away before seeing the chipping and grind- ing program reach its full potential. “Jamie was one of the driving forces behind the development of that first chipper coming to Nova Scotia,” Vaughn explains. “He also saw the need for the development of a new grinder that could handle the waste from mechanized operations and turn it into a viable product – energy. That is something we are working on right now with the mill and with Peterson, but without Jamie’s hard work and dedication to Scott Paper and the other companies that have operated the mill over the past two decades, we may not have had the opportunity to work with these products in this province. We have to say that without Jamie’s vision, we wouldn’t be as far along in this program as we are.” ChippiNg gear Today, Hodgson’s Chipping operates a Pe- terson 4710B grinder and four Peterson chippers – the original prototype 5000 they picked up from Scott Paper, along with F, G, and H models. Three of the chippers are primarily dedi- cated to working in the woods, where they fill vans for delivery to Northern Pulp. The fourth chipper is on standby for the busy season at Northern Pulp and may do bio- mass or custom chipping for other custom- ers. One of the chippers is currently com- pleting test runs at the New Page paper mill at Port Hawkesbury, which is located on the Cape Breton side of the Strait of Canso, a body of water that separates Cape Breton from mainland Nova Scotia. On the biomass side of the business, Vaughn says that in addition to supplying the biomass-powered energy program at the Ab- ercrombie mill, they supply fibre to Brooklyn Energy in Liverpool, Nova Scotia, which in turn supplies energy and steam to another local pulp mill. They also grind product as required for Enligna, a wood pellet producer located in Musquodoboit, Nova Scotia. LogistiCs With saw logs, pulpwood, and biomass material from the same block often going to various end users, Vaughn says the plan- ning process is critical to the company’s success. “On some sites, we will go to a double tier diameter sort,” he says. “The first sort will be the merchandisable wood – studs and logs, while the second sort is full trees for the chipper. We will skid the tree length up to 300 m, while anything over a 300-m haul is processed random length and then forwarded to roadside for the chipper along with any unmerchandis- able wood that needs to be ground with any chipper waste.” If a block is a “chipping only” site, Vaughn says they will “cold deck” small stems to be used for biomass and will chip everything else. “We really have two sorts on these sites, full-tree softwood for chips and one for the biomass material and the waste from chipping, which we will process later with the grinder.” For harvesting work, the Hodgsons have a full fleet of equipment that integrates well with the chippers. Their stable of logging gear includes eight Tigercat 860 carriers, in- cluding a new model that was delivered this year. Four of the 860s work as feller bunch- ers and are equipped with hot saws, and four run with processing heads. Three of the processing heads are Levesque-designed L240 models, whereas the fourth is a Hor- net. The Hodgsons are very familiar with EVENTS BOARD OCTOBER 28-30, 2009 • 8th Residue-to-Revenue Residual Wood Conference Richmond, BC, 250-469-1958 or [email protected] www.forestnet.com/rwc/index.htm NOVEMBER 11-13, 2009 • Advanced BioEnergy 2009 Conference & Expo Sacramento, CA, 719-239-2001 www.advancedbioenergyconference.com NOVEMBER 17, 2009 • E3 2009 Midwest’s Premier Energy, Economic, & Environmental Conference St. Paul, MN, 612-626-1202 www1.umn.edu/iree/e3/index.html NOVEMBER 30-DECEMBER 2, 2009 • 6th Annual Canadian Renewable Fuels Summit: Growing Beyond Oil Vancouver, BC, 613-594-5528 ext. 223 www.crfs2009.com JANUARY 26-27, 2010 • Energy from Biomass and Waste London, UK www.ebw-uk.com MARCH 3-5, 2010 • World Sustainable Energy Days & European Pellet Conference Wels, Austria, +43-732-7720-14380 or [email protected] www.wsed.at MARCH 18-21, 2010 • Bois Energie Saint Etienne, France www.boisenergie.com MAY 4-6, 2010 • International Biomass Conference & Expo Minneapolis, MN, 701-746-8385 www.biomassconference.com MAY 25-27, 2010 • World Bioenergy 2010 Jönköping, Sweden www.elmia.se/en/world-bioenergy JUNE 8-10, 2010 • Bioenergy Conference & Exhibition Prince George, BC http://www.bioenergyconference.org/index.php MORE BIOMASS EVENTS AT WWW.CANADIANBIOMASSMAGAZINE.COM canadianBIOMASS 25
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