FROM THE EDITORS

The Good Old College Try

One can only try to imagine the challenges and complexities in tearing out a significant section of a new industrial wood pellet mill and replacing it with different equipment and technology, even of the more conventional kind.

Fram Renewable Fuels has made such a conversion at its Hazlehurst Wood Pellets facility in Hazlehurst, Ga. It appears to have done so quite successfully, even increasing production capacity in the meanwhile. Thanks to Fram opening its doors to us, we were able to visit the plant in late 2016 and again this March, a span of more than four years, so we were able to gain some insight into this monumental transition, but it pales in comparison to living and breathing it on a daily basis. We recall the high and sincere hopes that Fram President Harold Arnold had for this innovative technology back in 2016 as he led us through the new plant, which featured technology new to the wood pellet industry, a modular approach with three independent lines each with a close-coupled pre-dryer and main dryer configuration, which in addition to obviously drying the raw material was meant to utilize the heat value of the VOCs, while not requiring a conventional wet ESP and RTO. The modular setup would also have the advantage—actually very simple when you think about it—of flexibility in downtime, whether forced or scheduled maintenance, in that the whole plant wouldn’t have to go down.

But to paraphrase Robert Burns, “The best laid plans of mice and men often go awry.”

Today Arnold says everyone involved was extremely talented and gave their all in trying to make the plant run as envisioned.

In other words, no hard feelings, but time to move on. And there was never any doubt that the Hazlehurst operation would move on.

“The plant is needed as part of an overall plan for processing forest products in Hazlehurst,” Arnold explains. “Our partners own other forest product businesses here who benefit from having a local buyer of their residual products and of their lower quality timber. There was never any question about continuing with work on the plant until it functioned as originally planned.”

The plant shut down in late January 2019 and restarted in December 2020, and with 20% more production capacity.

Our article on page 14 goes into more particulars on the Hazlehurst plant as it runs today. Harold Arnold, who is one of our favorite persons in this industry, and his team at Fram Renewable Fuels and Hazlehurst, including his son, Harold, deserve tremendous praise for not being afraid to venture into the unknown, overcoming a setback and emerging on the other side better than ever.

Continuing with the proverbs, with a nod to Shakespeare, “All’s well that ends well.”

6 Wood Bioenergy / April 2021