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■ table of contents

www.woodbioenergymag.com

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FROM THE EDITORS A Puzzle Too Complex To Solve?

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THE DRYER ISLAND Technologies Bring On The Heat

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IN THE NEWS Novo Power Officer Speaks Up

32

PRODUCT NEWS Wood Bio Partners With Ligna

18 OREGON’S MR. TREE No Challenge Too Great

Cover Photography: Mr. Tree in Oregon can tackle any wood processing duty, and seems to thrive on the toughest, including post-fire cleanup in the Northwest. (Dan Shell photo)

24 MICHAEL AFTERMATH Salvage Efforts Are On The Clock

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Wood Bioenergy / April 2019

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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 11

Number 2

24 Co-Publisher/Adv. Sales Manager ■ David H. Ramsey Co-Publisher/Executive Editor ■ David (DK) Knight Chief Operating Officer ■ Dianne C. Sullivan

A-LERT Construction Services

37

620.607.4035

Amandus Kahl Hamburg

11

770.521.1021

Arco International S.R.L.

34

+39 030 93 076 70

Bandit Industries

2

800.952.0178

BM&M Screening Solutions

10

800.663.0323

Buttner GmbH

29

+49 2151 448 0

CAW-Wiesloch

23

+49 0 6222 57260

CPM-Roskamp Champion

16

800.428.0846

CW Mill Equipment

33

800.743.3491

European Biomass Conference

20

+39 055 5002280

Evergreen Engineering

12

888.484.4771

ExpoBiomasa 2019

35

+34 975 10 20 20

Firefly AB

37

+46 8449 2500

Hurst Boiler & Welding

17

877.774.8778

Imal S.R.L

3

+39 059 465 500

Les Aciers J.P.

21

819.947.8291

Metal Detectors

22

541.345.7454

Mid-South Engineering

33

501.321.2276

MoistTech

32

941.727.1800

Mailing Address ■ P.O. Box 2268 Montgomery, AL 36102-2268 Tel: 334.834.1170 ■ Fax: 334.834-4525

Morbark

40

800.831.0042

Pal S.R.L

3

+39 0422 852 300

Peterson Pacific

39

800.269.6520

Editor-in-Chief ■ Rich Donnell Managing Editor ■ Dan Shell Senior Associate Editor ■ David Abbott Associate Editor ■ Jessica Johnson Associate Editor ■ Jay Donnell Art Director/Production Manager ■ Cindy Segrest Ad Production Coordinator ■ Patti Campbell Circulation Director ■ Rhonda Thomas Online Content/Marketing ■ Jacqlyn Kirkland

Precision-Husky

15

205.640.5181

Process Barron

9

205.663.5330

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Advertising Sales 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:

Timber Processing ■ Southern Loggin' Times ■ Timber Harvesting Panel World ■ Power Equipment Trade

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30

888.676.0146

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28

+46 36 15 20 00

TSI

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425.771.1190

Universal Wearparts

36

800.647.8440

Williams Patent Crusher

7

314.621.3348

Wyssmont

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201.947.4600

Wood Bioenergy (ISSN 1947-5306) is published six times annually 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 non-qualified U.S. subscriptions are $50 per year, Canadian subscriptions are $60 and foreign subscription are $95 per year (U.S. funds).

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All advertisements for Wood Bioenergy are accepted and published by Hatton-Brown Publishers, Inc. with the understanding that the advertiser and/or advertising agency are authorized to publish the entire contents and subject matter thereof. The advertiser and/or advertising agency will defend, indemnify and hold any claims or lawsuits for libel violations or right of privacy or publicity, plagiarisms, copyright or trademark infringement and any other claims or lawsuits that may arise out of publication of such advertisement. Hatton-Brown Publishers, Inc. neither endorses nor makes any representation or guarantee as to the quality of goods and services advertised in Wood Bioenergy. Copyright ® 2019. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or part without written permission is prohibited. Printed in USA.

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■ from the editors

Can Wood Bioenergy

Save Arizona?

T

he saga of Arizona’s forest restoration and fire prevention processes under the federal 4 Forests Restoration Initiative (4FRI) continues, as the company in charge of a large 300,000 acre forest stewardship and restoration contract now has new ownership.

NewLife Forest Products, itself a rejuvenated organization that took over from Good Earth Power, which actually was the second company to acquire the 4FRI Phase I stewardship contract covering 300,000 acres after the original holder of the contract, Pioneer Forest Products of Montana, wasn’t able to gain financing for its plan to build a pine cutting mill, small log sawmill and biofuel plant, now has new investors and ownership structure.

Tom Loushin, owner of A1 Timber out of Chehalis, Wash., is heading up a team that purchased NewLife Forest Products and the contract that goes with it. Forgive us if the news gives us a “Here we go again” feeling when it comes to the Phase I contract, now on its third or fourth operator since 2012, depending on how you count it.

Started as a response to the devastating fires that hit Arizona soon after the turn of the century, the 4FRI has sought to bring once opposed organizations to the table to develop solutions to forest health and fire prevention in the state. The group has brought stakeholders from across the state together and is seeking innovative ways to address forest health issues in Arizona.

Unlike other efforts that have concentrated on individual watersheds or tracts, 4FRI has taken an unprecedented regional scope, seeking to address forest health across four national forests covering 2.4 million acres.

The Phase I contract was the first of several, each covering hundreds of thousands of acres.

It’s ironic that an effort such as the 4FRI that has attracted key environmental groups to support the overall project and most individual projects is primarily hamstrung by a lack of timber and fiber markets that have slowed progress on the ground to a crawl.

Indeed, instead of treating 300,000 acres between 2012 and 2022, the Phase I 10-year contract has seen less than 20,000 acres treated in seven years.

Sawlogs have a way of selling themselves, but it’s the sheer volume of biomass that’s overwhelming efforts to build the infrastructure to utilize it. In this case,

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wood bioenergy is the answer, and two recent and related developments may make it even better.

First, the Arizona Corporation Commission recently passed a sustainable energy provision requiring utilities to get a certain percentage of power from biomass sources. Details are still being worked out, but it’s a great step in the right direction.

Second—and this is definitely counterintuitive, considering the performance of Phase I—there’s another, bigger contract out there, Phase II. It covers 500,000 acres and was supposed to have been released last year but has been delayed. Some say the group should expedite release of the Phase II contract in order to attract the financing for infrastructure development.

Combined, the biomasss energy provision and a new, larger contract may provide the certainty and volume for a major wood bioenergy expansion in the state, which is sorely needed to efficiently execute the contracts and make a dent in forest treatment backlogs. The state’s only major biomass consumer, Novo Power, is producing 28 MW, and reports say the volume available through 4FRI can easily support twice as much power capacity.

Here’s to the efforts of A1 Timber, the new NewLife Forest Products and the folks working with 4FRI. The forests, the industry and all of Arizona need 4FRI to be a success.

Wood Bioenergy / April 2019

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Biomass Power:

EPA Leaving Out Producers B

iomass power EPA may have backed producers conoff because of issues tinue to appeal to with supply chain verifithe Environmental Procation—that it’s too diftection Agency for inficult to verify which clusion in the Renewbiomass electricity is able Fuel Standard procontributing to renewgram, which started up able fuel. However bioin 2005 and was exmass power producers panded in 2007. The say, at least in the case program was originally of electric vehicles, that geared to requiring inproportional tabulations creasing volumes of re- Worsley of Novo Power could be used whereby newable fuel to replace all power producers oil-based fuel. However, biomass “split the pot” based on annual power producers say that ensuing power consumption of electric vehirules have also recognized electriccles, and EPA would give out RINs ity generated from biomass feedon a fractional basis, including to stock as renewable transportation biomass-based power producers. and thus should be eligible to reGiven the expected growth of the ceive incentive credits called RINs electric vehicle industry, an EPA(Renewable Identification Number). recognized incentives program But biomass producers say the govwould be a major boost for the bioernment has not credited a single mass power producer industry that RIN to biomass power producers, has struggled against natural gas who say that the continuing growth cost efficiency. of electric vehicles lends credence Biomass Power Assn. has sugto the importance of biomass power gested that not only should EPA generation toward reducing greenimplement the program for biohouse gas emissions, the purpose of mass power producers, but that RFS to begin with.

