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■ table of contents
www.woodbioenergymag.com
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FROM THE EDITORS Wood Bio Conference Is Back!
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HOW ONE OEM INNOVATED Polytechnik Got It Done In Oceania
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IN THE NEWS All Eyes On Arizona
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PRODUCT NEWS New NESTEC President
Cover Photography:
14 NORTH IDAHO ENERGY LOGS Expands, But Stays The Course
North Idaho Energy Logs has been making energy logs, an 8 lbs. product made of sawmill residuals since 1986. In 1992, the business added its first pellet mill—and has since expanded to nine log machines and three pellet mills. (David Abbott photo)
18 WOOD YARD TECH Needed, Wanted & Desired
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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.
Air Burners
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772.220.7303
Baker Rullman Manufacturing
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920.261.8107
Bandit Industries
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800.952.0178
Bio360
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BM&M Screening Solutions
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800.663.0323
Bruks Siwertell
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770.849.0100
Brunette Machinery
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800.686.6679
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10
315.493.4258
CW Mill Equipment
27
800.743.3491
Evergreen Engineering
12
888.484.4771
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800.841.5980
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Metal Detectors
22
541.345.7454
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501.321.2276
Publisher/Adv. Sales Manager ■ David H. Ramsey Chief Operating Officer ■ Dianne C. Sullivan
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941.727.1800
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800.831.0042
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+43 2672 890 0
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205.640.5181
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866.762.9327
Publisher/Editor Emeritus ■ David (DK) Knight
Schaeffer Oil
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800.325.9962
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Wood Bioenergy (ISSN 1947-5306) is published six times annually (February, April, June, August, October, December) by Hatton-Brown Publishers, Inc., 225 Hanrick St., Montgomery, AL 36104. Wood Bioenergy is free to qualified readers in the United States, including owners, managers, supervisors and other key personnel. All nonqualified U.S. subscriptions are $50 per year, Canadian subscriptions are $60 and foreign subscription are $95 per year (U.S. funds). Subscriber Inquiries and Back Issue Orders—TOLL-FREE: 800.669.5613. Fax 888.611.4525. Subscribe or renew online: www.woodbioenergymagazine.com and click on the “Subscribe” button. When requesting change of address, please specify both old and new. Periodicals postage paid at Montgomery, Ala. and at additional mailing offices.
Volume 13
Number 6
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Editor-in-Chief ■ Rich Donnell Managing Editor ■ Jessica Johnson Senior Editor ■ Dan Shell Senior Associate Editor ■ David Abbott Associate Editor ■ Patrick Dunning
North American Sales Representative Susan Windham ■ P.O. Box 2268 Montgomery AL 36102-2268 334.834.1170 ■ Fax: 334.834.4525 E-mail: windham.susan4@gmail.com International Sales Murray Brett ■ 58 Aldea De Las Cuevas, Buzon 60 Benedoleig 03759, (Alicante) Espana +34 96 640 4165 ■ Fax: +34 96 640 4048 E-mail: murray.brett.aba@abasol.net Classified Advertising Sales Bridget DeVane ■ Tel: 334.699.7837 ■ 800.669.5613 E-mail: bdevane7@hotmail.com A Hatton-Brown Publication Other Hatton-Brown Publications:
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■ from the editors
Wood Bio Conference
Regis www tration Is .bioen Open ergys how.c ! om
Coming To Life T
he 2020 Wood Bioenergy Conference & Expo was held March 10-11 in Atlanta. Do those dates mean anything to you? We sure remember them. Something called the coronavirus had just introduced itself to the United States. Atlanta reported its “first” case. This happened as we were in the middle of conducting the Wood Bio conference. Our event squeezed through, with no cases reported, but we all know the rest of the coronavirus story with its human carnage. Meanwhile, the trade show industry came to an immediate halt. Ultimately, some of those shows attempted virtual renditions, but they fell far short. Now we are breathing easier, thanks to the marvels of modern medicine, and in-person events are coming back. By next spring, it appears we will be wide open, and most people will have the confidence to venture out. So it would appear that the next Wood Bioenergy Conference & Expo, scheduled for March 29-30, 2022 again at the Omni Hotel at CNN Center in Atlanta, will have good health and timing on its side. As host of the event, Wood Bioenergy magazine and its personnel view this upcoming event as not only another great presentation of the developments in the wood to energy industry, but also as a celebration, a coming out party if you will, and also a remembrance of two years earlier, when the world entered the fight of its life. We’ve been busy putting together our lineup of keynoters, and we’re very pleased to report commitments from a half dozen of the leading players in this industry. Frankly they don’t get any better than: ● Matt White, Executive Vice President, North America Operations, Drax ● Thomas Meth, Executive Vice President, CoFounder, Enviva ● Harold Arnold, President, Fram Renewable Fuels
Harold Arnold
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Amanda Lang
Pete Madden
● William Strauss, President and Founder, FutureMetrics ● Pete Madden, President & CEO, U.S. Endowment for Forestry and Communities ● Amanda Hamsley Lang, COO & Vice President, FORISK Consulting They’ll provide a mix of perspectives ranging from the status and future supply of timberlands, to the latest in global industrial wood pellet production and trade, to the developing policies behind it all. And more keynoters will be announced soon. Meanwhile the conference will have numerous technical presentations on raw materials, quality control, fire prevention, air emissions treatment, project development and advanced wood energy products. And approximately 70 equipment and technology exhibitors will be stationed in the Grand Ballroom. As the slogan for this seventh Wood Bioenergy Conference & Expo proclaims, “The Future Is Bright!”
