SUBSCRIBE TODAY! We hope you’re enjoying your free issue of Canadian Biomass, bring-ing you the latest on this rapidly changing industry, and its evolving opportunities. Don’t miss an issue! To make sure you’re on our list as a regular subscriber, follow one of these three easy methods: 1) Email Carol Nixon at [email protected], and she’ll handle the rest. 2) Visit www.canadianbiomass-magazine.ca and sign up in our subscription centre. Ask for our free e-newsletter while you’re there. 3) Fax your request to 519-429-3094, including an email address or phone number to get back to you. All Biomass ...all the time North America), they chose a Büttner rotary drum dryer. When asked how they came to this decision, plant manager Marc Poirier says, “We did quite a bit of research, and at the end of this process, we approached a good num-ber of global drying machine manufacturers and asked them if they’d like to participate in providing a turnkey operation.” Eight compa-nies initially replied, and discussions continued with six of them. Four firms subsequently pro-vided bids: two for belt drying systems and two for rotary drum systems. “The bids included information on cost, efficiency, capacity, and also the companies’ histories and information on similar projects that they had participated in,” says Poirier. “We decided on Büttner be-cause they provided the best system for the price, they have a solid reputation, a long history, and had completed projects of a similar nature.” The rotary drum dryer uses boiler exhaust gases as a heat source, and the boiler receives equal amounts of dried mate-rial and wetter material that comes directly from sawmill operations. “Drying using this loop system substantially pre-heats and dries the bark, allowing us to save a lot of bark and optimize electricity production,” says Poirier. “We sell steam to a local sawmill for drying lumber and generate electricity to sell to the grid.” A Baker-Rullman rotary drum dryer was the choice for the pellet mill at H.J. Crabbe & Sons, a long-established lumber operation in Bristol, New Brunswick. “It’s the least expensive sys-tem, and this type of dryer has been around a long time,” says owner Don Crabbe. “Baker-Rullman has a really good reputation, and they’ve done everything they’ve said they were going to do, so it’s worked out very well.” Pel-let production began about a year ago but has been halted due to a current overabundance on the market. Crabbe says he will start the pellet mill up again later in 2011. belt dryer FOr large bc prOject If low-temperature waste heat is available from a CHP system—such as the innovative woody biomass CHP system being constructed at the University of British Columbia (UBC) in Van-couver—and no primary energy is needed, belt dryers are the best choice in comparison to drum dryers, says Tobias Latein, spokes-person for Germany-based Stela. “The low temperature means there is no VOC in the ex-haust, whereas the high temperature required for a drum dryer creates VOC,” he notes. “The fire danger is low due to a low exhaust temperature, and the low temperature also keeps lignin intact.” Lignin is needed as “glue” for the pelleting process (if pellets are being produced), but some of it is evaporated in a drum dryer due to the higher temperature. In addition, the Stela belt is designed as a filter, so there is no exhaust air cleaning necessary. However, Latein says that because belt dry-ers are much larger than drum dryers because of the necessity of higher air flow with the lower temperature, they are somewhat more expensive. In the last seven years, Stela has installed about 90 belt dryers for biomass drying in Europe. Its first Canadian sale was to Nex-terra Systems, the biomass gasification com-pany overseeing the supply and installation of UBC’s CHP system. The system is expected to be operational in early 2012. Nexterra’s vice president of projects, Goran Sparica, says a Stela belt dryer was chosen because the com-pany has a well-established reputation with these types of systems. This specific dryer was also attractive because its particulate emissions levels are well below the current provincial standards. “The low-temperature drying us-ing high-capacity hot water heat exchangers will reduce the moisture content in the wood residue from 50% to 20–25%,” Sparica says. “The dried material will be conveyed to the gasifier, which produces syngas. The syngas will be used to fire an internal combustion en-gine that will produce 2 MW of electricity and will also be used to produce steam for use by UBC.” About 30% of the woody biomass will be tree and hedge trimmings donated by the City of Vancouver; the rest will be urban wood waste sourced from local fuel aggregators. Although the slow growth of the wood biomass energy sector in North America can be trying, companies that have yet to make a North American sale for this purpose are staying positive. “We feel using woody bio-mass for energy will see a long-term trend up-wards,” says Kahl distributor MacArthur. “We have quality products to offer and are ready to provide the expertise and experience we’ve garnered from other uses and jurisdictions.” MacArthur would like Canada to learn from the successful European model, where dry-ing facilities are located close to heat sources such power plants, institutions, and large commercial operations. “With access to heat sources such as steam and hot water, the vi-ability of belt dryers can have a dramatic ad-vantage environmentally and economically,” he says. “The Europeans are years ahead of us when it comes to these technologies, and I see us playing catch-up over the next number of years.” • MarCh/april 2011 30 Canadian BIOMASS 16/11/10 3:46 PM Cdn Biomass Subscription.indd 1
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