EPA is negligent for not having Some discussion suggests that done so yet.

Novo Power’s 28 MW plant in Snowflake

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Several biomass power producers have written letters to EPA, including Brad Worsley, president and CEO of Novo Power, in Snowflake, Ariz., which has been featured in the pages of Wood Bioenegy. Worsley has also spoken at the Wood Bioenergy Conference & Expo hosted by Wood Bioenergy magazine.

Contacted by Wood Bioenergy, Worsley comments that a RIN is a credit that Novo Power would generate based on kWh that are translated to gasoline gallon equivalents that the EPA uses to measure fuel in the RFS program. “Under the RFS,” Worsley states, “obligated parties like refiners are required to either blend their fuel with renewable fuel or purchase RINs that companies like Novo Power generate. The value of that credit depends on a few factors, including the targeted amount of fuel in the D3 category that the EPA sets each year for the following year in what is known as the Renewable Volume Obligation (RVO). So if Novo Power is able to participate in the program we would register with the government to generate RINs and then receive payment based on output.”

Four Forest Restoration project in Arizona

Wood Bioenergy / April 2019

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Here’s Worsley’s letter, dated January 31: The Honorable Andrew Wheeler Acting Administrator Environmental Protection Agency 1200 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W. Washington, DC 20460

in the state of Arizona. We are actively following the direction coming from Washington to find a statelevel solution to this national issue.

Eleven years ago, Congress agreed that electricity generated from renewable sources should be eligible for incentives under the Re-

newable Fuel Standard program.

Four years ago, EPA approved application of this program to renewable energy sources, such as bioenergy plants. The Agency has since determined that certain solid forms of biomass fuel qualify under the RFS program. However, to date

Dear Acting Administrator Wheeler: I write to you to urge the EPA to process applications enabling biomass power to generate credits under the Renewable Fuel Standard program. My company, Novo Power, is a biomass power facility located in Snowflake, AZ, that provides power to Northeastern Arizona and aids in much-needed forest management and forest restoration projects in the region.

Novo Power has been engaged in the critical restoration of Arizona’s national forests for the last 10 years.

We support over 150 full time jobs in the region in order to thin, move, and burn the biomass on our National Forest. Our 28MW biomass facility is the keystone in the Four Forest Restoration Initiative (4FRI), the largest Collaborative Forest Landscape Restoration Project (CFLRP) project in the country.

Where Novo is able to utilize the high hazard fuels/biomass cleared out of forests, restoration efforts are being completed at a rate of 15,000 acres annually. Where Novo is unable to take the biomass, less than 2,000 acres are being restored annually. We have four years remaining on our current Power Purchase Agreements (PPA) and without the correct monetization of the value created by our facility (such as credits generated on the RFS), we will likely not be able to renew our PPAs. If this happens, many of the restoration efforts in Arizona will unfortunately come to an abrupt stop and forests may become more susceptible to wildfire. We are working with the Arizona Corporation Commission to include a mandate for a small percentage of biomass power within the Renewable Energy Standard and Tariff (REST)

April 2019 / Wood Bioenergy

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EPA has failed to act on this approval by processing formal applications from a number of renewable electricity producers seeking certification and identification numbers (Renewable Identification Number, or RIN) under the RFS program. We understand that EPA now faces a four-year backlog of applications from power producers seeking registration, with many more requests expected to follow.

Novo Power intends to seek certification under the RFS program. At the same time that our services are increasingly needed by Arizona’s forests, federal and state policy is instead bolstering other sources of energy. It is essential to the financial well-being of Novo Power that this program be extended to our plant, and it is only fair that biomass power plants be entitled to benefit from the RFS program on an equal footing with other generators of renewable energy, such as wind and solar.

We respectfully urge you to act on all outstanding registration requests as expeditiously as possible, and to issue a final conclusion on the regulatory structure for the electric RIN pathway.

Respectfully, Brad Worsley President and CEO, Novo Power c. The Honorable Kyrsten Sinema The Honorable Martha McSally The Honorable Tom O’Halleran

Aemetis Advances On Ethanol Facility Aemetis, Inc. reports that the USDA has issued a Conditional Commitment under the 9003 Biorefinery Assistance Program to guarantee a $125 million, 20-year loan to the Aemetis cellulosic ethanol plant to be built in Riverbank, Calif.

The Riverbank plant is designed to convert orchard, forest and other biomass waste into cellulosic ethanol with below zero carbon emissions.

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Following Phase I approval for a loan guarantee from the USDA in late 2016, Aemetis invested more than $10 million to build and operate an integrated demonstration plant, obtained an independent engineering review, secured the Riverbank site, signed an ethanol offtake agreement, entered into a 20-year fixed-price feedstock supply agreement, completed preliminary engineering, and obtained necessary environmental approvals in order to complete the requirements for the issuance of the USDA Conditional Commitment.

“The Aemetis Riverbank project is needed to meet the mandates set forth in the federal Renewable Fuel Standard and California’s Low Carbon Fuel Standard to improve air quality, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, expand domestic employment, reduce dependence on imported crude oil and attract investment into U.S. industrial projects,” says Eric McAfee, Chairman and CEO of Aemetis. “This USDA loan guarantee supports the conversion of waste orchard, forest and other biomass in California into clean, low carbon biofuels, launching the first phase of four Aemetis cellulosic biofuels plants planned in the Central Valley.”

The Conditional Commitment of the $125 million USDA loan guarantee is in addition to the recently granted $12 million California state tax waiver and the $5 million California Energy Commission Notice of Proposed Award for the Riverbank project. Preliminary engineering has been completed and construction of the Riverbank plant is expected to begin in mid-2019.

Headquartered in Cupertino, Calif., Aemetis is an advanced renewable fuels and biochemicals company focused on the acquisition, development and commercialization of innovative technologies that replace traditional petroleum-based products by the conversion of ethanol and biodiesel plants into advanced biorefineries. Founded in 2006, Aemetis owns and operates a 60 million gallon per year ethanol

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production facility in California’s Central Valley, near Modesto.

Aemetis also owns and operates a 50 million gallon per year renewable chemical and advanced fuel production facility on the East Coast of India producing high quality distilled biodiesel and refined glycerin for customers in India, the U.S. and Europe.

Pacific BioEnergy Buys Skeena Pellets Output Skeena Sawmills Ltd. and Pacific BioEnergy Corp. (PacBio) have entered into a long-term off-take agreement for wood pellets. PacBio will purchase all of the pellets produced at Skeena Sawmills’ new pellet plant in support of PacBio’s long-term supply agreements with power producers in Japan. Skeena’s pellet plant is built adjacent its sawmill in Terrace, British Columbia and is commencing production.

“Skeena’s pellet plant provides a critical outlet for residual fiber from the sawmill and builds on our commitment to maximizing value from the forest resource and generating local jobs from local logs in Northwestern British Columbia,” comments Rick Harris, Vice President of Sales and Marketing for Skeena

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Sawmills. “Our $20 million investment to build a pellet plant, combined with this long-term strategic partnership with PacBio to serve international markets for bioenergy, supports the sustainability of both our business model and the regional forest economy.”

