johnson says, “We’re getting better all the time. In 2016, I anticipate the 80-85% capacity range.” He does have one point of the process that is still unresolved, handling ash byproduct. The initial strategy was to supply it to local farmers as a lime substitute, and Johnson says there is still strong interest in it, but Hopewell has not developed that infrastructure yet. For now, ash is taken to the local landfill.
over tub grinding. “ We can use grinded material successfully,” he explains, “but they (fuel suppliers) really have to keep their eyes on it and make sure it’s clean. Dirt contaminate will give us boiler and ash issues.” He reports seeing ash roll-off use go from two per day to anywhere from seven to nine, all thanks to quality issues with the fuel. Hopewell accepts both hardwood and pine. Henshaw points out the difficult nature of processing hardwood grinds, specifically: “It has a better BTU value, but it is so much harder on the system. Our guys are watching constantly if we get grinds.” Due to the amazingly abrasive nature of dirt to chutes, Johnson and Henshaw both prefer the cleanest chips possible. Johnson comments, “The thing I’ve noticed on the chips, if you get someone who really knows what they are doing, you will see them take the knuckleboom and when they pick up a load, shake it the whole time they are bringing it over to the chipper, shaking the dirt out. I asked the guy who I saw doing that, he says he gets three times as much life out of his chipper knives as others who don’t do that. So he was looking at it from knife life and we’re looking at it from the boiler.” Henshaw comments that a limited footprint for fuel forced them to get creative with storage solutions. “What we find is that, if we were removing material from another place on the yard, you have to have 20° separation from the stacker; you’re limited Wood Yard Operations to how much of the pile you can work with The facility burns roughly 600,000 tons at one time. Our average on fuel is only 10 of in-woods chipped biomass per year, days, or two-thirds of the pile. One area we composed mainly of waste wood from are receiving and one area we are taking roundwood logging crews. While Johnson away, all the time,” he says. “It’s a nice and Henshaw believe most of the problems giant air freshener for the area.” from startup with the wood yard are beAt any given time, Hopewell has 15 hind them, that particular area of the faciltrucks coming off the road that are turned ity still demands a lot of attention. around within 30 minutes by contract with Hopewell’s fuel aggregators draw the suppliers. Henshaw says that with wood from a 100 mile radius, and the faeverything going smoothly, the BRUKS cility consumes approximately 80 trucktippers take between 12-17 minutes to unloads per day. Johnson says it is preferload after passing Kanawha scales. Hopewell burns 600,000 tons of chips annually. able to take in-woods chipped material Magnetic conveyors provided by Eriez
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Manufacturing/Adams Brothers take accepted fuel from the tippers to the BRUKS stacker-reclaimer.
with rotating screw on the bottom taking material on a drag chain conveyor. From the storage bin, material drops into chutes to one of 12 individual feed screws. Six Power Generation feed screws power each When converting the faboiler. ProcessBarron procility from coal-firing, Dovided the wood silo screw minion made the choice to system, drag chain, meter retain the dry scrubbers and screws and feeders. West emissions control devices, Salem Machinery supplied with bag houses removing the hammermill, with TPI particulate. By continuing to BRUKS supplied truck tippers, stacker-reclaimer and supplying the conveyor belts. associated wood yard equipment for the three converted run the dry scrubbers and Hopewell makes use of two spray water into the flue gas, Dominion facilities. smaller B&W boilers on one Hopewell was able to greatly reduce the amount of lime Mitsubishi turbine and an Alstom generator. During the used. Johnson reports that lime is used periodically in switch from coal, Dominion was able to convert and very nominal amounts, to help protect the bag houses, maintain use of the rotating grate style boilers it previby dropping the temperature. ously had, with the only change being to the air feed. As Henshaw says in the past, the facility used about 100 an added bonus, the smaller boilers are better for biomass tons of lime per month and now they are down to three Henshaw believes. Everything in the facility is under the watchful eye of or less. Henshaw and Plant Manager Ed Merecks. Cameras in the A converted coal silo acts as Hopewell’s storage bin
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control room allow operators (and management) to monitor operations throughout the plant. Henshaw says of the control room operators, “We have genius in there.” Hopewell employs a total of 35, with an annual payroll of $3 million. Of the 35 employees, 33 of them are North American Energy Services (NAES) employees, including Merecks and Henshaw. It is a simple contract relationship; Dominion owns the facility and NAES staff operates it. Each of Dominion’s Triplets have this same contract with NAES.
