LEVEL 40
SOLUTION: PROCESS HEATING
LOCATION: OREGON
FUEL: HOG FUEL WOOD CHIPS
HIGHLIGHTS:
Two examples of value-added wood production projects that Wisewood Energy designed and constructed, showcasing small- and large-scale applications of process heating with wood.
In rural Oregon, two businesses outfit their operations to harness regionally available biomass for energy and new wood products, upgrade equipment, and establish new processing capability while supporting local restoration economies.
THE STORY
Commercial businesses in rural areas are often stuck with astronomical fuel costs for the process heat that powers their manufacturing. Wisewood Energy has partnered with two businesses in Oregon to help them utilize locally available residual woody biomass material as an affordable, renewable fuel for process heating and as feedstock for value-added products like wood pellets and smoker chips.
AN INNOVATIVE DUAL FEEDSTOCK PELLET MILL
One of these businesses, an animal feed producer in Eastern Oregon, commissioned Wisewood Energy to design and oversee construction of a new state-of-the-art wood and alfalfa pellet mill on an old, decommissioned mill site. The new plant bolsters the company’s bottom line by producing densified, organic alfalfa into pellets for feed during part of the year then shifting into wood fuel pellet production for a new line of products in the remainder of the year.
“It was an innovative project. It’s one of the only dual feedstock pellet mills we know of that can manufacture agricultural and forest biomass products on the same equipment.”
—Andrew Haden, Founder & President, Wisewood Energy
UTILIZING MATERIAL FROM FOREST HEALTH & WILDFIRE RISK REDUCTION TREATMENTS
The new mill uses residual wood from forest treatments minimally processed into wood chips as fuel for process heating, which dries the wood and alfalfa before heading to the pellet densification equipment. As a result, the plant redirects over 20,000 green tons per year of woody material to a sophisticated and computer-controlled boiler system, where it significantly improves regional air quality by shifting that material away from pile burning.
Each year, forest treatments in Central and Eastern Oregon improve forest health and reduce the risk of severe wildfire. But they also produce tens of thousands of tons of residual material that has little to no existing market value and is typically piled and burned for disposal. When utilized instead in a modern wood energy system like the one at the new mill, particulate matter, volatile organic compounds, and carbon monoxide emissions are reduced by 97-99%, and nitrogen oxide emissions by more than half.
The new plant is appropriately scaled to make use of excess material in the region; it is large enough to stimulate the region’s forest restoration economy and help offset forest management costs, but small enough to be well within the annual volume of byproduct material available from nearby forest treatments.
The moderate size of the system sets a positive precedent for other mid-sized biomass systems, and supports the wood products market in central Oregon.
– Andrew Haden, Founder & President, Wisewood Energy
TRANSFORMING WOOD WASTE INTO VALUE-ADDED PRODUCTS
Further west, Wisewood Energy completed detailed design and supervised the installation of new equipment for wood products business looking to expand their biomass processing plant’s capabilities.
The new line of equipment is designed to process over 1,000 tons of woody material each year into chips and chunks used in smokers. This includes alder wood chips, a byproduct from local lumber mills.
The alder residuals are loaded onto a belt conveyor which transports them into an infeed bin. Supersacks of specialty wood are also loaded into the processing line, making up about a quarter of total volume. From there, the alder and specialty wood chips travel through a series of screens, shakers, and a hammermill, out to the bagging line. The finished product is a bagged wood product for use in culinary barbecues, grills, and smokers.
BIOMASS ENERGY SOLUTIONS AT THE RIGHT SCALE
In rural forested areas of Oregon and the broader US West, biomass wood processing facilities create the opportunity for generating energy and value-added products from the residuals of long-term forest stewardship activities and materials that would otherwise go to waste.
The key to biomass energy solutions done right is core to Wisewood Energy’s mission and technical expertise: designing biomass energy solutions at a scale suitable for communities. Facilities small enough to be sustainable in the long-run—but big enough to fill energy needs—offer energy burden relief for manufacturers in rural areas otherwise stuck relying on polluting and expensive fossil fuel energy.
Process Heating
Our process heating solutions use renewable biomass—often waste wood and other combustible remnants from manufacturing—to provide heating, drying, curing, phase change, and even cooling processes.