Previously Pacific BioEnergy announced it has entered into two new long-term pellet supply contracts with Japanese power producers.

Commencing in 2020 and 2022, respectively, PacBio will be supplying a combined 170,000 tonnes per year by 2022.

In July 2017 Sumitomo Corp. of Japan acquired a 48% equity interest in PBEC. Sumitomo owns several power generation plants in Japan and has been importing wood pellets for power generation since 2008.

Oregon State Study Will Focus On Fire On the heels of Oregon’s most expensive wildfire season ever in 2018, researchers at Oregon State University are ramping up efforts to better predict how the blazes behave, including how they generate fire-spreading embers.

A team led by David Blunck of OSU’s College of Engineering has

been chosen by the U.S. Dept. of Defense to spearhead a new $2.1 million effort to study the burning of live fuels. OSU will partner with the U.S. Forest Service on a four-year grant awarded through the DOD’s Strategic Environmental Research Development Program (SERDP).

“The DOD is interested in this because they have a lot of land, and it burns,” says Blunck, an assistant professor of mechanical engineering. “Live fuels are basically trees that are green and living. These trees are often what torches, but historically, dead fuels have primarily been studied.”

The work will be built around the theory that there are likely just a handful of factors—such as pyrolysis, the decomposition that results from high temperatures, and the products of that decomposition— that cause differences in burning behavior when live fuels burn.

“Most live fuel studies tend to be fuel specific, controlling for variation in burning behavior based on time of year and moisture content, but with those results, it’s hard to know how new fuels will burn, or even how the same fuel will burn outside the conditions that have been studied,” Blunck says. “So it’s really better to understand what’s

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OSU ramps up research to better predict wildfire behavior.

driving the sensitivity when you have different fuels. Our theory is that it’s just a few processes that cause the differences when you burn different live fuels, and if we can understand what they are, we can better predict how new species would burn.”

The research will provide Dept. of Defense managers with fire models that can predict ignition, burning rate and fuel consumption for mixtures of live and dead fuels, allowing them to more effectively plan prescribed burning as well as wildfire responses. It will involve a mix of lab work, modeling and field studies.

In recent months, Blunck’s group has examined the burning behavior of more than 100 trees representing four different species—Douglas fir, grand fir, western juniper and ponderosa pine—in the range of 10 to 15 feet tall.

“That height is not very large for a forest perspective, but for testing for wildfire purposes this is typically not done, and never for the number of trees that we have burned,” he says.

“With trees that are about 10 feet tall, we can bridge the scales between the laboratory and prescribed burns. We can look at many species and start to vary the parameters we think are important.”

In addition, last December Blunck and other researchers studied the effect of fire retardant on ember generation and found that under some conditions, trees coated in the retardant sent off fewer embers that contained enough energy to start a new fire. This effort was in

partnership with an industry sponsor, P N Solutions.

Techniques for studying embers include infrared videography, collecting embers in trays of water and measuring scorch marks on squares of fire-resistant fabric placed on the ground at varying distances from the fire.

The state in 2018 saw 1,880 fires burn 1,322 square miles—more land area than the state of Rhode Island.

Article written by Steve Lundeberg.

E-mail him at steve.lundeberg@oregonstate.edu

Korea’s Hanwha Orders Pellet Plant At the beginning of 2019 IMAL PAL Group signed on to an important project with Korea’s Hanwha for a new pellet plant in South Korea of 40 t/h capacity, a production of approximately 320,000 t/year.

PAL will supply the following machinery and systems (manufactured in Italy): —screening and cleaning system of the chips feeding stream by Dynascreen and dry cleaning machines; —wet and dry wood milling system including hammermills of the Falcon type in its high-performance configuration, complete with screw metering, metal and contaminant removing system through magnetic drum and air selection system; —after the dryer a screening and cleaning system (Superscreen and Wind Sifter) provides for the reduction of energy consumption in the milling area and at the same time ensures the wood quality having removed all residual contaminants in the wood mix. This important implementation will not only guarantee the pellet quality but also avoid the risks of fire and explosion thanks to the removal of all contaminants that would cause ignition during the milling phase; —a storage silo equipped with the Extracon type extractor for the storage of dry wood after the dryer; —eight Volumetric metering sys-

tems equipped with DB.4 type screws; —seven Dynapelletpresses highperformance pelletizing presses fabricated by the PSP division which ensures longer wear life as well as a lower energy consumption per ton output.

Delivery is scheduled for this October.

Drax Carbon Capture Project Steps Up The Drax bioenergy carbon capture and storage (BECCS) demonstration plant at the power station near Selby in North Yorkshire, UK, is using technology developed by CCapture to capture a tonne of CO2 a day during the pilot operation. It is the first time carbon dioxide has been captured from the combustion of a 100% biomass feedstock anywhere in the world.

If the pilot can be scaled up to deliver negative emissions, Drax Power Station would be helping to remove the gases that cause global warming from the atmosphere at the same time as electricity is produced.

Engineers began commissioning the pilot plant in November with the first carbon now being captured, proving that the proprietary solvent developed by C-Capture can be used to isolate the carbon dioxide from the flue gases released when biomass is used to generate electricity.

Data being obtained about the CO2 capture process will continue to be analyzed throughout the pilot to fully understand the potential of the technology and how it could be scaled up at Drax. Part of this will include identifying and developing ways to store and use the carbon dioxide being captured.

Drax has invested £400,000 in the pilot, which could be the first of several projects undertaken at the power station.

The Royal Society and Royal Academy of Engineering have estimated that BECCS could enable Drax to capture 50 million tonnes of carbon dioxide per year by 2050—

April 2019 / Wood Bioenergy

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approximately half the nation’s emissions target.

Chris Rayner, founder of C-Capture and Professor of Organic Chemistry at the University of Leeds, comments: “This represents a major milestone on the road to achieving negative emissions through BECCS, which is going to be so important in the future. To see our technology working in a real environment like Drax is a tribute to the fantastic team of chemists and engineers who work on the project.”

Caspar Schoolderman, Director of Engineering at C-Capture, adds: “Working at this scale is really where the engineering gets interesting. The challenge now is to get all the information we need to design and build a capture plant 10,000 times bigger. It’s only really when we get to those sorts of scales that we can start to have an impact on the climate.” l Meanwhile Drax reported several highlights for 2018: —successful low cost conversion of its fourth biomass unit in the UK; —its third U.S. pellet plant, LaSalle Bioenergy, was commissioned, is fully operational and is showing a 10% reduction in cost per tonne; —the company’s pellet facilities produced 1.31 million tonnes in 2018, an increase of 64% over 2017.

New Pinnacle Facility Has Fire Setback On February 11 Pinnacle suspended operations at its new Entwistle, Alberta wood pellet facility due to a fire and explosion that occurred at the dryer area. One employee went to the hospital and several employees sustained minor injuries.

“The company’s priority is to look after its employees. The company is investigating the cause of the incident and working with its insurers, suppliers and contractors to evaluate the damage and develop a plan to restart the dryer area,” according to a statement.

The rest of the facility sustained

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Pinnacle Entwistle is resuming pellet production with procured dry fiber.

little damage and Pinnacle planned to resume production in March from dry fiber.

Prior to the incident, the company was successfully ramping up the facility. The storage silo is fully operational and unit train delivery service commenced in Q4 2018. Fiber processing was improving and daily production rates were meeting the company’s previously established ramp-up curve.

New Projects, New Revenue For Enviva In its 2018 annual report Enviva reported net revenue of $573.7 million, an increase of 5.6% over 2017, including product sales of $564 million on a volume of 3.0 million MT of wood pellets as compared to $522.3 million on a volume of 2.7 million MT in 2017.