Scheduled Maintenance Hopewell has concentrated a lot of annual PM maintenance time on the stacker-reclaimer system, truck tippers’ cyclinders and wood screws. Henshaw says thanks to some “surprises” during the conversion, maintenance schedules were forced to change intervals and a few pieces of equipment needed to be rotated out as well. For example, the wood screw in the silo should get six months worth of use. Henshaw reports the first one ran for six months with no problem, but the second one installed only lasted for three. “We expect six months, but it’s doing better, it is a learning curve to get better life out of things,” he explains. Hopewell has three mechanics on staff, but since the small staff is already stretched with daily operations, contractors are brought in to handle most maintenance.
Safety So far, the Hopewell station has worked 6,000 days without an OSHA incident or lost-time injury. Since it has been converted to biomass it has not had any trouble. Company wide, Dominion’s top priority is safety. Before any job begins, employees attend a safety briefing, detailing how to perform the job and how to make it as safe as possible. As part of the NAES safety strategy, employees conduct peer reviews to observe how safely they are working and record each other’s progress. The management team is required to do two or more per month; techs are required to do one. As part of these reviews, employees are also required to report near misses. Henshaw says it can be difficult, and viewed as negative to say, “I almost got hurt here,” but when you start paying attention to those things and removing the obstacles, then you really start getting better at safety. Overall, he says, near miss reporting, coupled with the peer reviews, have really shifted the employees into a much more aggressive stance on safety.
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The Most Important One Yet! T
he fourth Wood Bioenergy Conference & Expo features eight keynoters, 30 technical session presenters and 70 exhibitors. Hosted by Wood Bioenergy magazine, it will be held April 5-6 in the Grand Ballroom North of the Omni Hotel at CNN Center in downtown Atlanta, Georgia, USA. “Our lineup of keynoters and speakers, and world-class exhibitors is the best we’ve had,” comments Rich Donnell, co-chairman of the event and also editor-in-chief of Wood Bioenergy magazine. “There are lots of bioenergy events going on, and some are larger than ours, but frankly we go for the best quality. Our focus is totally on wood energy. And we’re located in the hub of it all.”
Donnell adds that the industry is at an important point in its development, as most countries worldwide have been able to address how they want to participate in emissions reduction and renewable energy. “But now it’s gut-check time,” Donnell says. “Who is going to commit long-term with the kind of real policy and implementation that withstand the political winds of the day?” On the following pages are summaries of the conference keynoters, the timeline agenda of speakers and presentations, the exhibitors’ list, and the breakdown of exhibitor sponsorship by their Gold, Silver and Bronze levels of support.
ATTENDEE REGISTRATION: WWW.BIOENERGYSHOW.COM OR E-MAIL: ASHLEY@HATTONBROWN.COM
KEYNOTERS EUROPEAN PELLET MARKETS: WHERE TO NOW? —Dr. Cormac O’ Carroll, Director, London Office, Pöyry Management Consulting The growth of the worldwide wood pellet industry has come to a point where regulatory implementation can enhance or stall the continued development of the industry. Cormac’s presentation will review the impact of recent regulatory changes on European pellet markets as well as providing a perspective on pellet supply, demand and pricing, and possible trends into the future.
BENDING THE CURVE: WOOD PELLETS AND THE FUTURE OF ENERGY —John Keppler, President and CEO, Enviva Family of Companies Where do wood pellets fit in a fast-changing energy landscape and what should we do to propel our industry’s continuing growth? John Keppler, President and CEO of Enviva, suggests steps that will create new opportunities for wood pellets in the years ahead. Enviva owns and operates six wood pellet plants that are strategically located in the Southeastern U.S. and produce 2.2 million metric tons of wood pellets annually.
