Money to BURN
Money to BURN The potential is there, but so too are the challenges. CFI sits down with Feric's bioenergy team to talk current issues and future possibilities.
by Scott Jamieson
If Mark Ryans and Luc Desrochers could get one message across to folks entering the forest biomass recovery business, it'd be to integrate this new task into the rest of the forest value chain.
"Right now, a lot of operators are trying to recover forest biomass that has essentially been seen as waste by everyone who came before them. So in all the previous harvesting operations, it has been treated accordingly driven on, piled quickly just to push it out of the way, scattered or contaminated. It all makes recovery now harder and more expensive," Ryans explains.
With crude oil parked well above $90 a barrel, and conservative predictions for an average price through 2008 of over $77, it's safe to say forest biomass as commodity is here to stay. So moving forward, the team at FPInnovations - Feric Division East, along with their bioenergy colleagues in Feric West, would like to see a new attitude among everyone, from planners to harvester, delimber and processor operators.
"Forest residues and what was previously seen as "non-merchantable" material need to be treated as another product," Ryans adds. "It's a new mindset that will need to be adopted along the entire wood supply chain if we are to maximize both the value of the products recovered, and the efficiencies in the system."
Both researchers say that approach is already ingrained in some of the veteran biomass operations in eastern Canada, where groups like Acadian Timber (formerly Fraser) have been recovering biomass from roadside slash since the late '80s. In these operations, delimber operators habitually lay out slash with the efficiency of the next step in mind, so that when the bush chipper or grinder arrives, little time is wasted wrestling with jack-strawn piles, gathering material, or sorting out contaminants.
Today's Challenges
That's the ideal. Today's reality is a little different for most Canadian operations delving into biomass recovery. They often have to make things up as they go along when it comes to everything from equipment to markets. To help them out, Feric has created a national bioenergy task force, headed up by Ryans in the east out of Pointe Claire, QC, and Tony Sauder in the west out of Vancouver, BC.
There are several streams of biomass available in Canada, from standing non-merchantable timber, like BC's beetle wood or NS's underutilized pulp wood, legacy piles, sawmill residues, and more. The lowest hanging fruit with the most national potential right now, however, is slash from roadside logging operations, and it is this source that Feric for the most part is studying. To do so, the researchers have adopted a threepronged approach, studying today's biomass, todayÕs best equipment choices, and future demands.
Today's Biomass: Feric is helping industry and community groups to identify and quantify practical supplies of local biomass, and to get a handle on what it'll likely cost to get it to a processing centre in usable form. This operational level work uses a Feric spreadsheet cost estimate program called BiOS, developed by Denis Cormier, a third member of the bioenergy team at Pointe Claire. It puts finer detail on the national biomass estimate studies already available, so that local projects can be evaluated.
For example, there's a lot of biomass at roadside from Ontario's popular full-tree harvesting systems, but where is it, and what will it take to get it out? When the community of Opasatika in north central Ontario wanted to evaluate the feasibility of building a biomass sorting and processing facility on the site of a shuttered Tembec sawmill with a group of industry partners, Feric's Cormier analyzed the practical availability of biomass within the practical haul distance of 200 km, and estimated the cost of processing and transporting this slash. In this case, while some three million green metric tones (GMT) were produced annually inside this zone, just over half was readily accessible. That's more than enough to proceed (assuming tenure can be solved), but the project can now be scaled accordingly.
Feric western region recently completed a "high level" inventory for Alberta that estimated the amount of biomass from roadside harvesting operations, non-merchantable stands, FireSmart treatments, and other sources. As with the Ontario experience, it showed that the roadside residues are the low-hanging fruit of the biomass inventory. Feric's east and west regions are currently collaborating to adapt BiOS to Alberta conditions, and to refine the inventory estimates for some localized areas. Researchers in Feric's western region are conducting a biomass inventory on the BC coast.
The mountain pine beetle infestation in western Canada presents unique challenges and opportunities for biomass. As the forest industry attempts to maximize the recovery from this deteriorating resource, it is recognized that large volumes of standing dead trees cannot be harvested economically as conventional forest products. A 2006 project examined the issues with harvesting the standing dead trees and found that costs were increased significantly compared to harvesting roadside residues. Western researcher Jack Mac Donald notes that issues such as tenure, silvicultural obligations, and road construction must be dealt with before harvesting standing dead trees for biomass can become a reality. Today's Equipment: Roadside slash calls for a specific set of equipment and techniques to process and haul it efficiently, and who knows that better than experienced operators who have been dealing with roadside slash for years or even decades? In an effort to help newcomers develop or fine tune their biomass recovery, processing, and hauling systems, Feric researchers have spent a lot of time visiting established operations, mostly in the Maritimes, Quebec, and New England, areas where roadside slash has long been used as an energy source for large energy plants or pulp mill boilers.