The company reiterated its strategy to fully contract the wood pellet production from its plants under long-term, take-or-pay off-take contracts. Its current production capacity is matched with a portfolio of firm and contingent off-take contracts that has a total weighted-average remaining term of 9.7 years and a total of $7.9 billion product sales backlog as of February 1, 2019, though including all volumes under the firm and contingent off-take contracts held by affiliates increases product sales backlog to 12.3 years and $14.6 billion.

In addition to the approximately 1.5 million metric tons per year of firm, long-term contracts with Japanese counterparties that Enviva previously announced, it has recently executed several additional agreements with Japanese counter-

parties totaling more than 540,000 MTPY of additional volumes, including: —a new 17-year, take-or-pay offtake contract with a major Japanese trading house to supply a Japanese independent power producer. Deliveries under the contract are expected to commence in 2023 with initial volumes of 100,000 MTPY of wood pellets for the first five contract years, increasing to 175,000 MTPY thereafter.

—a new 18-year, take-or-pay offtake contract with a major Japanese trading house to supply a new biomass power plant. Deliveries under this contract are expected to commence in 2022 with volumes of 440,000 MTPY of wood pellets.

Enviva reports that several recent developments demonstrate the continued strong growth expected in global demand for industrial-grade wood pellets: l After a provisional agreement on June 14, 2018, the final text of the Renewable Energy Directive II (“RED II”) was formally adopted by the European Parliament and the European Council and became legally binding on December 24, 2018. The directive dictates that, by 2030, the share of energy from renewable sources must account for at least 32% of the European Union’s gross consumption. Furthermore, the European Commission is required to re-evaluate and potentially increase the 32% target by 2023.

This landmark legislation is expected to drive continued growth in the use of biomass energy across the European Union through the 2020s. l On January 26, 2019, Germany’s Commission on Growth, Structural Economic Change and Employment, otherwise known as the “Coal Commission,” agreed on a final report that proposes to end coal-fired power production in Germany by 2038. The report proposes to decommission 12.5 gigawatts (GWs) of coal-fired power generation capacity by 2022 and more than 25.0 GWs by 2030. The Coal Commission also proposes more than 40 billion Euros in aid to regions af-

Wood Bioenergy / April 2019

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■ in the news

fected by the coal phase-out to facilitate the transition. Given the need across the industrial landscape in Germany for continued baseload and dispatchable thermal and electric energy, this ambitious goal creates significant challenges that costeffective conversions of coal-fired generation to biomass are uniquely suited to solve. Several utilities, including Vattenfall, have announced that they are currently evaluating biomass solutions. l On December 12, 2018, Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade, and Industry (METI) announced that as of June 2018 Japan’s operating biomass power generation capacity under its feed-in-tariff (“FiT”) scheme reached approximately 2.4 GWs. Coupled with additional FiTapproved biomass power generation capacity of 8.6 GWs, total biomass generation capacity under the FiT scheme is now 11.0 GWs. Although some approved capacity may be cancelled if developers fail to meet certain project development milestone requirements, the approved capacity is significantly above the country’s target of 6.0 to 7.5 GWs of biomass power by 2030. For reference, it would take at least 25.0 to 30.0 million metric tons of wood pellets annually to generate 10.0 GWs of biomass power.

Enviva’s previously announced projects to increase the aggregate production capacity of its wood pellet production plants in Northampton, NC and Southampton, Va. by approximately 400,000 MTPY have commenced and detailed engineering is nearing completion. Enviva expects completion of the expansion activities in the first half of 2020 with startup shortly thereafter, subject to receiving necessary permits.

Enviva’s new mill at Hamlet, NC will be operational in the first half of 2019. The company continues to invest incremental capital in its wood pellet production plant in Greenwood, SC with production capacity expected to increase from 500,000 MTPY to 600,000 MTPY annually.

Enviva is completing its final investment decision process on a pro-

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posed deep-water marine terminal in Pascagoula, Miss. and a wood pellet production plant in Lucedale, Miss., and continues to evaluate additional development locations, including sites in Epes, Ala., and Taylorsville, Miss.

Pinnacle Has Record Year In 2018 Pinnacle Renewable Energy revenue in 2018 increased 18.7% to $347.4 million compared to $292.7 million 2017. The company offered these highlights: —sold a record volume of 1.6 million metric tons of industrial wood pellets; —secured six new long-term contracts with customers in Japan totaling $1.9 billion; —secured two new long-term contracts with CGN Daesan Power Co., Ltd. in South Korea totaling $1 billion; —extended the weighted average remaining life of Pinnacle’s portfolio off-take contracts to nine years; —entered into commercial production at its facility in Entwistle, Alberta; —commenced initial production at its new 70% owned production facility in Smithers, BC; —acquired a 70% stake in an industrial wood pellet production facility in Aliceville, Ala. and a strategic partnership with The Westervelt Company.

EPH Group Purchases Another Italy Plant EPH Group is getting stronger in the biomass sector. Through the subsidiary EP New Energy Italia (EPNEI) the group completed the acquisition of the 7 MW Fusine biomass power plant in the province of Sondrio.

This is the third investment in biomass energy by EPH. EPNEI completed in December 2017 the acquisition of the biomass power plants owned by Biomasse Italia and Biomasse Crotone (for a total capacity of 73 MW).

Wood Bioenergy / April 2019

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■ grinding project

Mr. Tree Delivers With

Major Recovery Project

By Dan Shell

D

ropping ashes and billowing wind-driven smoke into Portland some 50+ miles to the West, the Columbia River Gorge fires in 2017 burned for three months from September 4 until seasonal rains in late November finally extinguished the burning catastrophe that was started by a 15-year-old kid playing with fireworks.

Before it was over, almost 50,000 acres of timberland across multiple public and private ownerships covering some of the most breathtakingly scenic and intensely rugged terrain North America has to offer were torched.

Aside from the timberland damages, fire impact was immense: sections of I-84 and U.S. Hwy. 30 were closed for weeks, local communities were evacuated and air quality issues affected school activities as far away as the Portland metro area and even westward. Many businesses in the area were severely impacted.

A national treasure, the Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area is hugely popular throughout the region as a hiking and tourist destination. Dozens of trails were damaged, roads and highways were unsafe to travel because for hazard trees—and gorge fans

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throughout the Pacific Northwest were intensely watching recovery efforts.

As soon as the all-clear was given, one of the first companies on site to begin repairing the damage was Mr. Tree of Happy Valley, Ore., a multifaceted operation based on the outskirts of the greater Portland area that can do just about anything with a tree when it comes to commercial tree and timber work. Mr. Tree can truly do it all, from trimming and pruning dainty Japanese maples in a city subdivision to full-scale contract logging on industrial or public timberland— and everything in between. That includes stump grinding, lot clearing, right-of-way and subdivision work, plus tree trimming and thinning and hazard and danger tree removal.

Mr. Tree also employs three grinders that are utilized to complement the company’s tree and land-clearing operations, operate at the company’s expanded mulch and bark yard and also pursue outside work such as the gorge fire recovery and salvage project.

The company was founded in 1997 and is led by Wilbur Akins and his wife, Joyce. Wilbur looks after the logging and large tree work, Josh Woolsey is opera-

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T he recovery proj ect in a national scenic area included thousands of logs and related fi ber processing and removal, with fi ber going directly to mills or back to Mr. T ree’ s sort yard.

tions manager for Mr. Tree’s tree service operations, and Kyle Pettit manages the grinding work.

Recovery Among the first allowed in the gorge fire Ky le P ettit on grinding site zone while stretches of I84 and Hwy. 30 were still closed due to danger, Akins says the first move was to begin cutting hazard trees adjacent the highway. Work was handled by Mr. Tree’s highly experienced manual cutters and also the company’s Timbco feller-buncher and a Kobelco 350 with Summit Attachments & Machinery triple drum loader conversion flying an Acme 10 logging carriage.