EXPANDING THE FOREST SECTOR TENT: THE ROLE OF WOOD-TO-ENERGY —Carlton Owen, President & CEO, U.S. Endowment for Forestry and Communities Just since 1990 North America has lost more than 40% of its pulp and paper mills and perhaps a third of its sawmills. These losses reverberate through the one-third of the U.S. blanketed by forests where forest product manufacturing jobs have long been foundational to community stability and family-wage jobs. Without robust markets America’s forest owners—both public and private—have diminished tools with which to ensure their lands are kept as forests and that they are healthy and productive. One of the few bright spots in recent years has been the emergence of the wood-to-energy sector. Pellet manufacturers have provided much needed jobs and markets for low-value wood. If America is to remain the wood basket of the world and if the forest sector is to maintain its economic position, it is vital that the U.S. grows the range of sustainable products that flow from its bountiful forests.
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KEYNOTERS POISED FOR GROWTH: NEW OPPORTUNITIES IN THE BIOMASS ENERGY SECTOR —Pete Madden, President and CEO, Drax Biomass Pete will share insights gained from his company’s unique position within Drax Group, a vertically integrated biomass energy company responsible for Europe’s largest decarbonization project. He will also discuss recent developments in the industrial pellet manufacturing sector—notably around sustainability, logistics and the arrival of new market participants—and how those developments are positioning the sector to take advantage of new opportunities created by shifting energy policies.
COAL REPLACEMENT WITH BIOMASS: HOW ONTARIO DISPLACED COAL AND CREATED NEW SUPPLY CHAINS TO REINVIGORATE THE FORESTRY SECTOR —Brent Boyko, Senior Manager Business Development, Ontario Power Generation Ontario Power Generation (OPG) is proud of the fact that its Atikokan Biomass Conversion (ABC), which ran on coal from 1985 to 2012, is the largest 100% biomass fired electricity generating station in North America—redeveloping not only this publicly owned asset, but starting a local supply chain with the commercial contracts for two new pellet plants to fuel the station. OPG’s Thunder Bay Generation station entered commercial operation in January 2015 on advanced biomass. This is the world’s first 100% substitution of coal to an advanced biomass fuel source.
WOOD-BASED BIOENERGY: AN UPDATE FOR NORTH AMERICA —Dr. Richard Vlosky, Director, Louisiana Forest Products Development Ceter Over the past decade, renewable energy has become a prominent part of North American policies, programs and even mandates. Wood-based bioenergy is potentially an integral part of the renewable energy portfolio. However, the reality has been a mix of great anticipation as well as significant disappointment with where wood fits into the renewable equation. Rich’s presentation will cover an overview of where wood currently stands in addition to a discussion of successes, challenges, pitfalls and the overall reality of the future.
BIOMASS POWER IN ARIZONA —Brad Worsley, President/CEO, Novo Power Building a biomass power plant in Arizona was an endeavor that would only have been undertaken by an entrepreneur like Bob Worsley, father of Brad Worsley. Along with a vision, he showed tremendous resolve as the facility persevered through the economic collapse of 2008, changes in ownership, fuel shortages, plant performance issues, PPA renewals, major shifts in renewable power markets, and the implementation of the largest landscape scale restoration project on a national forest (4FRI) to create and run what is now a very successful biomass powered power plant. The future holds as much uncertainty as did the past but through perseverance, investment and grit, Novo Power is optimistic about sustaining a life for biomass power in Arizona for the next several decades.
FROM THE FOREST FLOOR TO ELECTRIC ENERGY —Norman Johnson, Manager Operations and Maintenance for the Contract Managed Assets, Dominion Power Deciding to convert a coal-fired plant to wood involves more than engineering a boiler retrofit. It starts with confirming that a sufficient fuel supply exists and extends through new factors ranging from fuel acquisition and management to ash conditioning and re-use. Norm’s presentation will discuss the experiences of obtaining, storing, combusting and lastly managing ash of biomass (forest residuals) at a former coal-fired power plant.