Feric has seen a lot of systems in action and spoken to a lot of veteran operators, but what seems to work best given today's randomly prepared roadside slash are large, highhorsepower, track-powered horizontal grinders. They can be positioned at roadside perpendicular to the chip vans with a little work, and are better able to handle contaminants than the chippers typically used in European operations, so are suited to reclaiming poorly managed or carelessly handled logging slash. They are also more versatile than other options, as they can work in a wider range of conditions, in both hard and softwood, and can be used for other work when not in the bush, such as mill yard processing. As requirements and biomass markets evolve, Feric will continue to look at equipment options.
Tomorrow's Products: Various equipment options will likely be needed too, as industry evolves to match evolving biomass market needs. For starters, smaller community heating plants, liquid fuel converters, or biorefineries will have more sophisticated needs, and being able to target some or all of these players will enhance the value, and margins, of the biomass supplier.
"Right now the larger energy plants are quite forgiving in what they can accept," Ryans notes, "but this will change as we see smaller community heating plants, that will need smaller, more consistent chip sizes, or refineries that need cleaner whitewood or lower moisture content (MC)."
To help biomass suppliers get ready, Feric is looking at a host of ways to enhance biomass value, from controlling contaminants to reducing MC and separating white wood.
Today's Challenges
Yet for those jumping into the fray today, the challenges are more immediate. To help, we asked FericÕs biomass researchers to give us their "Top 5" list of things new contractors should do to start off on the right foot.
Tip 1 Ð Plan ahead: Integration of biomass recovery with the log harvesting phase is the ideal, but if that's not possible, there are still ways to reduce costs and headaches. Desrochers stress the importance of preparing the slash and the trucking ahead of time.
"You want to be ready for when the big gear rolls in," he says of the horizontal grinder and excavator combo that most roadside slash recovery operations now use. "You're looking at close to or over one million dollars when it's all said and done, so you want it to be working as soon, and as much, as possible, rather than parked, waiting while you collect the slash."
Still, even if you have the logistics and planning down pat, the eastern researchers caution against expecting too high a utilization rate.
"Given the nature of the operation, the moving, set up time, trucking, you can't expect to see utilization rates like you would on a buncher," Ryans warns. "On a cold piling system you may expect to hit the upper 60 to 70% range, and less if you run hot." Budget accordingly.
Tip 2 - Trucking matters: It's a new business, but in the end, don't forget that like most forest operations, the hauling will still be the most expensive part of the operation. It may also be a factor in the efficiency of the processing or communition phase. Consider it carefully.
Whether you run a hot (the grinder loading directly to a van) or cold (piling at roadside to load vans later) system will depend on the available trucking power. While Feric says the hot system will likely be the most costeffective all things being equal, all things are rarely equal in the Canadian forest industry. If you're setting up a biomass operation in BC or Alberta, the odds of having the available trucking to run a smooth hot chipping or grinding system are long. And it is key, as a large grinder can fill a van in 30 minutes. Cold piling may be easier, but expect extra handling costs, and up to 10% in lost fibre.
In terms of trailers, hauling can involve regular chip vans when hauling to large facilities with tippers, or live floor trailers, although Ryans notes that many of the latter currently running were not spec'd for off-highway work.
Tip 3 - Haul energy, not water: Because trucking will make or break many biomass projects, it's best to start out hauling the driest material possible. This starts by piling your slash or energy products accordingly, and allowing them to dry as much as possible between harvesting and slash processing. Piling them in the ditch or pushing them under snow is not a great idea, for example. Of course, if you're paid by the tonne, this may all be counter-productive, which goes back to adopting a new mindset for these new energy products.
"When you spend time with people in this business in Scandinavia, you see them referring to slash or stumps in terms of megawatt hours, not tonnes or cubic metres," Ryans explains. "There are so many megawatt hours in that pile, and so many megawatt hours per load, etc... That's where the value is, so we need to start thinking in those terms."
Tip 4 - Keep it clean: Start working today to reduce contaminants throughout the system. It will help today's operation run smoother, and will be an essential part of the business in the future.
Tip 5 - Grapple with the details: And one of those details is, in fact, your grapple. Feric recommends a continuous rotation grapple fitted with open tines, which will allow for efficient feeding of slash while letting rocks fall to the ground. There are several models, although a popular one is a Rotobec grapple custom made for debris handling. ItÕs a small part of the puzzle perhaps, but the grinder only works as fast as you feed it.
"Yet, it's amazing how many contractors will resist investing the $20,000 in a specialized grapple even though it will let them get the most from an $800,000 to $1 million system,"
Desrochers adds. "But these are the grapples you see the more experienced operations use."Like all forestry operations, it may not be rocket science, but success or failure is all in daily attention to details.