Thomas Meth
William Strauss
Wood Bioenergy / December 2021
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Matt White
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■ in the news FS Says Biomass Should Drive 4FRI Following its cancellation of the Phase 2 Request for Proposal (RFP) and bid selection in September, which caught everybody by surprise, the Forest Service “has gone back to work” on how to move forward with stewardship and treatment of the 520,000 acres that was included in Phase 2, which was part of the 4 Forests Restoration Initiative (4FRI) seeking to improve forest health conditions on 2.4 million acres across four Arizona national forests while enhancing wood products manufacturing and biomass processing infrastructure. The agency hosted an industry roundtable of 4FRI stakeholders on October 12 in Heber, Ariz. that addressed restoration strategies and “lessons learned.” Biomass disposal and bioelectricity were emphasized at the meeting as the key components in any path moving forward. The stakeholders group opened the door to another large-scale proposal or a combination of new agreements and contracts. They also emphasized the importance of accelerating the pace and scale of restoration treatments, while supporting sustainable forest restoration industries. “The bottom line is that bioelectricity was the solution for all known bidders in the RFP in relation to the disposal of the low value biomass,” comments Brad Worsley, president of Novo Power, a producer of biomass electricity in Snowflake, Ariz. “We believe and seem to have support for the fact that there is no reason to move forward with any future RFP or GNA Stewardship Agreement that does not first assure that current bioelectricity in the state has been given the needed PPA (Power Purchase Agreement) extensions.” Novo Power has PPAs with Arizona Public Services (APS) and Salt River Project (SRP), Arizona’s two largest electric utilities. The stakeholders group also reemphasized the need to reduce fi-
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nancial costs and risks to industry, investors and the government in potential uncertain environments over 20 years. This had been cited as the main reason for the agency’s cancellation of the Phase 2 process. Two companies were apparently the primary bidders—one proposing to build a sawmill and the other proposing to build an OSB plant. Novo Power participated in both of those bids to take the biomass resulting from the two projects. “I was stunned by the cancellation,” Worsley comments. “I knew that there was always a possibility of cancellation but the stated reasons for cancellation were true a year ago; the USFS should have cancelled then if the gap could not be bridged.” Worsley pointed to the agency’s growing concerns over the financial ramifications for the government and the project bidders if the promised acreage for treatment ran into issues or even if the reduced acreage was sufficient. Novo Power has less than two years remaining on its current PPAs. “At this point we need resolution on our PPAs so that we can move forward, invest and maintain the critical employee base that we have today,” Worsley says. “We will support whatever comes in the future but our future needs certainty now.” For Novo Power the Phase 2 RFP represented a stranglehold on collaboration. “Meetings between state and federal agencies, industry and NGOs became nearly impossible without undermining the integrity of the RFP and so many of the collaborative efforts died on the vine,” Worsley says. “It has also been a reminder of the disrespect shown to current industry. We all want a new shiny industry member but we put at risk the current industry, and in the end we are still the ones here and doing the work at the end of this very painful RFP process.” Novo Power has been involved in utilizing material produced in ongoing forest health operations in
Novo Power’s biomass electricity plant could be the key to a successful 4FRI.
the White Mountains area, but its 24 MW facility can only process so much. Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey and other elected officials slammed the Phase 2 cancellation decision, citing the federal government’s inability to step up to address wildfire risks and protect Arizona communities. The Phase 2 setback continues a tough run for the 4FRI effort: Phase 1, initially awarded in 2012 then transferred in 2013 to its current owner, NewLife Forest Restoration, and including 300,000 acres over 10 years, has been hampered due to lack of logging and conversion capacity and is just now appearing to turn the corner on infrastructure needs while the number of acres actually treated remain well below initial projections. NewLife, which plans to build a sawmill at Bellemonte, Ariz., was apparently one of the major bidders for the Phase 2 contract. John Godfrey, owner of Godfrey Forest Products, was also a bidder and proposed to build an OSB plant at a site already selected in Winslow. He says the announcement came as a surprise, but he remains confident any issues will be resolved. The FS is committed to forest restoration, Godfrey believes. “They’re also under tremendous pressure. They’ll come forward with a new mechanization or proposal. It can’t be that nothing happens.” In addition to a site for the plant, Godfrey’s OSB project has com-
Wood Bioenergy / December 2021
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in the news ■
pleted engineering design, preliminary air work, and he has a number of contractual relationships lined up. “It’s a great place to build a mill,” he says. “It’s in the middle of a big market. It’s also meaningful to be part of forest restoration, fire reduction and preserving the water supply. There’s no reason to throw this away. If it takes another year then that’s what it takes.” Funding for forest health and forest fire prevention programs and contracts is included in the Biden administration’s massive infrastructure bill that has yet to pass through Congress as of November 1, 2021. The Phase 2 contract award announcement had been delayed several times since 2019 due to 13 contract modifications including reductions in stewardship acreage from as high as 800,000 acres during initial discussions.
Yosemite Clean Energy Picks California Site Yosemite Clean Energy announced it has secured the site for developing its first carbon-negative green hydrogen and renewable natural gas (RNG) production plant in Oroville, Calif., with groundbreaking scheduled for second quarter 2022. Yosemite’s biofuels production facilities will utilize Austrian-based gasification technology successfully commercialized and deployed by Christian Aichernig of Repotec to produce commercial scale carbonnegative green fuels. The Oroville plant will be the flagship dual-bed gasification facility in the Americas, following more than 100,000 hours of commercial run-time across developed plants in Europe, Japan and South Korea. California has an estimated 35 million tons of waste woody biomass available annually, currently left to burn, decay and decompose, emitting immense amounts of greenhouse gases and black carbon. Yosemite will sustainably convert this biomass into syngas, from which carbon negative green
hydrogen and RNG is produced using downstream technology already widely commercialized in the U.S. Tom Hobby, the company’s president, states, “Yosemite and our team of engineers, forest and farm professionals, legal, marketing, and financial teams will lead the company to become the first wood waste biomass plant to produce commercial scale carbon negative green hydrogen and RNG for the California fuel markets.” One plant will produce an estimated 31,000 kg per day of RNG and 12,200 kg per day of green hydrogen. Over the next 10 years, Yosemite plans to have biomass energy plants across North America. Each Yosemite biofuels plant will be locally owned by farmers and forest landowners, who in return will provide wood waste, gathered at the end of the orchard’s lifecycle or through sustainable forest management. Vice-President for Business Development Robert Jackson comments, “This is new. We’re providing an all-new mineral right from a waste stream and converting it to a revenue stream for farmers and forest communities.”
Enviva Collaboration To Benefit Emissions Enviva Partners and GreenGasUSA, an integrated renewable natural gas (RNG) solutions provider, announced a 10-year RNG offtake agreement to decarbonize natural gas-related emissions in Enviva’s operations. The agreement is expected to eliminate more than 64,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) equivalent from the atmosphere every year, which equates to 14,000 passenger cars being removed from the road. Enviva’s commitment underwrites a stand-alone GreenGasUSA project to install equipment that captures and treats methane currently being released directly into the atmosphere at a food processing facility in rural South Carolina. As part of the agreement, GreenGasUSA will transport the RNG directly to
December 2021 / Wood Bioenergy
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■ in the news
Enviva’s wood pellet plant in Hamlet, NC to be utilized in its emissions control equipment in place of fossil natural gas in the beginning of the third quarter 2022. The elimination of direct methane emissions at the food processing facility and conversion of these gases into RNG will be one of the first “food waste to RNG projects” conducted in the U.S. Southeast. In fact, the methane captured and emissions eliminated as a result of this offtake agreement are expected to offset approximately 75% of all Enviva’s direct emissions from its manufacturing operations, or Scope 1 emissions, on an annual basis for the duration of the 10-year agreement. “We are proud to partner with GreenGasUSA to minimize the use of fossil fuels in our Scope 1 emissions and execute on highly effective carbon-neutral strategies,” says Thomas Meth, Co-founder and Executive Vice President of Sales & Marketing at Enviva. “Selecting GreenGasUSA for this project was a natural choice as several of their agricultural partners are in close proximity to our existing operational infrastructure.” Studies have shown that methane released into the atmosphere is a highly potent greenhouse gas that is 85 times more impactful than CO2 over a 20-year life cycle. Capturing fugitive methane from wastewater facilities, landfills, agricultural activities, and other sources has been identified by the EPA as a key strategy to reduce greenhouse gases and slow global warming. In addition, RNG projects provide much needed investment and income in rural agricultural communities disconnected from infrastructure. Since this will probably be pipeline quality gas, it can be used anywhere in the plant gas is required. “Methane capture from agricultural sources is one of the most impactful things we can do to combat climate change,” adds Marc Fetten, founder and CEO of GreenGasUSA. Earlier this year, Enviva announced a Net-Zero Commitment
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Wood Bioenergy / December 2021
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in the news ■
that will reduce, eliminate or offset all of its direct emissions by 2030. As part of this ambitious plan to cut carbon emissions from fossil fuels and improve energy efficiency, Enviva agreed to adopt innovative and improved lower-emission processes through investments in projects that result in real, additional, and thirdparty verified net-carbon reductions.