Handling equipment includes a Link-Belt 240LX with Pierce grapple, Hitachi 210LC with PSM brush grapple and Volvo ECR2350L excavators.

Much of the work was in extremely steep areas with loose soil, Akins remembers. “When we were dropping and moving the trees to the roadside so much dirt was constantly coming down we had to have a guy with a wheel loader to keep the road clean,” he says.

The area is very sensitive ecologically and for scenic values, and timberland within the official scenic area is managed similar to wilderness, with no commercial or even salvage logging allowed. As such, the project is a contract with the Oregon Dept. of Transportation with the goal of removing hazard trees and making the road-

C lean material is hauled straight to local energy wood customers; remainder is screened, upgraded and resold.

ways safer. Mr. Tree was on site in late 2017, and the project is scheduled to wrap up in a couple of months, Akins says.

Just west of where Mr. Tree was grinding and merchandising along I-84, Hwy 30 (the original, pre-interstate road that runs along the top of the gorge) runs through a series of very popular parks with waterfalls and trails that were heavily damaged.

The Hwy. 30 work included roughly eight miles of narrow, heavily tree-lined winding roads with blackened trunks looming above. Mr. Tree felled the trees and hauled them to the processing location along I-84 near the entrance to Ainsworth State Park. Overall,

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■ grinding project

Sorting logs into fi ber, fi rewood and other products at fi ber yard.

more than 12,000 trees were removed.

Mr. Tree merchandised out a large deck of logs that were sold to a nearby sawmill, and has been using one of its three Peterson 5710C horizontal grinders to process the remaining material, much of it cottonwood with some Douglas fir mixed in. When WB visited, the grinding crew was feeding the 5710C with a Link-Belt 240LX, grinding into a pile and loading with the Hitachi-brush grapple machine. A Caterpillar 930H with bucket was keeping the pile groomed.

Clean hog fuel is being taken directly to one of several mill customers in the area, though the bulk of material processed at the site along I-84 is hauled back to Mr. Tree’s facility in Happy Valley. There, it’s screened and further merchandised, with cleaner material going to mill customers as boiler fuel and the remainder into the fiber yard where it’s sold as mulch, soil or some other product.

Diversification Operations at Mr. Tree’s office and facilities in Happy Valley are key to the company’s overall mission and business success. By utilizing additional processing and handling capabilities, Mr. Tree is able to merchandise almost all the material it generates to realize its highest value.

The company sells a serious mountain of firewood every year, produced through a heavily modified CordKing firewood processor. Mr. Tree keeps multiple loads of firewood ready to haul in drive-up half cord and full cord racks located just inside the office fence in a graveled area for easy customer access.

In addition to the three grinders used to process the biomass that Mr. Tree’s operations produce and acquire, the company also runs a PowerScreen trommel screen to further merchandise and separate fiber into higher value products.

And on the south end of Mr. Tree’s sprawling facility,

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■ grinding project

Trommel screen and grinders are key to Mr. Tree’s yard expansion.

the company is putting the finishing touches on a new, paved retail fiber yard that will sell materials such as bark dust, wood chips, top soil, ¾ gravel, drain rock and decorative rock.

The company has wholesaled material for years, and has been a big supplier to the City of Portland and

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Portland Metro government for landscape projects, but is making the move into retailing in order to find new markets.

According to Akins, selling landscape materials began as a way to offset operational costs, but has since grown into a business of its own. “The biggest reason is to help lower our costs, but we also get a lot of good material that doesn’t need to go to the landfill,” he says.

“By doing this, we’re able to not only move the product but make a better product and recycle it instead of putting it in a landfill.”

The wide variety of services in a wide variety of markets has led Mr. Tree to doing work across the country following storms to help with powerline restoration, including Georgia, Florida and Oklahoma and California, Washington and Utah.

True to its do-it-all approach, Mr. Tree has also developed some interesting business such as supplying and installing 80-100 ft. Christmas trees for malls and other commercial outlets using its lift trucks. Mr. Tree has even done some Christmas tree decorating. The company has also supplied logs for fish structure conservation projects in sensitive trout and salmon streams.

Another new venture is a drop box program for customers who may want to do their own clearing work but still need a way to dispose of the material generated.

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grinding project ■

Operations Mr. Tree has 45 employees, 12 of whom are dedicated to the logging crew, including drivers. In addition to the company’s tree cutters and removal crews and related ground crew, the company’s residential division includes certified arborists who can determine tree health and any remedies needed.

Residential services include complete tree health services, plus tree shaping designs and services to improve aesthetics. “In case of tree health, our certified arborists will assess the tree and make recommendations about trimming or removal or what needs to be done,” Woolsey says.

Mr. Tree is a member of the International Society of Arborists (ISA) and Friends of Trees organizations, and arborists on staff are ISA-certified. “We try to do what we can between the health of the tree and the goals of the customer,” he adds.

The headquarters facility includes a four-bay service shop that does extensive work on a wide variety of equipment that ranges from excavators, feller-bunchers and grinders to 65 ft. lift trucks, 6WD dump trucks and backhoes.

Company officials say they plan to continue working to develop product and service niches both in their local

Mr. Tree can truly do it all when it comes to trees.

markets and through regional and perhaps farther-flung work as well.

“We’re real well known, we have a good reputation for logging and with our residential work,” Akins says.

We’re in a great location, we work in both Washington and California regularly, so we cover a wide area.”

The folks in the Pacific Northwest and all around the country know: Whether it’s hazard trees, biomass trees, residential trees, decorative trees or grade log trees, Mr. Tree truly can do it all.

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■ hurricane michael

Six Months Out:

Michael’s Impact Increases

By Jessica Johnson

R

ot, bark slippage and blue stain are beginning to settle in as timber salvage efforts continue in the wake of Hurricane Michael.

Michael came ashore October 10, 2018, the eye crossing Mexico Beach and then moving inland and northeast, causing catastrophic or severe damage to 2.8 million acres of Florida timberland according to the Florida Forest Service. A Category 4 hurricane with winds reaching 155 MPH, Michael cut an 80-mile wide swath across 11 counties in the Florida Panhandle, where conservative estimates put timber loss in the state at $1.3 billion and total damage expenditures at $39 billion. According to the Florida Forest Service, 72 million tons of prime timber were broken or blown over—imagine 2.5 million loaded log trucks—affecting 16,000 private landowners.

Florida’s estimated monetary timber loss is just less than double that reported by the Georgia Forestry Commission, which stated that 2.37 million acres of Georgia forestland sustained damage valued at $763 million.

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In packaging an emergency landowner assistance funding request of $583 million, the Florida Forest Service indicates the potential for significant increase in wildfires over the next 10 years. Usually, the Panhandle has 4.87 tons per acre of available fuel; post-Michael, the average is 58 tons per acre, a 10-fold increase, and in the catastrophic areas of Bay, Calhoun and Gulf counties there is more than 100 tons per acre of fuel on the ground.

Wildfires aren’t the only major concern for the Panhandle. Reforestation remains uncertain for the 16,000 private landowners who make up nearly 80% of the devastated timber base, as they watch family investments, college funds, retirement funds and other generational security rot away. Florida Forest Service notes that without guidance and financial support many of the private landowners will not clean up and will definitely not replant.

During recent testimony at the Capitol in Tallahassee, Florida Forest Service Director Jim Karels told a Senate committee it could take a decade or more for Florida’s timber industry to recover. He recommended the state immediately provide $20 million to help nonindustrial private forest landowners clear fallen trees and start re-

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hurricane michael ■

Hayes Morris has his timber operations working through the shattered forests.

planting the forests. He also recommended spending nearly $9 million for equipment and programs to help reduce the fire threat.