April 2016 / Wood Bioenergy
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APRIL 5-6, 2016 Omni Hotel at CNN Center Atlanta, GA, USA
TUESDAY APRIL 5
11:00-11:20 a.m. Second Generation Solid Biofuels and Steam Explosion —Ryan Davis, Technical Manager, Zilkha Biomass Energy
EXHIBITORS/ATTENDEES BREAKFAST 7:15-8:15 a.m. MORNING KEYNOTERS SESSION (ROOMS B-C) 8:30-8:35 a.m. Welcoming Remarks and Keynoters Introduction —Rich Donnell, Conference Co-Chairman; Editor-in-Chief, Wood Bioenergy magazine 8:40-9:00 a.m. European Pellet Markets: Where to Now? —Dr. Cormac O’Carroll, Director, London Office, Pöyry Management Consulting 9:05-9:25 a.m. Bending the Curve: Wood Pellets and the Future of Energy —John Keppler, President and CEO, Enviva Family of Companies 9:30-9:50 a.m. Expanding the Forest Sector Tent: The Role of Wood-to-Energy —Carlton Owen, President & CEO, U.S. Endowment for Forestry and Communities
11:25-11:45 a.m. Why Gasify, When You Could Pyrolyse? —Russell Burnett, Director and CTO, Applied Gaia Corp.
PROJECTS & OPERATION (Room B) 10:35-10:55 a.m. High Volume Pellet Projects: Through a Drone’s Eyes —Desmond Smith, Manager, West Coast Office, USA, BRUKS 11:00-11:20 a.m. Value Creation Through Engineering —Jeff Stephens, Senior Project Manager & V.P., Mid-South Engineering 11:25-11:45 p.m. Emerging Trends in Technology Solutions for Improving Operational Performance —Bijan Shams, President, Cogent Industrial Technologies
CHIP CHIP HOORAY! FROM THE WOODS TO THE WOOD YARD PART I
TIME OUT WITH EXHIBITORS 10:00-10:30 a.m.
(Room C)
CONCURRENT SESSIONS (Rooms A-B-C)
PRODUCTS & TECHNOLOGIES PART I (Room A) 10:35-10:55 a.m. The Current Status and Future Challenges of Torrefaction Technology. —Andrew Johnson, Vice President, TSI
10:35-10:55 a.m. Customizing Your Procurement to the Resource —Rusty Booker, Vice PresidentFiber Procurement, Drax Biomass 11:00-11:20 a.m. Getting into Fuelwood Chipping —Deck Trevitt, Principal, Woodland Improvements
11:25-11:45 a.m. Increasing the Market for Your Wood Fuel Product by Producing a Quality Product, While Maximizing the Efficiency of Your Wood Fuel Harvesting Operation —Jerry Morey, President, Bandit Industries 11:50-12:10 p.m. Optimize Your Worksite Efficiencies With A Tipper —Joseph Canova, Vice President – Global Sales, Columbia Industries, LLC EXHIBITORS/ATTENDEES LUNCH 12:10-1:30 p.m. AFTERNOON KEYNOTERS SESSION (ROOMS B-C) 1:35-1:40 p.m. Remarks and Introductions —Dan Shell, Managing Editor, Wood Bioenergy magazine 1:45-2:05 p.m. Poised for Growth: New Opportunities in the Biomass Energy Sector —Pete Madden, President and CEO, Drax Biomass 2:10-2:30 p.m. Coal Replacement with Biomass: How Ontario Displaced Coal and Created New Supply Chains to Reinvigorate the Forestry Sector —Brent Boyko, Senior Manager Business Development, Ontario Power Generation TIME OUT WITH EXHIBITORS 2:40-3:00 p.m. CONCURRENT SESSIONS (Rooms A-B-C)
PRODUCTS & TECHNOLOGIES PART II (Room A)
3:05-3:25 p.m. Biocoal Production with CarbonFX Technology: A First Commercial Plant —Sylvain Bertrand, Directeur General/CEO, AIREX Énergie Inc.
3:30-3:50 p.m. A 1st and 2nd Generation Combined White Wood Pellet and Torrefied Wood Production Facility in Canada —Jerry Ericsson, President, DIACARBON Energy Inc.