Canfor Goes Forward With Arbios Biotech Canfor Corp. announced its positive final investment decision in support of the construction of the first phase of Arbios Biotech’s (Arbios) innovative biomass-to-lowcarbon biofuel plant in Prince George, British Columbia. The plant will use new technology to convert sawmill residues, primarily bark, into high value renewable biocrude which can be further processed in refineries to produce low-carbon
transportation fuels. Arbios is a joint venture between Canfor and Licella Holdings Ltd. “Today, we begin an ambitious sustainability journey that will change how we work and the impact we have on our communities and the planet. We imagine a future as sustainable as our forests,” comments Don Kayne, President and CEO of Canfor. “We are delighted to take this next step on our journey towards our vision of providing low carbon circular economy solutions around the world. The evolution of this project will help BC’s and Canada’s suppliers of transportation fuels achieve their emissions and low-carbon targets,” adds Don Roberts, Chair of the Arbios Board. Arbios plans to proceed initially with one processing line which will convert 25,000 dry tonnes of wood residue to 50,000 barrels of sustainable bio-oil per year, a di-
rect substitute for fossil crude, from post-consumer waste wood biomass. Being scheduled to start producing renewable biocrude in the first half of 2023, the plant is planned to be built on a portion of Canfor’s Intercontinental pulp mill site, and Arbios will have the potential to expand up to four processing lines within the existing footprint. The new Arbios plant will utilize Licella’s patented Cat-HTRTM decarbonization platform. The plant represents the next scale-up of its hydrothermal liquefaction (HTL) technology, building on the recent commissioning of Arbios’ CS-1 facility on the Central Coast of New South Wales, Australia, which continues to demonstrate the technology’s capacity to produce low-carbon products. The project is within the traditional territory of the Lheidli T’enneh First Nation, with whom Arbios
December 2021 / Wood Bioenergy
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■ in the news
has been working closely. The project is receiving strong support from both federal and provincial government programs, including issuance of credits under BC’s Greenhouse Gas Reduction (Renewable and Low Carbon Fuel Requirements) Act; Sustainable Development Technology Canada Fund; and BC Ministry of Energy and Mines and Low Carbon Innovation’s Innovative Clean Energy Fund.
Westervelt Expands Timberland Holdings The Westervelt Company and Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec (CDPQ), a global investment group, announced the acquisition of more than 76,000 acres of high-quality pine timberland in southeast Georgia and the creation of a partnership that will focus on sustainable timberland management. The newly acquired property had been owned and managed for nearly a century by Superior Pine Products, a family-owned company headquartered in Georgia. “This was a rare opportunity to purchase a special timberland asset in southeast Georgia. The land matches Westervelt’s strategic growth and diversification objectives, and its age class distribution
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balances growth and sustainability goals,” comments Westervelt President and CEO Brian Luoma.
AFRY Appoints NA Head Of Energy AFRY Management Consulting announced that Vignesh Gulasingam has joined the firm as Director and Head of Energy for North America. Gulasingam has worked in the North American energy sector for 25 years with a breadth of experience spanning leadership roles in consulting firms, IPPs, regulated and unregulated utilities. His most recent role was as VP & Head of Americas Power and Renewables Consulting (aka Energy Transition Consulting) at Wood Mackenzie Inc., where he was instrumental in building the consulting services within the energy transition practice focused on new energies and decarbonization/ESG initiatives.
Roseburg Continues Growth In The South Roseburg has completed the purchase of 30,000 acres of timberland in the Southern U.S. from Forest Investment Associates (FIA). The properties are in the northeast region of North Carolina and the southeast
region of Virginia, and consist of loblolly pine plantations. Roseburg already owns 158,000 acres of timberland in the Roanoke Valley, following a 2017 acquisition. The lands acquisition follows the July 1 announcement of Roseburg’s plan to build a new, high-capacity sawmill in nearby Weldon, NC.
GP Sells OSB Mill To West Fraser Timber An oriented strandboard plant in Allendale, SC will now have its third ownership since starting up in 2006. West Fraser Timber Co. Ltd. is purchasing the facility from Georgia-Pacific for $280 million. The Allendale facility has been idle since late 2019 when GP shut it down citing market conditions. The plant has an estimated annual production capacity of 760MMSF (3/8 in. basis). West Fraser intends to invest $70 million to upgrade and optimize the facility in preparation for a restart in nine months. In 2005 Ontario-based Grant Forest Products announced it would invest $400 million in building two OSB mills in South Carolina, one in Allendale and the other in Alcolu in Clarendon County. When the U.S. economy went into a recession Grant sold the two OSB plants to Georgia-Pacific in 2010.
Wood Bioenergy / December 2021
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■ producer profile
Home Markets Are Hot For North Idaho Energy Logs By David Abbott MOYIE SPRINGS, Id. ocated in Boundary County, about 30 miles south of the Canadian border, the headquarters of North Idaho Energy Logs sports both the U.S. and Canadian flags. “That’s a common thing in the community,” says Clark Fairchild, co-owner of the company and general manager at this facility. “We do pull quite a bit of shavings and sawdust out of Canada.” Fairchild has two partners, Rob Pluid and Tom Oxford, both of whom are also in other businesses. Pluid runs a logging operation while Oxford’s Oxford Inc. does municipal road work and dust control for several counties and some logging roads. Fairchild and plant manager Bob Warrell oversee the Moyie Springs plant day to day. The company started in 1986; Fairchild’s and Pluid’s fathers were part of the original ownership team, along with two other partners. Their original focus was on energy logs, an 8 lbs. product made of sawmill residuals.
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In 1992 they added one pellet mill. Since the current generation bought the business in 2007, they have expanded both sides of the operation. Now they have nine log machines and three pellet mills.
