tive. Using his 100-year-old European company’s business plan as an example, he stated that they have plenty to teach those countries that are just starting out. “You can learn from us,” he said, “ as we’ve been in business for 100 years. So, a successful biomass business can be done!” The second keynote was by the presi-dent of FutureMetrics, Dr. William Strauss, who discussed the continuing emissions debate between burning wood and coal. The problem is that the studies that have stated that wood releases more CO 2 emissions than coal possessed a few significant errors, he said. “The combustion of wood from a sus-tainably managed forest is carbon neutral,” said Strauss. “You must look at the whole growth cycle, not simply post-harvest.” He added that not all harvesting pro-cesses leave the area barren of carbon, as residuals such as stumps and slash will help recoup some, but not all, of the car-bon lost. The final keynote of the afternoon was a look at the future of biomass in North America by Seth Walker, the associate bio-energy economist with RISI, which used statistical models to determine the ap-proximate state of the bioenergy and bio-fuel markets in 2016. Through looking at announcements from companies, they predicted that over 200,000 pellet stoves could be used in the United States by 2016, with a consump-tion of 10 million pellets. They also pre-dicted that cellulosic biofuels would be commercialized within the next five years, as, once proven effective, the production will skyrocket. “The entire industry has the ability to double in size [of products consumed] in the next five years,” concluded Walker. However, he warned that there are a number of hurdles to get over, such as the NIMBY (Not In My Backyard) move-ment, as well as the difficulty obtaining fi-nancing and power purchase agreements. meeting the demand During the second day of the conference, there were a series of sessions exploring the difficulties associated with obtaining, utilizing and optimizing resources in a biomass facility. Robert Synk, the manager of products with The Parton Group, discussed the complicated nature of how to maximize biopower availability to meet the ever-in-creasing demand. His solution was to ex-pand the definition of what “biomass” is to include timberwood resources that are left underutilized from the solid wood manu-facturing and pulp and paper industries. “By expanding the biomass definition, there will be four times more biomass available if it includes whole-tree chips and underutilized pulpwood,” said Synk. Following that, Richard Vlosky dis-cussed a recent survey that he and his colleagues at the Forest Sector Business Development program at Louisiana State University completed to determine the possibility of forest landowners contribut-ing to the biomass industry. The survey, which contacted small acreage forest landowners, discovered that 90% plan to harvest their trees in the near Material Handling for Woody Biomass Biomass Handling Equipment Complete Engineered Systems Pulverized Coal Boiler Conversions CFB Boiler Feed Systems UNIT E D STATES STA T ES UNITED CA NADA CANADA SW ED E N SWEDEN Silos Wood Hogs Disc Screens Open Storage Closed Storage Truck Dumpers Chain Conveyors Bucket Elevators Screw Conveyors Screw Reclaimers Pneumatic Conveying SWEDEN: Stockholm Jeffrey Rader AB Domnarvsgatan 11, 163 53 SPÅNGA Stockholm, Sweden Phone: +46 8 56 47 57 47 Fax: +46 8 56 47 57 48 See our Biomass video at www.jeffreyrader.com/videoB USA: CORPORATE HEADQUARTERS Jeffrey Rader Corporation 398 Willis Road Woodruff, SC, USA 29388 Phone: 864.476.7523 Fax: 864.476.7510 CANADA: Montreal, Quebec Jeffrey Rader Canada 2350 Place Trans-Canadienne Dorval, Quebec H9P 2X5 Canada Phone: 514.822.2660 Fax: 514.822.2699 CANADA: Vancouver, BC Jeffrey Rader Canada Unit 2, 62 Fawcett Road Coquitlam, BC V3K 6V5 Canada Phone: 604.299.0241 Fax: 604.299.1491 For information on how Jeffrey Rader Corporation can solve your Biomass Handling needs, visit us at www.jeffreyrader.com/bio2 Canadian BIOMASS 25
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