Seattle Heats Up
Biomass and bioenergy are hot topics these days. There has been so much interest in the sector over the last couple of years that entire conferences are being dedicated to the topic at a breakneck pace. And even at conferences targeted at other industries, such as the ailing forest industry, biomass is stealing the show.
Just look at the Washington State University’s 43rd International Wood Composites Symposium in Seattle this spring.
Several speakers introduced biomass and bioenergy into their presentations and even keynote speaker Wolf-Gerd Dieffenbacher, president and CEO of the German wood panel press system manufacturer Dieffenbacher, dedicated a large portion of his address to biomass. However, Dieffenbacher’s comments on biomass were not all positive. He told the audience of about 150 industry, government and academic research representatives that he is concerned about the amount of residual fibre that is being directed towards the biomass industry, but he did stress there is an opportunity to work together.
“We see governments strive to get independent from fossil fuels and therefore promote the production of energy from renewable resources,” he said. “Biomass power plants and the pellet plants buy the same raw material as the panel industry does and because of subsidies they get better prices.” Dieffenbacher did emphasize that the production of wood based panels provides an ideal partnership opportunity for a biomass power plant that could optimize the raw material and the heat energy usage. He concluded that governments support the production of green energy and that the panel industry can and should participate.
Jerrold Winandy, a principal at Winandy and Associates, LLC in Mazomanie, Wisconsin, followed not long after Dieffenbacher, telling the audience about integrated biomass technologies. He says this holistic view of how to achieve high-value materials with enhanced performance properties from renewable resources is an integrated concept that promotes the use of sustainable, biobased, environmentally neutral technologies to meet global demands for building and materials end uses, chemicals and energy.
Other International Wood Composites Symposium conference speakers covering biomass included Shijie Liu, the associate director of the Biorefinery Research in Syracuse, New York. Liu and his research partner, Thomas Amidon, director of the Biorefinery Research Institute, note that biomass is a reliable source of materials, chemicals and energy that can be replenished at the rate of our needs. They say the biorefinery is a concept for the collection of processes used to convert biomass to materials, chemicals and energy and that the biorefinery is a “catch and release” way of using carbon that is beneficial to the environment and the economy.
Not all of the speakers at the event touched on biomass and in total over 22 presentations were delivered. Topics included the global economy, life cycle analysis, lightweight panel technology, evaluating fibre adhesives, and ultrasonic inspection of wood composites.
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