Products Home heating is the primary application for North Idaho’s products, sold primarily to feed and farm stores, lumber yards and hearth shops. Marketed as an alternative to traditional firewood, energy logs (or fire logs) have several benefits over cordwood, Fairchild says. Moisture content runs around 7%, compared to 18-20% in cordwood. The lower the moisture content, the higher the BTU. Fire logs are also very dense. “Douglas fir (firewood logs) weigh roughly 34 lbs. a cubic foot,” Fairchild estimates. “Our logs…would weigh close to 80 lbs. a cubic foot.” As such, the size can be deceiving. The logs are relatively small: around 4 in. diameter and 13 in. long, but they pack a big punch in a
Wood Bioenergy / December 2021
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producer profile ■
small package. “Most people, when using a wood stove to heat their home, will shove it as full as they can with cordwood, which they’re designed to do,” Fairchild says. “But with these we always tell customers no more than two at a time. When you put that load in it doesn’t look like your stove is full enough, but they achieve a very long burn time because of the density.” Each log generates about 68,000 BTU and can burn for up to 10 hours, he asserts, with variation based on draft location. North Idaho’s market for pellets is similar to its log market: residential heating. Like the logs, the pellet blend is designed to make a very low ash, high BTU product. “The species we have available in this area lend themselves well to that,” Fairchild says. The company has two different branded pellets: the North Idaho Energy Log brand, which is produced in Moyie Springs, and Purcell pellets, made at a sister plant 90 miles southwest in Hauser, Id., which the company acquired in 2013.
tion screw that conveys it to the infeed of a Solagen rotary dryer drum, with heat supplied by a Coen 33 million BTU burner. After drying, a Williams hammer mill grinds the combined material into a consistent size—roughly 1/8 to 3/16 in. From that point it is blown over to a surge bin in the production facility. A distributor tank feeds nine log machines and three pellet mills. How much of the material feeds to the log side or the pellet side is determined by market
Process The material for both pellets and logs is the same: sawdust and shavings, sourced from multiple sawmills around northern Idaho, British Columbia and eastern Washington. The plant does no whole log chipping whatsoever. “We are looking for clean fiber; we don’t want any bark whatsoever,” Fairchild explains. “Bark is where all the dirt ultimately ends up. It is abrasive to our machines and results in high ash content.” Shavings, he goes on, work well, especially because Co-owner/GM Clark Fairchild, left and Moyie Springs plant it takes less to dry since it has already been through the kiln process. “Unfortunately there just aren’t enough manager Bob Warrell shavings to supply the demand. Sawdust also works great; it just takes a little more energy to dry it.” At the start of the process, sawdust can be as high as 50-55% moisture content; shavings can be 15-20% moisture. Before it is compacted into pellets or logs, everything, sawdust and shavings alike, runs through a large rotary dryer here to bring it down to roughly 8%. The material loses some additional moisture in the manufacturing process; logs end up around 6-7% moisture, pellets around 4-5%. Incoming truckloads are dumped by tipper onto an asphalt pad and residuals are segregated into piles by species and by sawdust or shavings. “Once the material is separated, we build a blend that we have found over the years works really well to achieve a high BTU and low ash content,” Fairchild explains. “Ultimately that is what we are looking for.” A wheel loader dumps mixed piles to a feed bin, from which the material flows to a collec- Each packaged fire log unit contains 240 logs.
December 2021 / Wood Bioenergy
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■ producer profile
demand. “We always run some of each but we might drop a log machine or a pellet machine out to maintain our production at the most efficient level,” Fairchild explains. If they ran all 12 machines wide open at the same time, the plant would exceed its permitted tons per hour with the DEQ (Department of Environmental Quality, a state agency) on the dryer system. “So we do have to watch that closely.”
Both plants have three pellet machines.
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The log machines were designed in 1929 and manufactured in the ‘30s-‘50s; they are the original Presto log machines. “That trade name is now owned by another company so that’s why we call them the North Idaho Energy Log even though it is made with the same equipment,” Fairchild says. “To my knowledge we are the only company still running the original Presto log machines.” In the log machines, a motor drives a tapered screw, which forces sawdust into the die on a wheel. A hydraulic ram holds resistance against each log as it is formed in the die, about 20,000 lbs. per square inch. The friction creates heat that warms the lignin and under pressure it binds that back together into log form. Cooling as it exits the die allows the log to solidify in its shape, as the lignin sets up and binds the sawdust back together; if it came out hot, it would accordion and break apart, Fairchild explains. As a new log is pushed out, it acts as a plug for the next log being formed behind it. The machines on average turn out four and a half or five units of logs per hour—at 240 logs per unit, that’s 1,080-1,200 logs an hour. Meanwhile, on the pellet side, both the Moyie Springs plant and Hauser plant have three pellet mills: two Andritz and one CME (Colorado Mill Equipment).
Wood Bioenergy / December 2021
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producer profile ■
wears out parts pretty quick.” The pellet bag-stacking robot at Moyie Springs also requires a fair bit of maintenance, including the software side. “You don’t have computer programmers just standing around in Bonners Ferry, Id.,” Fairchild points out. “There are
some in Coeur d’Alene and some locally who do an excellent job when it comes to PLC. They just don’t get into the robot side of things because that is so specialized. So we’ve had to bring people out of Texas and Chicago for the robotics.”
Mill sawdust and shavings are dried and ground before processing into logs or pellets.
When all three are running, the pellet mills together produce around 5.5 tons an hour. The Hauser plant, which only makes pellets, is much more automated; nobody there manually stacks or handles any bags. The Moyie Springs facility has a Columbia/Okura robot for stacking the bags, but an operator still slips empty bags on manually. The logs are also stacked manually. All logs are stored in one of four warehouses, while pallets of pellets are wrapped and can stay outside under double weather covers. Between the two plants, office staff and truck drivers, North Idaho employs 42. A lot of the manpower is dedicated to the tremendous amount of maintenance required throughout the plants. The company staffs a full machine shop to fabricate components for the log machines, which are no longer available off the shelf. “Unlike the components to make wood pellets; you can call up a number of companies and order those,” Fairchild notes. “But the parts for the log machines we have to build, and that is a constant job in itself. Sawdust is abrasive, especially under all that pressure and heat, and it
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EDITOR’S NOTE: The following companies submitted these editorial profiles and images to complement their advertisements placed elsewhere in this issue. Please refer to those advertisements for web site and contact information. All statements and claims are attributable to the companies.