Timber Industry For timber dealer and logger Hayes Morris, owner of Morris Timber Products based in Lynn Haven, Fla., it is a mind-boggling experience he’s still trying to wrap his mind around as every stand of timber, creek bottom, crossroad and landmark of his daily life has been blown away.

Morris Timber Products made machine purchases following the storm to aid operators and bring efficiency to its peak. Morris has two Barko 595 track shovel machines outfitted with topping saws in order to clear up standing trees that are broken. Morris has his shovel operator trying to handle cutting and pushing stumps as best as he can—with the realization that stumps are going to be one of the biggest challenges to those who decide to replant.

His crew is also making heavy use of two Caterpillar 521 track cutters with 360 degree rotating sawheads, which allow operators to flip the head over and cut trees on the ground.

Morris Timber Products’ three crews are operating at the same level as before the storm, but production is down about 20%. Morris says he’s running the crews as hard as he can, and everyone is aware of the time sensitive nature of the work.

Jeremy Sapp, Vice President of Sapp’s Land & Excavating, Inc., based in Chipley, Fla.—about 70 miles north and slightly west from where Michael’s eye came ashore—has reduced number of operating crews from five to four due to losing a few employees to the demand for equipment operators in the area for the cleanup effort.

Even with fewer crews, and the tedious work in processing storm damaged wood, weekly production has remained stable, and has been aided by Sapp’s recent purchase and implementation of a John Deere 2554 log loader with a dangle sawhead that allows the operator to cut wood parallel to the ground.

Jeremy Sapp recently added a track loader and specialty sawhead.

For Sapp, whose main market is Enviva’s large wood pellet mill in Cottondale, his chip versus roundwood production has not changed—though he notes he has shifted to a higher concentration of standing timber, as opposed to timber already blown down from the storm.

Enviva is reacting to fiber density changes in the storm damaged wood and is beginning to reduce the amount that they procure in microchip form.

Enviva states that despite some earlier procurement challenges, the Cottondale plant’s supply is stable and the plant is running at full capacity. The company has been actively involved in recovery efforts, which is helping local landowners clear land for replanting.

As far as the eye can see the trees are either completely blown down or broken into triangle shapes. Many places look as if a buzz saw came straight through the plantation and cut everything at 12 ft. Loggers in the area assumed area sawmills were going to be choked with timber and congested, but the region’s low ground and a wet winter following the storm changed that dynamic.

Rex Lumber’s sawmills in Graceville and Bristol, Fla. had to cut production in January due to weather and log flow. The rain has hampered the recovery effort, notes Charles McRae, co-owner of Rex Lumber. “I think we have a month tops left on salvage wood,” McRae said in mid-March, referring to the rot and other

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■ hurricane michael

Mexico Beach, Fla. received the eye of the storm, which inflicted more than $50 billion in expenditure losses touching several states.

Salvage season for sawlogs is quickly expiring.

timber defects. “The paper mills can probably go a few months beyond us.”

Across the Panhandle, most processing facilities took some time to get back on-line, taking production ramp up in increments. For example, WestRock, which operates a corrugated packaging mill in Panama City, returned to full production of containerboard during November 2018; however, given the damage to the facility, the company doesn’t expect the mill to return to full pulp production until the end of June.

Government Aid As part of Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’ state budget for fiscal year 2019-2020, introduced February 1, “a bold vision for hurricane recovery” has been included. DeSantis’ plan proposes spending $271 million to match federal funds for federally declared disasters—which would total $1.9 billion in federal and state assistance for those affected by Hurricane Michael. Additionally, this budget outlines $765 million to address housing and job training needs in recovery zones. It is currently unclear if this budget will pass the Florida legislature, which convened for the first time this session on March 5. A bill filed in the Florida legislature by state rep. Ramon Alexander seeks to give 12 affected counties $338 million mainly for housing.

For landowners, the federal Emergency Forest

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Restoration Program (EFRP), subject to availability of funding, provides payments to eligible owners of nonindustrial private forestland in order to carry out emergency measures to restore land damaged by a natural disaster. Under this program, the federal government will cost-share payments up to 75% (but limited to $500,000 per entity) to rehabilitate private forests following a natural disaster. This cost-share program administered by the USDA Farm Service Agency (FSA) offers assistance with debris removal, including getting down and damaged trees out, and all site prep, including planting materials and labor.

Additionally the FSA Emergency Conservation Program provides funding and technical assistance for farmers and ranchers to rehabilitate farmland damaged by natural disasters. Producers located in counties that receive a primary or contiguous disaster designation are eligible for low-interest emergency loans to help them recover from production and physical losses.

Compensation also is available to producers who purchased coverage through the Noninsured Crop Disaster Assistance Program, which protects non-insurable crops against natural disasters that result in lower yields, crop losses, or prevented planting.

Forest2Market, a global provider of timber prices, market data and in-depth analytics for suppliers and consumers of wood raw materials, believes overall the damaged timber inventory represents about a 12-year equivalent of current annual removals and more than a 15-year equivalent in the severe and catastrophic damaged areas.

Heavily impacted areas will experience first thinnings in 15-20 years, increasing the available merchantable pulpwood supply. However, the impact of the initial loss of inventory combined with the intense harvesting in areas only moderately damaged, or those left luckily unscathed, will result in an age/class imbalance.

Forest2Market believes this will help intensify competition for available timber and result in some strain on supply that will drive prices higher for years. It is possible this will also affect the current oversupply of sawlogs.

Federal government aid could also come in the form of timber sales and harvesting in the Apalachicola National Forest, which is east of where the storm came in. Some tonnage could be flowing out by the end of this year.

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â– dryer island A-LERT

MID-SOUTH ENGINEERING

A-Lert designs, manufactures, installs and services a broad range of industrial dryer systems. We offer A-Lert provides fabrication and everything from servicing. single and triple pass rotary dryer drums, flash tube dryers, steam tube dryers with the ability to process both organic and inorganic materials across a wide variety of manufacturing industries. We also offer the process piping, trommel screening, storage, conveying and Cleanaire systems often needed with these systems.

A-Lert serves as a specialty fabricator and replacement parts supplier for all existing M-E-C systems. Whether you are looking for a turnkey solution for complete drying systems, something in between or you need parts and service for existing equipment, we stand ready to serve your needs. You can download a complete list of replacement items in stock and products we fabricate at alertconstructionservices.com.

We look forward to serving you with solutions.

Mid-South Engineering Co. is a full service, consulting engineering firm founded in 1969. With design experience extending through the bioenergy sec- Mid-South works with the wood tor of the industry, bioenergy industry.

Mid-South offers a broad range of engineering and related services. A veteran staff has executed thousands of projects with hundreds of these in the bioenergy industry.

Clients are offered multi-disciplined (mechanical, industrial, electrical, civil and structural) engineering support for projects of any size. Additionally, Mid-South can provide feasibility studies, project planning, project management, pneumatic design and construction coordination.

Mid-South is based in Arkansas, with branch offices in North Carolina and Maine, serving clients domestically and around the world. Visit mseco.com ➤ 30

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■ dryer island PROCESSBARRON Ash handling systems endure some of the mot punishing environmental impacts of any equipment in a plant. Under intense temperature and abrasive conditions, many ProcessBarron fly ash removal systems fail to operate reliably, leaving a plant at a loss for how to efficiently convey, store and unload ash debris. What are the common principles in ash handling and what are some simple solutions that can improve reliability, reduce downtime and minimize maintenance costs?