DUST CONTROL & SAFETY (Room B)
3:05-3:25 p.m. Dust Collection Design and Maintenance —Ben Kice, System Designer and South East Regional Sales Manager, Kice Industries, Inc. 3:30-3:50 p.m. How to Reduce Risks of Combustible Dust: New Standards, New Technologies —Jordan Newton, Vice President of Engineering, SonicAire/IES 3:55-4:15 p.m. Prevention of Fires and Dust Explosions within the Biomass/Pellet Industry —Mikael Jidenius, Area Sales Manager, North America, Firefly AB 4:20-4:40 p.m. Proven Fire Protection Systems for the Wood Bioenergy Industry —Jeff Nichols, Managing Partner, Industrial Fire Prevention
CHIP CHIP HOORAY! FROM THE WOODS TO THE WOOD YARD PART II (Room C)
3:05-3:25 p.m. Creating New Opportunities for Product Diversification and Growth in the Forestry Industry —Michael Stanton, Regional Sales Manager, Morbark, Inc. 3:30-3:50 p.m. Generating a Raw Material Supply for a New Wood Pellet Plant —Keith Middleton, Procurement Manager, Fram Renewable Fuels, L.L.C. 3:55-4:15 p.m. Logging Growth with Renewable Energy —Stephen Tucker, Principal, Tidewater Land and Timber 4:20-4:40 p.m. Mobile Chippers for Energy & Micro-Chips —René van der Merwe, Sales Manager North America, Bruks EXHIBITORS/ATTENDEES SOCIAL 5-7 p.m.
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WEDNESDAY APRIL 6
TIME OUT WITH EXHIBITORS 10:10-10:30 a.m. CONCURRENT SESSIONS (Rooms A-B-C)
BREAKFAST WITH EXHIBITORS 7:15-8:15 A.M. MORNING KEYNOTERS SESSION (ROOMS B-C) 8:30-8:35 a.m. Welcoming Remarks and Keynoters Introduction —Fred Kurpiel, Conference CoChairman 8:40-9:00 a.m. Wood-Based Bioenergy: An Update for North America —Dr. Richard Vlosky, Director, Louisiana Forest Products Development Center 9:05-9:25 a.m. Biomass Power in Arizona: Novo Power and the Future —Brad Worsley, President/CEO, Novo Power 9:30-9:50 a.m. From the Forest Floor to Electric Energy —Norman Johnson, Manager Operations and Maintenance for the Contract Managed Assets, Dominion Virginia Power
DRYING & HANDLING TECHNOLOGIES (Room A) 10:35-10:55 a.m. Drying Performance with Wet Fuel Combustion —Tyler Player, Principal, Player Design, Inc. 11:00-11:20 a.m. Total Solution Moisture Control for a Wood Pellet Mill —John Robinson, Principal; Roger Douglas, Director of Engineering; Drying Technology, Inc. 11:25-11:45 a.m. Proper Engineering and the Choice of Material Handling Machinery —Dane Floyd, President, Biomass Engineering and Equipment
EPA & BIOMASS (Room B) 10:35-10:55 a.m. From the Tailoring Rule to State Implementation Plans: The EPA’s Evolving Position on Biomass —Carrie Annand, Vice President of External Affairs, Biomass Power Association 11:00-11:20 a.m. Long-Term Forecast for Bioenergy Demand—US EPA’s Recent Curve Ball and How to React —Wes Younger, Managing Consultant, Trinity Consultants
AIR EMISSIONS CONTROL
11:00-11:20 a.m. Reducing RTO Annual Fuel Costs with Fine-Tuning Features —Rodney Pennington, VP of Key Accounts, NESTEC, Inc. 11:25-11:45 p.m. Meeting EPA Emission Standards with Cyclones —Mike Clark, PE, Regional Sales Manager, Fisher-Klosterman Emtrol LUNCH WITH EXHIBITORS 12:10-1:30 p.m. CASH PRIZE DRAWINGS 1:15 p.m. EXHIBITOR BREAKDOWN 1:30 p.m.