BM&M BM&M Screening Solutions manufactures a wide selection of custom high-speed gyratory screening machines for the bioenergy industry. We produce a variety of screening machine sizes to meet your capacity needs. The element area available ranges from 12 ft.² up to 600 ft.². BM&M’s experienced engineering staff provides extensive before and after sales service that includes complimentary lifetime factory testing, building load calculations, sub-base engineering, courtesy start-up supervision, and stocked OEM aftermarket parts facilities in the United States and Canada. BM&M has a variety of screening machine sizes to fit a With our expertise built over more than 50 years of solving variety of capacity needs application issues, our team will provide you with the right solution for the job. Reach out to BM&M Screening Solutions today for more information on how we can help your company.
Bruks Siwertell Increased wood handling and dust requirements continue to fuel a strong demand for Bruks Siwertell’s expertise. The company’s extensive line of wood yard technologies enables dry bulk handling and processed wood industries to operate safely, maximizing their efficiency and minimizing the negative impact of dust. This improves both operational sustainability and environmental protection. Optimized to reduce dust emissions, Bruks Siwertell’s low-profile end-pivot truck dumpers ensure that trucks unload their cargo at a low elevation (approximately 2.5 m above the ground) and directly into the back end of the hopper. This keeps the impact of free-flowing material from falling out of the back of the truck very low and results in minimal dust emissions, particularly when handling very Bruks Siwertell can help reduce dust emissions from dry materials such as wood shavings or pellets. stacker reclaimers. The truck dumper can be covered with a fixed or rotating hood. Both versions mitigate dust emissions by bridging the gap between the truck dump end and the covered hopper. Where no dust emissions are permitted, a dust collector can also be specified. Dust collectors can be mounted directly over the covered hopper or ducted to a central baghouse so that the customer can make better use of it. Bruks Siwertell has provided several truck receiving systems with particulate emissions guarantees. Bruks Siwertell also offers an extensive range of conveying systems, including air-supported conveyors, which eliminate the use of rollers beneath the belt, delivering the highest possible levels of dust control and operating efficiency, and bringing huge cost savings from reduced maintenance requirements. The company has also developed upgrades specifically targeted at reducing dust emissions for facilities that use stacker reclaimers. These systems are always supplied with infeed hoppers on the stacker boom, which have undergone substantial design improvements. The latest generation of infeed hoppers incorporate several enhancements. Deflector plates located inside the hopper control the flow of material onto the conveyor, directing wood chips to the center of the stacker belt. This gives a greater level of material management to optimize the efficiency of the system, allowing for a smooth motion of the luffing boom and an important reduction in dust emissions.
Brunette Machinery Brunette Machinery has been a premium supplier to the forest industry for over 75 years, specializing in wood processing and material handling systems. Our products are ideal for the lumber, pulp and paper, and renewable energy industries and include chippers, hogs, butt reducers, conveyors, debarkers, log singulators and other wood processing equipment. But we don’t just sell chippers and hogs! Our sales team collaborates with our customers to provide complete wood
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processing systems that are designed to suit their needs. From a single machine to a complete plant system, our products meet the highest standards, are easy to implement and provide true benefits. Our latest project involved such a plan. Our customer, a producer of industrial wood pellets, needed to expand their pellet mill facility due to increased global demand for sustainable wood bioenergy. Our proposal was providing them with a complete Brunette chip supply system—including process planning, equipment, start-up and after-sales services. The main targets for this system are to increase uptime and capacity, minimize energy consumption, and maximize raw material yield. Our custom-designed chip supply system will provide all the elements they need to convert whole logs into microchips as the first step of producing wood pellets for biomass fuel. From the scaffolding and maintenance platforms that house the log deck, Brunette Machinery supplies complete chipper systems to the conveyors and the chipper, they will have the benefit of to meet highest performance and reliability criteria. dealing with one supplier for the entire project. Not only will this increase output, but it will also save on maintenance costs. This Brunette chip supply system includes the design, engineering and project management of the entire system. The machinery includes a Brunette whole log micro chipper; chipper infeed chain conveyor; refuse conveyor and chuting; chipper and infeed system support structure complete with catwalks; custom flow control gate; chipper outfeed chuting; chipper outfeed chain conveyor; belt conveyor and chuting; outfeed conveyor supports complete with maintenance access platform; 20 ft. container complete with installation of HPU and hydraulic plumbing After inspection and testing, the components of the chipper system were loaded onto 12 trucks and delivered to our customer in northern British Columbia.
CEM Machine Inc. CEM Machine is a 100% employee-owned manufacturer of large, heavy-duty disc chippers and microchip processors. Pellet producers have to put energy in to get a product that provides their customers with even more energy out. Therefore, pellet producers achieving the greatest net energy difference can result in a higher operating margin. For efficient drying, you must reduce each feedstock to shreds. The relative ease by which fragile 6 mm (1/4 in.) long micro chips can be reduced to shreds for drying is in stark An illustration comparing typical dryer feedstock (left), contrast to the tremendous amount of work required to reduce CEM micro chips sized to 1⁄4 in. and unscreened (midthe large conventional chips. dle), and conventional chips sized to 3⁄8 in. screened. So while making micro chips from logs requires slightly more energy than making conventional chips from logs, micro chips are subsequently reduced to a drier feedstock with comparatively less energy. The result is that the total required chipping, plus milling energy for preparing a drier feedstock is substantially less with microchips. Over a decade ago, CEM commissioned the first disc-type micro chip chipper in a pellet manufacturing facility powered by a drive less than half the size of all other major suppliers. This pellet producer and practically all of the others operating our microchip chippers have consistently preferred even smaller micro chips directly from the log to achieve their greatest efficiencies and production levels. So whether your process needs high quality, efficiently produced micro chips or conventional wood chips, for superior design, long life, high reliability, and simple maintenance, choose CEM’s micro chip processors and chippers— your best choice.
Evergreen Engineering For more than three decades, Evergreen Engineering has offered the best possible range of knowledge and capabilities to address retrofit, expansion, and new construction for wood processing projects. We design new safety systems, develop new environmental controls, install power generation and distribution, and improve processes, helping mills
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across North America remain competitive with greater safety, recovery and speed. Evergreen is a full-service consulting engineering company, serving the wood products industry since 1985. Our staff comprises mechanical, civil/structural, electrical/controls, environmental, and chemical engineers, designers, and drafters. We can deploy all project phases from planning through construction, including scheduling, feasibility studies, preliminary engineering, capital estimates, detail engineering, process design, environmental permitting, purchasing, commissioning and start-up assistance, and project management. We welcome your questions, and would be pleased to help with An example of Evergreen Engineering's material your new or existing facilities. handling projects
Fulghum Industries Fulghum Industries, a Georgia-based manufacturing company, has been serving the forest products industry for over 60 years, and continues to develop and improve the technology on which the industry relies. Recently, Fulghum developed a new knife clamp design to aid those utilizing disc chippers. These new, front-loading clamps will lead to a safer, more efficient chipper operation. Traditionally, knife clamps and their hardware are located on opposite sides of the chipper disc, requiring two workers just to change knives. With Fulghum’s new design, the clamps and their mounting hardware are located on the same side as the knives, meaning that one worker can now change the knives in the same amount of time that it takes two workers with a New Fulghum front-loading clamps and their traditional clamp. Also, with fewer people having to physically intermounting hardware are located on the same side act with the clamps, there is a reduced chance of accidents due to mis- as the knives. communication or inexperience. In addition to greater efficiency and safety, Fulghum’s front-loading clamps are engineered to resist chip packing and unwanted stud releasing that can occur with traditional clamps. Contact us today to upgrade to a more dynamic chipping operation.