Fly ash is normally defined as the ash that has passed up through the boiler furnace and steam generating bank. Generally, ash has particles less than 100 microns in size and that have very unique material and flow characteristics.

Most fly ash is collected in the downstream hoppers under equipment such as the economizer, air heater, dust collector, precipitator, baghouse, etc. Sand and dirt particles can also be present in ash that comes from burning biomass and

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can make up a large percentage of the ash volume. In this type of ash, the system must take this highly erosive potential into consideration in the design of the system.

Since the fly ash does not have large particles, there are not high forces on the chain/flight arrangement; fly ash drag conveyors can be designed to operate on a single strand drag chain design with cantilevered flight arrangements. This typical conveyor design utilizes “en masse” conveying principles, which is a very highly efficient method of conveying. This method allows the conveyors to run at slow speeds and be smaller in size for a given volumetric output versus using dual strand drag conveyors that would be more suitable for bottom ash or fuel handling.

With using a single strand drag conveyor, uneven drag chain elongation is no longer a concern or problem in the conveyor design and operation like dual strand drags can have. There will be some chain elongation, but will be easily managed in the conveyor take-up mechanism. By using a smaller and simpler single strand design you will have better conveying efficiency and reliability with less maintenance and repairs in the future.

ProcessBarron’s fly ash handling drag conveyor systems are designed for the high temperatures and abrasive conditioners found in most fly ash systems. Our conveyor de-

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dryer island ■

signs incorporate our single strand drag chain made of high strength drop forged CrMn alloy steel with forged links that are heat treated to a surface hardness of HRC 5760. Our troughs are designed to be fully sealed to prevent ash from leaking into the atmosphere and are constructed of heavy duty, abrasion-resistant steel that reduces wear and maintenance. Visit processbarron.com

SIGMA THERMAL For more than a decade, Sigma Thermal has supplied biomass fired energy systems for the wood process industry, specifically serving engineered wood plants (OSB, MDF, PB and LVL). We design and manufacture several Sigma Thermal biomasstypes of biomass-fired systems for industrial use infired energy system cluding biomass-fired combustion systems, biomass-fired hot gas generators, biomass-fired thermal fluid heaters, and biomass-fired steam boilers. Sigma also supplies ancillary fuel handling, dust collection/ash handling, and control equipment.

Retrofit services such as system modifications and emission upgrades are available for Sigma-branded or nonbranded biomass systems. Other services include pre-scheduled maintenance, replacement parts, energy audits, and boiler MACT compliance.

At Sigma Thermal we believe that engineering knowledge, applied field experience, and customer service are the keys to successful system design and project execution. We have an integrated full-service facility that includes engineering, fabrication, a UL listed panel shop, and warehouse space. For most projects (schedule permitting) we can design, manufacture, assemble, and test a complete scope of supply entirely on our 10-acre campus located in Marietta, Ga. We review each heating system for quality and safety before shipment.

Sigma also offers other packaged heating systems for a wide variety of industrial applications: thermal fluid/hot oil, electric, water/water-glycol/salt bath, direct-fired convection (API-560), and waste heat recovery systems. Visit sigmathermal.com

TSI TSI takes a holistic approach to “Dryer Islands.” In overall process terms this starts with delivery of wet wood chips and fuel (usually wet bark) to the dryer island and ends with delivery of dry wood chips to a silo. In between these two functions there are several key pieces of equipment: a heat energy system, a dryer system and emission control equipment. Each of these key items is a complex mechanism in its own right but, for a successful overall system, it is essential all three key areas work together as one system. TSI

provides all three key pieces from one source and programs all three as an integrated process island.

Large format TSI dryer island at The central mastartup, featuring step grate furchine—the dryer— nace, 24 ft. diameter dryer, wet has been a ESP and RTO mainstay of TSI’s products range for many years. TSI specializes in singlepass recycle dryers. This technology represents a highly cost effective and efficient approach to drying wood chips.

It also offers the ability to process enough chips for a 500,000 tons/year pellet plant through one drum.

For furnaces TSI partners with Sigma Thermal to offer step grate technology that is ideal for burning wet bark.

The sizes of furnace are designed to match the dryers up to the largest size so generally each dryer will have a dedicated heat source.

Emission control can be achieved in several different ways but for the larger plants they need a wet electrostatic precipitator (wet ESP) to mitigate fine airborne particulate and, at least in the U.S., a regenerative thermal oxidizer (RTO) to mitigate volatile organics and other hazardous air pollutants. The regulations around emissions can be complex and the system has to be designed to work in all circumstances. TSI has developed its own design for these systems and has been able to meet the strictest standards with equipment that is functional on a 24/7 operating schedule.

TSI has long been active in the engineered wood industry and is now the “Dryer Island” supplier of choice for many North American pellet producers. Visit tsi-inc.net

WYSSMONT The Wyssmont TurboHeat-Treater design has proven to produce a high quality torrefied wood product with a heating value of up to 10,500 BTU/lb. It was recently used to produce 1 million lbs. of torrefied Wyssmont heat treater proproduct for a test burn in duces torrefied wood. a power plant.

The photo shows a closed circuit recycle system that operates in a low oxygen atmosphere. In the unit, the material being torrefied can be wood chips or pellets, grasses or other renewable products. The vertical design of the unit allows the feed to travel from shelf to shelf in a controlled retention time to produce a very uniform product.

The gentle handling of the feed (especially preformed pellets) results in low fines formation and very low dust carryover in the exhaust. The off gas from the exhaust can be sent to a thermal oxidizer to produce heat to predry the infeed in a separate dryer. Visit wyssmont.com

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■ product news

Hatton-Brown Teams With Ligna Summit

Hatton-Brown Publishers is partnering with the Wood Industry Summit.

Hatton-Brown Publishers, Inc., which produces Timber Harvesting, Panel World, Timber Processing and Wood Bioenergy magazines, is the official media partner for North America for the upcoming Wood Industry Summit at LIGNA, May 2731 in Hannover, Germany.

The Wood Industry Summit, which will be in its third season at Ligna, will be staged in Hall 26 and

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themed “Access to Resources and Technology.” The summit is organized by Deutsche Messe in conjunction with the German Forestry Council (KWF) and comprises a forum, lounge and exhibition area.

The summit will include an allnew group pavilion that will explore the implications of the German government’s “Charter for Wood 2.0” policy direction. The pavilion is a showcase for international startups, a hub where young, innovative companies can present their ideas and visions for the future of the forestry and wood industries.

The Wood Industry Summit is also focused on ways of optimizing the entire forest-wood-logistics value chain. Other key themes include digitization in forestry, data protection and data integrity, forest firefighting, forestry infrastructure,

road networks and logistics.

The summit will once again feature delegations from the timber-rich regions of Brazil, Bulgaria, Chile, Germany, Finland, Canada, Columbia, Romania, Russia, Ukraine and the U.S. The 2017 summit resulted in contracts worth more than 30 million euros.

Ligna Hosts German Logging Event The German Logging Championship is back for another high-octane season at the upcoming LIGNA, May 27-31, in Hannover.

Some 100 contestants will be putting their endurance, handling skills and precision to the test in five disciplines: tree felling, chain fitting, combined cut bucking, precision bucking and delimbing. They will

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perform their chain saw handling skills under the watchful eyes of expert judges, who will score them on safety, accuracy and speed.

One of the big highlights of the championship is the tree-felling event. There’s no forest on the Hannover Exhibition Center campus, so the organizers have gone all out to re-create a real-life tree-felling scenario, complete with 18 m tall logs which have been set into the ground in specially cut 1.5 m deep bore holes. 150 metric tons of sand have been trucked on site and spread out in three sweeping arcs, creating a cushion to absorb the momentum of the falling logs and stop them from shattering when they hit the ground.

