Our customers want complete pellet production plants from a single supplier – We have the expertise to deliver turnkey process equipment. Günter Natus – Sales Director SOURCING THE GEAR When it came time to acquire the new gear for Pine Star’s wood fibre operation, they searched for a grinder that could take the sometimes rough conditions faced in British Columbia’s interior, and one that could handle a wide range of input material in terms of size and spe-cies. For the loader, they needed a machine with the power, torque, and log handling capacity to feed the Bandit grinder efficiently. “We have been really happy with the results we have been get-ting, and our customer is happy with the product, especially the size consistency of the ground fibre, which is essentially hog fuel,” notes Keith. “It’s almost all softwood that we process. There’s a lot of aspen around, but it’s green and the moisture content is high, which means it’s not as good for pellets, so we try to avoid having it in the mix.” Much of what the Brandners have been processing for the past year is immature beetle-killed wood. They were originally running slash, but in early 2009, they ran a test on some 30-year-old beetle-killed pine that was slated for burning. “It had already been felled and it was going to be burned to make room for young seedlings, so we asked if we could run some on a trial. It worked well for us and, as far as we are concerned, this was a much better way to get some value from it. These were trees that were 30 feet long and less than six inches in diameter. They were too small for the sawmill, but great for us, as processing a whole tree is far more efficient than processing slash.” LOOKING FORWARD Keith says there’s no shortage of this type of wood in British Colum-bia’s central interior and thinks they should have enough raw mate-rial to last them for some time. But they’re not the only ones singing the praises of this new business model. “The work Pine Star and Pacific BioEnergy are doing highlights the potential for wood bio-energy in forestry’s future,” said Pat Bell, the province’s minister of forests and range, while touring a Pine Star grinding site. “The forest sector has an important role to play in advancing B.C.’s green energy advantage, and Pine Star is an excellent example of a smaller, local company finding new ways to obtain more value from our forests.” Once the fibre gets to Pacific BioEnergy, it is primarily used for PELLET PLANT SOLUTIONS We ensure our customers excellent plant uptime due to our extensive experience in the construction of large plants, wide process knowledge and high reliability. Dieffenbacher supplies custom engineered production plants meeting low emission values and with production capacities up to 600.000 t of pellets resulting in a quick return of investment. www.dieffenbacher.com 8 CanadianBIOMASS pellet production for the plant’s overseas fuel customers. It looks like Pacific BioEnergy will continue to be a long-term customer for Pine Star, as earlier this year, the pellet producer announced a stra-tegic partnership with GDF Suez, a global energy provider based in Europe. The partnership will support a $24-million expansion of Pacific BioEnergy’s current Prince George plant, which will be owned and operated by a new joint venture company. In addition to its interest in the joint venture, GDF Suez has agreed to purchase 2.5 million tonnes of wood pellets from the plant over the next 10 years. The pellets will replace approximately two million tonnes of coal used at GDF Suez’s electrical generating facili-ties in Belgium, which the company says will reduce net CO2 emis-sions by more than four million tonnes. For Pine Star Logging, simplifying has been a good thing. “With the downturn in the forest industry, it’s been tough for many loggers over the past couple of years, and when we crunched the numbers, this move to biomass just made sense,” explains Keith. “I think there is a huge future in biomass, and we are quite willing to stay the course and see where it leads us. Right now, it makes sense for us to stay small. We are efficient, we can produce a good product, and we can utilize what was once considered waste. • SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2010 w3p_GB
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