Mid-South Engineering Mid-South Engineering provides full-service engineering and consulting for building products, bioenergy and pulp and paper facilities many of which utilize wood yards for converting roundwood into chips or flakes for further processing downstream. The major equipment centers for these wood yards include log handling cranes, debarking drums, chippers and chip storage/reclaim systems. It goes without saying that selecting the right major equipment for the intended service is an important part of a successful wood yard operation. Additionally, a properly designed material handling conveyor system for the products produced in the wood yard (bark, chips, flakes, etc.) is also critical in terms of production rates, operating and maintenance costs, ease of clean up and other factors as well. After all, the Mid-South Engineering can assist with equipment center selections, as well as design and engineerwood yard conveyor system has to efficiently handle the same quan- ing of material handling systems. tity of material that is seen by the crane, drum and chipper. While the major wood yard equipment center designs will vary from mill to mill, the equipment is somewhat standard for a given production rate, species to be processed and anticipated longevity or operating life, the material handling conveyor design is custom for each site. This is due to things like layout restraints, overall mill configuration and secondary processing equipment utilized such as bark hogs, chip screening systems, and secondary chip size reduction equipment. Key design considerations for site specific conveyor systems include: belts vs. chains, operating speeds, transitions heights and arrangement from conveyor to conveyor or conveyor to process equipment, duplication of mechanical components where possible, chutework and transition plates angle of incline, conveyor clean-up means and methods,
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maximum design capacities (flow rates) vs. average flow rates, use/application of control devices such as plug chute switches and “zero” speed switches, use of variable speed drives, and where the use of pneumatic aspiration systems make economic sense. Mid-South can not only assist in the proper selection of the major wood yard equipment centers but also provide a well designed and engineered material handling system which is equally important for a properly functioning wood yard.
Precision Husky Corp. Whether in a chip mill or pellet mill wood yard application, choosing the right chipper and the right chip screen can help maximize the efficiency of wood yard processing and production. Having the chipper sized according to the customer’s required production output and chip specifications makes the difference between a smooth-running wood yard and one that struggles to keep up. To assure that there is no bottleneck in the wood yard operation, the chipper and screen need to be sized to handle more than customer required production. Precision Husky Corp. has been manufacturing chippers and screens for nearly six decades. During that time, we have developed the experience and expertise to supply the wood industry with over 5,000 chippers and nearly as many chip screens worldwide. Precision Husky chippers are sized from 38 in. to With nine different chipper sizes, ten different screen sizes and 118 in.; screens offer as much of a variety from dozens of configurations to meet the customer’s needs, Precision Husky can engineer and manufacture a chipper and screen to suit any 13 tons per hour to 150 tons per hour. wood yard application. Whether making the conventional paper mill type chip or the special pellet mill micro chip, Precision chippers can be set up to accommodate a customer’s requirements. From our smallest 38 in. sawmill chipper, to our largest 118 in. chipper with a 36 in. diameter roundwood capacity,
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we can offer a chipper size to suit many wood processing applications. The same can be said for Precision Husky chip screens. From our smallest PCS-55 sawmill screen, to our largest HV-1020 high-volume chip screen, we can handle production rates from 13 tons per hour to 150 tons per hour. If more production is required, then multiple screens can be arranged with a diverter valve setup, allowing constant production without any shut-downs due to maintenance requirements. In a configuration with a three screen setup, at least one or two screens, depending on required production, are always in operation, just in case one is down for maintenance. It is imperative that the screen setup can adequately match the chipper output in wood yard applications. At Precision Husky Corp., our experienced engineers and sales team can ensure that these requirements are met in any application.
Rawlings Wood Hogs With over 45 years of experience in the forest and sawmill related industries, Rawlings Wood Hogs has delivered a reputation for durability, high performance and reliability. As proven leader in wood grinding technology, Rawlings assists our customers with the design of custom wood recovery systems to meet our client’s specific processing needs and budget. Rawlings Wood Hogs come in all shapes and sizes, we offer a complete line up of seven different sizes of both vertical and horizontal hogs to fit any application; from simple stand-alone vertical hogs, to complete multi-dimensional horizontal grinding systems. Add a wide variety of available options, and you’ve got the Rawlings has the flexibility to customize a wood recovflexibility to customize the perfect wood recovery system. Each system can be designed with work platform decks, choice of belt, ery system thanks to its breadth of products. chain, vibrating infeed and outfeed conveyors, metal or magnet protection and product screening that allows the customer to protect their investment while producing a high-quality consistent end product.
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The Rawlings Wood Hog is recognized in the industry as the “Green Monster Hog” and provides the crushing and shearing power needed to handle really tough jobs like green waste, cypress, redwood, cedar, black spruce, poplar and a wide range of other stringy and fibrous material. Each machine is equipped with the Rawlings Super Hi-Inertia solid steel rotor. With the increased inertia of the solid steel rotor our machine runs at lower RPMs than competitors resulting in overall savings of electricity and maintenance costs. The machines are tolerant of contaminants, rocks and metal without catastrophic maintenance costs if metal enters the grinding chamber. We invite you to inquire about any of the projects that we have completed; we can provide you with full details.
Wolf Material Handling Wolf Material Handling Systems is the premier designer and supplier of fuel yard systems for the biomass power and conversion, pulp and paper, power generation, gasification, resource recovery, mining, chemical, manufacturing and recycling, and other industries that require material handling. Wolf provides complete in-house design, engineering, manufacturing, assembly, and installation for systems using conveyance, stacking, reclaim, truck dumpers, receiving hoppers and ash/biochar receiving, handling, storage, and removal. Wolf understands the challenges required to handle biomass and its by-products, taking full responsi- Wolf has supplied material handling systems for several bility for every aspect of the process from fuel receiving, large U.S. biomass power projects. sizing, storage, reclaim and boiler feed. With a long history of delivering performance and innovation, Wolf is often considered not just a material handling systems provider, but a technology partner in the development of projects, by providing complete inter-disciplinary systems and support beginning with the conceptual phase through commissioning. Wolf has successfully supplied the complete material handling systems for several of the largest biomass power projects in the U.S. For example, a 115 MW wood waste feedstock biomass power plant which was named the 2012 Biomass Project of the Year by Power Engineering. Also, a 102.5 MW wood waste feedstock biomass power plant, named a finalist for Power Engineering’s 2013 Bioenergy Project of the Year. In addition, several wood waste, agricultural residues, and other feedstocks for power generation ranging from 20 to 65 MW. With over 40 years of experience, Wolf systems and equipment maximize process and production efficiency with consistent and reliable flow of materials. Each system is designed to reduce labor and maintenance costs and consume less power per mass unit than other alternatives. Wolf is committed to offer each client a custom material handling solution for their specific site and process requirements. Wolf’s in-house capabilities include consultation for scope definition, system design, equipment engineering, detail drawings, fabrication, assembly, inspection and start-up and commissioning. Wolf systems come with a performance guarantee and have never experienced major system failure.