(Room C) 10:35-10:55 a.m. Dual-Biophase Bio-Oxidation—A Green, Energy-Efficient Approach to VOC and HAP Emission Destruction —Nathan Hess, Applications Engineer, Process Combusion
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EXHIBITORS LIST
A-LERT Construction & Services.508 AAA Cooper Transportation Bulk Service ...........................................217 Acrowood..........................................307 AGRA Industries.............................309 AGRICO Sales.................................315 Airoflex Equipment & Wolf Material Handling Systems........................205 Alabama Department of Commerce ................................303 ALBACH North America ..............117 Amandus Kahl USA ......................406 Andritz .............................................208 Babcock & Wilcox MEGTEC .......616 Bandit Industries ............................105 Basic Machinery Company ...........610 Biomass Engineering & Equipment ...............................414 Bliss Industries ................................513
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BRUKS Rockwood .........................202 Brunette Machinery ........................204 Canadian Biomass magazine ........404 CECO Environmental ....................517 Cogent Industrial Technologies ....213 Columbia Industries .......................203 Con-Vey Keystone ..........................209 Consolidated Mill Supplies ............506 CPM .................................................109 DI PIU ..............................................515 Dieffenbacher Zaisenhausen .........519 Dieffenbacher USA ........................103 Drying Technology .........................516 Eagle Project Services ....................505 Electric South ..................................413 Firefly ...............................................622 Flamex ..............................................304 Forest Products Society ..................614 Georgia Forestry Commission ......618 Georgia Research Institute ....507, 509 GreCon .............................................214 HGA .................................................511 Hurst Boiler & Welding .................620 IMAL ................................................502 IMM Inc. ..........................................306 Kice Industries ................................405 Koch Knight ....................................606 Laidig Systems ................................305
Lundberg Associates .......................316 M-E-C ...............................................403 Matros Technologies .......................409 Mid-South Engineering ..................215 MoistTech ........................................402 Morbark ...........................................115 NESTEC ..........................................216 Pallmann Industries .......................600 Paratherm Heat Transfer Fluids ...314 Player Design Inc. ...........................317 Poyry Management Consulting ....212 Precision Energy Services ..............308 Price LogPro ....................................624 Process and Storage Solutions .......608 ProcessBarron .................................407 Process Combustion Corporation .312 Process Sensors Corporation .........206 Rawlings Manufacturing ...............416 Sigma Thermal Inc.–TSI ...............302 SonicAire ..........................................417 Spar Refractories ............................113 Stratachem Solutions .....................602 Timber Products Inspection (TPI).107 Wechsler Engineering & Consulting ...............................415 West Salem Machinery ..................506 Wood Bioenergy magazine ....313, 412
Wood Bioenergy / April 2016
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■ product news Hammermill Screen
Tight spaces can equal large rewards with Acrowood’s Diamond-Roll screen. Recent installations at pellet and board mills have resulted in energy savings and increased capacities. Recent pellet mill installations on both the dry and green side have resulted in increased capacity without the addition of another hog/hammermill. By screening the infeed material just ahead of the hog to remove small material not needing further refinement a greater amount of larger material can be processed. In most cases there is limited space ahead of the hog/hammermill. The DiamondRoll screen is compact and suited to the tight spaces. The DiamondRoll screen
has no dynamic load which means that massive structural support which is needed for vibrating or shaking screens is not required. The DiamondRoll screen can be easily field adjusted to address changes in screening requirement. Efficiency adjustments can be made on the fly with the use of a VFD. This can be tied to changes in infeed rate or to address changes in infeed quality. The DiamondRoll screens are self-cleaning, eliminating the need for ball decks or periodic cleaning. At a recent installation a 15 HP DiamondRoll screen is processing 30 green metric tons per hour of sawdust, shavings and chips. In this case the separation is minus 1⁄4 in. mesh (smaller targets are possible). Plus 1⁄4 in. goes to the hammermill and material passing the screen goes directly to the dryer. This installation has been retro-fit into an existing mill where space was at a premium. The DiamondRoll is a custom screen; length and width can be selected to meet requirements. Visit acrowood.com.
