Slash to Cash
New Developments in Biomass Recovery
and Conversion
Bob Rummer
US Forest Service
Auburn, AL
Outline
Brief overview
 Technology for new products and values
 Challenges of biomass recovery
 Concepts and approaches to improving
economic efficiency

The Big Picture
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Lots of residues and smallwood
Need to manage the forest
Energy
GHG
Idaho City, ID
Small Diameter Products
Energy Market
Turning Wood into Energy
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Direct Combustion
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Gasification
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Fuelwood
Hogfuel/chips
Pellet fuels
Pyrolysis to syngas
Liquid fuel
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Biochemical
Thermochemical
Pellet Fuel—European Markets
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Sweden 5,000 => 667,000 tonnes/yr
Denmark 110,000 => 400,000 tonnes/yr
Austria, Germany, etc.
Standards for trade
Range Fuels
2 step thermochemical process
 $76M plant in GA, start in 07
 www.rangefuels.com
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Renewable Oil Int’l
Fast pyrolysis
 15 dtpd
 www.renewableoil.com
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Renewable Oil Int’l Bio-oil
Modular and mobile
Eprida
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Shortcut pyrolysis
Carbon negative!
www.eprida.com
What other value in the woodpile?
Carbon sequestration
$3.63/ton
Specialty Carbon Offsets
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Carbon footprint
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20,000 tons/yr
$23/ton
Tradeable REC’s
Value of electricity
 Value of “green-ness”
 www.trecnet.org
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Value of avoided costs
Law of Supply and Demand
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Values interact
Food vs. fuel
Key points
There are lots of opportunities with wood
 Highest value--Specialty products
 Largest potential market is energy
 Proven conversion is marginal
 New technologies are very close
 Markets are very dynamic

Biomass has value but …
The problems
Low volume per piece
 Fixed time operations and single stem
handling
 Efficiency of operations
 Low solid volume factor (SVF) of many
residue forms
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Improve efficiency: multi-stem cutting
Nicholson-Koch Mobile Chipharvester, 1980
Improve efficiency: Harwarders
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Several designs
Reduced handling
Low-impact
Valmet 801 Combi
Improve efficiency: integrated system
Improve transport efficiency
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Assumes waste
Added process cost
Nothing but gravy
Low density
Forwarding residues, Flagstaff, AZ
Improve payload
Continental Biomass Industries
BTS-1
14 ton forwarder
 9 ton payload
 ~$90,000

Improve payload
Photo: Dan Len
Photo: BLM, Alturas
Densify the product value
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Bio-oil vs. chips
Smallwood operations
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Efficiency
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Multi-stem handling
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Right-sizing machines
Reducing unnecessary operations
Improving payload
Swath cutting
Pre-bunching
Better product sorting
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Eliminate waste
Improved transport efficiency
Summary
Changing world for smallwood recovery
 The smallest fraction will likely be
merchandized for energywood
 New technology to address barriers
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Improved handling efficiency
Improved payload
Processing for value
Its an exciting time to be working in the
woods
www.srs.fs.usda.gov/forestops
The Future