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Lots Of Energy
Austrian Firm Has It F
or more than 55 years, the Lower Austria-based company Polytechnik has been specializing in power generation from biomass. With more than 3,300 installations worldwide, the company has evolved into a global player and leading supplier of customized solutions for any application, whether it’s warm water, thermal oil or steam, from cogeneration plants to process heat generators and municipal heating networks. The Polytechnik Group has 240 employees and, along with its main factory in Weissenbach, Austria, and its subsidiary in Auenwald, Germany, it has branch offices in Hungary, Switzerland, France, Poland, Russia, Romania, Belarus, China and Australia/New Zealand. With its independent subsidiary, Polytechnik has been active in Australia and New Zealand for more than 10 years and now has a multitude of installations there. New Zealand’s forests cover 10.1 million ha and 38% of its total area. In 2019, around 37 million m³ of timber was harvested. One important local consumer is the sawmill industry, which produced 4.4 million m3 of sawn timber in 2019. Despite the great distances and restrictions caused by the pandemic, Polytechnik successfully completed projects in New Zealand, which adapted an extremely rigid containment strategy.
WET Gisborne Gisborne has become the center of a potential “revolution” in timber processing and housing construction in New Zealand. The plant of WET (wood engineering technology) produces OEL (optimized engineered lumber), which is 40% stronger than comparable standard constructional lumber. OEL is made from thin lumber strips that are fingerjointed and laminated together. By laminating, its stiffness and strength
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are improved and therefore timber of lower quality and with smaller diameters can be used for a highquality construction product. WET’s technology turns untreated round timber, which otherwise would be sent abroad, into an innovative, high-quality product. With the start of the construction of a second line, which will more than double the site’s capacity, a decision was made for the installation of a Polytechnik thermal oil plant. The plant, which is currently being built, will supply the site’s drying chambers as well as other consumers with 235°C thermal oil. With this installation, the company achieves independence from the neighboring sawmill, which currently supplies heat to the drying chambers, and emissions are reduced by more than 90% compared to the existing plant due to the highly efficient combustion system combined with an electrostatic precipitator. Residual materials from the sawmill, mainly very wet wood shavings, as well as waste material from the production, like wood chips, are used as fuel. In order to keep the efficiency for the operational time of 50 weeks per year at an optimal value, Polytechnik employs a patented cleaning system which keeps the thermal oil boiler’s heating surfaces free of fly ash and thereby reduces the operating cost and increases the service life of the thermal oil boiler.
Pan Pac In 2017, the Japanese company Pan Pac Forest Products finished a $24 million refurbishment of its sawmill in Milburn, NZ. Production was doubled from 50,000 m3 to 100,000 m3 of sawn timber per year. The plant in Milburn, south of Dunedin, close to Milton, is using some of the newest and most environmentally friendly equipment, from the fuel source to the biomass heating plant with exhaust gas cleaning and the wood drying plant with cutting-edge technology. In Milburn, 100% pine trees are processed into lumber, which currently is intended exclusively for export to Asian customers. The pine is sourced from the surrounding area of Otago, from small forest properties as well as from City Forests, Matariki and Wenita. The lumber is used for furniture, housings or boxes, including fingerjointed and edge-glued products. Most
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sales go to Vietnam, Taiwan, China and Indonesia, while the wood chips are supplied to Dongwha’s MDF plant south of Gore. Polytechnik’s plant, which is specifically designed for the operation with wet waste material from pine trees with up to 65% water content from the sawmill, is fueled almost exclusively with wood shavings and bark in order to heat the water in the boiler up to 165°C, which then in turn is used to heat up the 60 m long continuous drying chamber to 95°C. Here, up to 90 m3 of wet wood shavings and bark are used as energy source every day. The installation of the hot water plant with the adiabatic low-NOX combustion chamber and electrostatic precipitator from Polytechnik set new standards for efficiency and emissions for the New Zealand sawmill industry in 2017.
Nelson Forests Nelson Forests was acquired in 2018 by OneFortyOne, a trans-Tasman business operating forests and mills in Australia and New Zealand. OneFortyOne manages 80,000 hectares of sustainable forest plantations in Nelson Tasman and Marlborough in New Zealand and operates a modern sawmill in Kaituna near Blenheim, where the pine logs are processed. Additionally, timber from certified sustainable plantations is processed in the Jubilee sawmill in Mt. Gambier, Australia. The combined sales of round logs from Australia and New Zealand amount to more than 2 million m3/year, with the majority of the round logs being sold within the country in order to support jobs and local process-
ing. Lumber sales from the plant in Kaituna amount to over 400,000 m3. The produced goods are mainly used for houses, sun decks, fences and furniture. Since 2017, the site’s drying chambers needed for drying the lumber are supplied with saturated steam by a Polytechnik biomass plant, which heats up the ambient air to 95°C for the operation of the drying chambers. The installation of an innovative combustion chamber and heat exchanger concept, which allows the staging and targeted insertion of the combustion air necessary for the combustion of very wet wood shavings, made it possible to decommission two of the site’s old boiler plants, which in turn led to a significant increase in availability and a dramatic reduction of emissions. After almost 30 years, the site’s four boiler operators were finally able to tend to other tasks, as the Polytechnik boiler plant, which was installed in 2016, can be monitored and operated mainly remotely and without permanent supervision. The necessary tests of the steam boiler plant are carried out at least every 72 hours in accordance with the applicable regulations.
Christchurch The successful experience with Polytechnik plants in the wood industry have also opened doors to other wood energy applications in New Zealand. For example, Polytechnik was able to win the tender for the heating supply of a large hospital. In Christchurch, the second-largest city in New Zealand, where Polytechnik has installed six boiler plants in past years, a 15.6 MW heating supply system for the hospital is being constructed which will use otherwise unused wood residues from the forestry sector and the surrounding sawmills as fuel. Here, Polytechnik’s engineers have to fulfil special requirements. The plant has to meet the country’s strict requirements regarding earthquakes in order to reliably supply the hospital with heat and steam even after a strong earthquake. According to the Minister for Climate Change, James Shaw, “The new biomass heating plant will help to significantly reduce CO2 emissions and to decommission the current coal boilers.” The plant will be put in operation in early 2022. Article and photos submitted by Polytechnik.