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product news ■ Briquetting Presses With RUF briquetters, you can turn practically any biomass material into easy-to-manage briquettes that can be readily transported and recycled or sold as an economical, environmentally friendly source of fuel. They are clean, affordable and can be used in any wood-burning device from fireplaces and stoves to fire pits. Briquettes will open doors to new markets and growth opportunities for your business, and because they can be made from materials you already process (and then some), it’s simple to get
started. Plus, with substantial savings on energy, maintenance and labor, briquettes are cheaper to make per ton than pellets! What are you waiting for? Sawdust, the byproduct of most woodworking processes, leaves manufacturers and facilities with fine particles of wood everywhere. The sawdust is very flammable and can pose serious health threats when it is inhaled. Add to that the problem of where to store this waste in a manufacturing facility before it is disposed of, and you have a multistep process that can take more time, effort and resources than most manufacturers can invest. With RUF briquetting presses, your wood waste is compacted to a minimum volume, which makes it
easier to handle and dispose of. And because RUF briquettes are formed under high pressure without any artificial binder, they remain a natural product—a high-quality briquette with uniform size, shape and hardness. Visit ruf-briquetter.com.
Grinder Parts As a division of CW Mill Equipment Co., Inc., ArmorHog is focused on providing top quality, extreme duty replacement parts and service for all brands and models of industrial grinders. CW Mill has been manufactur-
April 2016 / Wood Bioenergy
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â– product news
ing, selling and servicing grinding machinery more than four decades. CW Mill offers ArmorHog grinder screens, tips, belts and many other parts for your rigid hammer style tub or horizontal grinder, and other hammermill applications. ArmorHog screens are designed with attention to detail, engineered with experience, and constructed of the longest life materials. The screens are manufactured by skilled craftsmen and processed by one of CW’s computerized precision cutting machines and formed with digital and laser guidance. Your screens are always inspected for quality before shipping from our factory. ArmorHog is your best choice for grinder tips, bits, strikers and replacement hammer heads. ArmorHog uses the best possible parent metal in all of its forgings and utilizes its own unique blend of carbide called NitroGrit, which is a proprietary blend of carbide found to best suit grinding applications. If you have been thinking about converting your diesel powered tub or horizontal grinder to electric power, call CW Mill. If you have access to sufficient electric power, you can save money by eliminating high diesel fuel costs, and have reduced maintenance. Visit armorhog.com.
Log Chipper
CEM produces a line of heavy duty gravity and horizontally fed log chippers varying in size from 96 in. (2.4 m) to 140 in. (3.5 m) diameter discs. They are normally provided with 8 to 18 knives, each able to produce a daily capacity of 2000-9,000 GMT of conventional
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Wood Bioenergy / April 2016
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■ product news
wood chips or 1000-5,000 GMT of microchips. Some customers have reported producing almost 12,000 short green tons of conventional pine wood chips in just 24 hours. CEM’s equipment is typically included in new log lines and chipping systems provided by proven systems suppliers such as PriceLogPro and Raumaster Oy. CEM also provides new machines directly to owner/operators as welldesigned upgrades of existing equipment, which often require little infrastructure modification except for replacement of the chipper in order to realize a 10-30% increase in system performance. While stationary facilities tend to cost more than portable ones, they typically also provide much longer production lives, higher uptimes and higher operating efficiencies, and more consistent and reliable control of product flow and wood chip quality for significantly lower capitalized and operating costs for the facility. Visit cem-machine.com.
Hammermills
WSM hammermill
West Salem Machinery (WSM) super shredders are massive machines for the largest capacity requirements. The super shredder delivers high tip speed for small, consistent fiber sizing, increased screen area for more throughput, with flexible and interchangeable tooling for easy maintenance. Mill duty construction delivers continuous production for premium quality feedstock. Dry Milling—WSM’s 4400 hammermills get the job done. These high speed, high volume
hammermills operate at a high tip speed for high capacity milling to a small particle size. Features include a large diameter hammer circle and throat widths from 20 to 60 in. These rugged mills have extended sizing screens to maximize production. Heavy duty fabricated steel housing and easy glide access doors make for superior strength and wear life. Fuel Processing—WSM offers a complete line of horizontal and vertical feed hogs and grinders for high volume processing of bark and wood waste for use as fuel, mulch and other value-added fiber products. With rotors up to 60 in. diameter and powered from 501500 HP, WSM hogs deliver high capacity and long-term durability. Screening—WSM offers a full line of screening and cleaning equipment to integrate with your fuel processing system, delivering high production and low operating costs while producing premium quality finished product. Visit westsalem.com.
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VISIT US ONLINE: woodbioenergymag.com 3779
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