The tree-felling event is followed by the delimbing contest, in which each contestant has to cut off 30 uniformthickness branches (broomsticks)

that have been specially attached to a horizontal log.

Sponsors of the German Logging Championship include Aspen, Zeller+Gmelin (Divinol), Husqvarna, Stihl, and Pfanner. All the sponsors will have their own exhibition stands adjacent the competition arena on one of the themed “avenues” in the outdoor forestry demonstration area.

The demonstration area is a 3,000 sq m zone comprising a series of themespecific “avenues,” where exhibitors can stage moderated live demonstrations of their forestry technology solutions. As in previous years, it is organized jointly by Deutsche Messe and the German Forestry Council (KFW). German Logging Championship events and moderated demonstrations will be held on the demonstration area on each day of LIGNA.

Fecon Offers Rotating Shear

Fecon FRS15 rotating shear

Fecon introduces the FRS15, the latest addition to its lineup of attachments for 16-24 ton excavators. ➤ 34

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33 ➤ Made of Hardox Steel, this

shear attachment provides a 360° rotation, which gives operators more reach and access to the trees and reduces repositioning of machines. A 29.5 in. blade opening allows the FRS15 to shear trees to 18 in. in diameter, while an accumulator arm allows gathering and continuous shearing of smaller materials.

At a weight of 3420 lbs, the attachment can reach up and down slopes and other hard-to-reach areas with as little as 34 GPM and 4350 PSI hydraulic pressure. Shear rotation requires just 11 GPM, making it easy and fast to shear, bunch and gather materials. The FRS15 is a great tool for land clearing and rightof-way maintenance contractors as well as municipal agencies in land clearing, tree care and tree thinning applications.

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Bandit Will Service Pronar Products

Bandit adds Pronar trommels and stackers to lineup.

Bandit Industries will offer select trommel screens and conveyor stackers manufactured by Polandbased Pronar.

Bandit demonstrated the Model 60 GT-HD stacker and the Model 7.24 GT at the U.S. Composting Council’s Conference and Tradeshow in Glendale, Ariz. in late January.

“This partnership is very important for Bandit because it will

broaden our product portfolio, and allow us to offer a more complete line of equipment for various markets,” says Bandit General Manager Felipe Tamayo. “Pronar is one of the largest manufacturers of agricultural, compost, recycling equipment in world. The mix of products that our companies offer blend perfectly.”

The Model 60 GT-HD is capable of moving up to 600 tons of material per hour, and able to stack material nearly 40 ft. high, creating piles of material without the need of an additional loader or operator. The stacker can be mounted on tracks, making it easy to move around a grinding yard quickly.

The Model 7.24 GT is a trackmounted or towable trommel screen that has some of the highest throughput in the industry. This trommel is capable of screening a variety of materials, including compost, urban

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wood waste, and biomass. Operators can swap out the drum screens to meet a specific size requirement.

Valmet Renews Cooperation Valmet and Uni Viridas have signed a 10-year operation and maintenance agreement for the biomass power plant in Babina Greda, Croatia. The cooperation of the companies started in 2011, and in 2015 Valmet began to operate and maintain the biomass power plant on behalf of the customer.

During the past few years, Valmet has been able to fulfill the expectations of the customer, and the plant’s availability has exceeded agreed targets. For example, there have been minimal unplanned outages and low flue gas emissions, and efficient

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boiler operations at low fuel and water consumption have been demonstrated.

The biomass power plant, delivered by Valmet, is a fluidized bed boiler with an electrical output of up to 10 MW and a heat output of up to 16 MW. The fuel is forest wood and wood chips.

Husqvarna Reveals New 50cc Saws

Coming 60 years after the launch of its very first saw, Husqvarna has developed two 50cc chain saws specifically for use by loggers and

arborists. 550 XP Mark II and Husqvarna 545 Mark II deliver outstanding cutting capacity for handling small and mid-sized trees.

The cooling capacity of the 550 XP Mark II and 545 Mark II has been improved by 13% compared to the previous generation of 50cc chain saws from Husqvarna. This is made possible by three key improvements such as an optimized airflow; the addition of more cooling fins in critical areas that contribute to more effective cylinder heat dissipation; and an insulating heat shield specifically developed for the new chain saws, which provide sealing against the cylinder area and minimizes heat leakage. This helps keep the carburetor compartment cool to improve startability in hot conditions. In addition, a completely new muffler keeps temperatures down.

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EXPOBIOMASA Builds Up List The list of exhibitors at EXPOBIOMASA 2019 already includes more than 320 names from 24 countries: Austria, Belgium, Canada, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Ukraine, United Kingdom and United States.

The event will be held September 24-26 in Valladolid, Spain.

Topping the list of sectors that will be attending EXPOBIOMASA 2019 are firms operating in the field of energy generation for heating purposes, namely stoves and chimneys, boilers for domestic use and industrial equipment. They are followed by technological companies that produce agricultural and forestry biomass; biomass and wood chipping and grinding equipment; pellet and briquette production equipment; equipment for the production and distribution of pellets and chips; as well systems for storing, sorting and drying solid biomass.

Companies interested in exhibiting their products to 15,000 visitors at this twelfth edition in Valladolid still have time to apply for a quote.

Visit www.expobiomasa.com/en

Following the conference on May 16 will be a visit to Summit Energy’s 50 MW biomass power plant in Sakata City. The biomass power plant will be the largest of its kind in Yamagata Prefecture and also one of

the largest of its kind in the Tohoku region. Participants will take a flight from Tokyo (Haneda) to Sakata City and take a flight back to Tokyo (Haneda) after the site visit on the same day.

Tokyo Event Includes Workshop, Tour The 10th Biomass Pellets Trade & Power Summit, schedule May 13-16 in Tokyo, will feature special preand post-conference events.

A pre-conference workshop on May 13 will discuss Japan’s regulatory requirements on imported biomass (FIT Scheme & Sustainability Requirement) and also looks at users’ perspectives on sustainability and traceability. Find out about interfacing the reality of biomass supply with buyers’ expectations and requirements as well as certification processes for wood pellets & PKS and more.

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Oregon Releases SpeedMax System The Oregon SpeedMax XL.404 cutting system for timber harvesters is designed with greater cutting speed, strength and durability. The system delivers maximum uptime through advanced designs across the bar, chain and sprocket.

The 19HX saw chain is a chamfer chisel chain built for faster more aggressive cutting. The tall chamfer chisel cutters combine durability with improved chip clearance for faster and more consistent cuts in all types of wood.

The larger 14-tooth replaceable sprocket nose features high alloy industrial bearings and requires fewer rotations to accomplish the same work with less heat build-up, extending the life of the nose. The rim

sprocket is precision balanced and machined from durable solid-billet steel and is equipped with a raisedtooth design to reduce chain stretch and incorporates improved debris ejection with tapered side ports.

Japan Plant Will Burn Whole Logs Currently under construction in Taiki, Mie Prefecture, Japan, the Takihara Log Fuel Boiler Power Station scheduled for startup the first half of 2020 features a new boiler system that will burn whole logs up to 2 m (6 ft.) long. The Japanese startup company Let’s Co., based in Kuwana, Mie Prefecture, developed the boiler system and is also building and will manage the 1.99 MW plant.

According to Let’s Co. President

Hideo Kawashima, the new boiler design manages the stream produced from burning green logs to create higher thermal efficiencies than other systems while eliminating many raw material handling and processing costs.

The new technology has already been proven in demonstration tests at one of the biomass power plants already operating in Mie Prefecture, company officials say. Let’s Co. is planning to sell power generated at the new plant to Chubu Electric Power Co. under Japan’s feed-in tariff system for purchasing renewable energy.

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