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product news ■ NESTEC Appoints Deemer As President NESTEC, Inc. has hired Jaymie Deemer as president. Deemer brings nearly 20 years of experience in emission control technologies and nearly 25 years in the industry. He has worked with several OEMs during his career in multiple roles including team management, business strategy, product development, applications and field service. Jim Nester, CEO of NESTEC, Inc., comments, “We’re very excited and privileged to have Jaymie join NESTEC, further broadening our capabilities and enhancing our corporate vision moving forward. His depth of knowledge and experience, dedication and management capabilities, and focus on long-term
customer partnerships will ensure NESTEC remains a valuable resource for industry.” NESTEC, Inc. provides service and emission controls technologies including regenerative thermal/catalytic oxidizers (RTO/RCO) and wet electrostatic precipitators (WESP). E-mail jdeemer@nestecinc.com.
from 340,000 sq. ft. to 560,000 sq. ft. The demand for Bandit products and the backlog has skyrocketed to where Bandit needs to double its 2020 production, a record year for Bandit. Bandit employs 600, up from 450 in 2020. Bandit presently has 100 positions to fill and plans
Bandit Announces More Expansion Plans Bandit Industries plans to build three new production facilities and expand an existing plant in 2022. That’s in addition to four building expansions in 2021, one that is completed and three more that are under construction. When all are completed, Bandit’s manufacturing facilities will increase
Bandit Industries has announced additional expansions of its manufacturing facilities in Remus, Mich.
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to add more employees in 2022 when the new facilities are completed. Bandit will introduce three new products in 2022 that will add to the product demand. Bandit is an employee-owned company. “It is exciting to watch the enthusiasm that employee ownership brings in driving the business upward” says Jerry Morey, President of Bandit. “They are all benefiting from their success.”
Valmet Introduces BioTrac Pilot Facility Valmet started up its new Pretreatment BioTrac pilot plant at Valmet’s Fiber Technology Center in Sundsvall, Sweden. The purpose of the pilot facility investment is to strengthen Valmet’s research and development capabilities in the field of biomass pretreatment and to respond to new market demands for bioenergy, biofuels and biochemicals. The pilot facility offers piloting and laboratory services for Valmet customers and provides the opportunity to test different feedstocks and develop, verify and optimize the pretreatment process for specific purposes. The pretreatment system is flexible and can process many different raw materials. It is designed to enable several different process configurations, such as acid impregnation, and several different reactor configurations including vertical and horizontal reactor systems.
Keitele Plans Boiler Upgrade At Sawmill KPA Unicon and Keitele Energy have agreed to modernize the existing boiler plant at the Keitele Timber sawmill in Keitele, northern Savonia, Finland. This is a large-scale modernization project, which will invest in cleaner energy production and modernize the plant’s automation and other systems. The new energy system is based on Unicon Renefluid fluidized bed boiler technology. It replaces the 7.5 MW fluidized bed boiler installed in 1994. KPA Unicon will supply a 15 MW boiler, auxiliary equipment and a Unicon bag filter flue gas cleaning system. In addition, KPA Unicon is responsible for the recycling and modification of the existing equipment and
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exciting things happening with Morbark and share in their commitment to ensuring our customers’ success.”
in Karatsu-shi, Saga, Japan for KaratsuBiomass Energy G.K. The facility will process fuels such as wood pellets and PKS (palm kernel shells). Toyo and NSE will perform a turnkey job that includes engineering, procurement, construction and commissioning services. Toyo has identified power plants as one of its core businesses and is actively working on renewable energy projects.
Toyo, Nippon Gain Plant Contract Toyo Engineering Corp. and Nippon Steel Engineering Co., Ltd. have been awarded a contract for a project to construct a 49,900 kW biomass power plant
■ CLASSIFIED ADVERTISEMENTS ■ modernization of the control and automation system. The system will be connected to KPA Unicon’s comprehensive PlantSys digital platform, which allows remote control of the energy production. The platform provides digitalization of maintenance reporting and the automatic data collection. Keitele mainly produces pine and spruce sawn lumber. The heat generated by the new energy system will be used to dry the lumber produced by the sawmill. As a fuel the plant will utilize byproducts of the sawmill including sawdust, chips, and bark as well as milled peat. The modernization project will be implemented during 2022.
■ employment opportunities 1615
Top Wood Jobs Recruiting and Staffing George Meek geo@TopWoodJobs.com www.TopWoodJobs.com (360) 263-3371
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VISIT US ONLINE: woodbioenergymag.com
New Rep For Morbark Morbark LLC, announced that Maverick Environmental Equipment has been selected as a Morbark industrial products dealer for Ohio, Indiana, Kentucky and western West Virginia. Morbark is a leading manufacturer of tree care, forestry, sawmill and wood recycling equipment. “We’re very familiar with the Morbark product line as well as the management at Morbark, so this partnership was a natural progression,” says Tim Smith, Managing Partner at the Maverick Ohio North facility. “We see
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2021 FEBRUARY From The Editors Healthy Supply Chains Fiber Flow, Bioenergy Output Page 6 Wood Bio Conference 2022 Dates Announced Page 8
Q&A With Jens Wolf Europe Focuses On Biomass Page 18 Dryer Island Page 20
From The Editors Enterprises Of Great Pith And Moment Page 6
Fight Climate Change: A Strategy For Biden Page 28
ReGenerate Purchases Albany Green Energy Page 8
JUNE
All Focused On Chips Page 16 Wood Bio Guide Products, Manufacturers Pages 26-41
APRIL
From The Editors But Will It Scale? Page 6 Pinnacle Is Officially Part Of Drax Page 8
From The Editors The Good Old College Try Page 6
Q&A With Pete Madden The Future Is Bright Page 18
Drax, Enviva Release Company Updates Page 8
Florida Logger Finds Success Supplying Power Plant Page 22
Fram Fuels Keeps On Keeping On Page 14
In-Woods Chippers & Grinders Page 25
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AUGUST
Lowering The Barriers Pellets Version 2.0 Page 14 Dry End Pelleting & Energy Production Page 18
OCTOBER From The Editors Connection Matters A Lot Page 6 Graanul Invest Receives Big Apollo Transfusion Page 8
Editorial Index Choosing To Pivot Loggers Make Pellets Page 14 Fire Prevention Page 18 Learning To Modify In-Woods Chipper In NC Page 22
DECEMBER From The Editors Wood Bio Conference Coming To Life Page 6 FS Says Biomass Should Drive 4FRI Page 8 Home Markets Are Hot For North Idaho Energy Logs Page 14 Woodyard Machines Page 18 Lots Of Energy Austrian Firm Has It Page 24
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