Seoul, South Korea

The third annual Biomass Pellets Trade Asia Conference was held in Seoul, South Korea. Discussed was the growing potential of the Asian renewable energy market and the outook for biomass trade volumes both originating in North America and Asia. Larry Weick, Vice President of Business Development for Zilkha Biomass Fuels, presented the Zilkha Black® pellet. As a drop-in replacement for coal, the Zilkha Black® pellet affords utilities the option to convert coal power stations to burn wood pellets with far less capital and time than traditional biomass options.

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Jyväskylä, Finland

The Bioenergy from Forest conference focused on the factors affecting the future of bioenergy, including logistic systems, management, total procurement chains, the effects on energy markets, and other trends affecting forestry, agriculture, and industry. Larry Weick, Vice President of Business Development for Zilkha Biomass Fuels, delivered a presentation outlining our unique waterproof wood pellet: the Zilkha Black® pellet.

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Jönköping, Sweden

The World Bioenergy 2012 Conference & Exhibition in Jönköping, Sweden, brought together speakers from 32 countries, including our own Larry Weick, Vice President of Business Development. Mr. Weick discussed the revolutionary Zilkha Black® pellet and the overall business model of Zilkha Biomass Fuels.

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London, England

Mr. Larry Weick, Vice President of Business Development for Zilkha Biomass Fuels LLC, delivered a presentation at the Argus European Biomass Trading Conference covering the Zilkha Black® pellet and conversion of coal plants to burning biomass.

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London, England—US biomass producer Zilkha Biomass expects its first large-scale commercial pellet plant to be operational by late 2013, the company has told Argus.

Zilkha acquired a 500,000 t/yr regular “white” pellet plant in Selma, Alabama, two years ago when the previous owners failed to make the business viable. Zilkha will adapt the plant to produce 275,000 t/yr of “Zilkha Black” pellets.

“We have about a year’s worth of work once the offtake agreements for the plant have been finalised,” Zilkha vice-president for business development Larry Weick told Argus. “So we are looking at a late-2013 start-up. The previous plant was not successful due to several factors, but Zilkha is confident that operating the plant at 275,000 t/yr, well below the original design capacity of 500,000 t/yr, will be economically viable.”

The company is looking to establish several plants, including projects which would export through Mobile, Alabama, and also projects in British Columbia, Canada.

“It makes more sense to have multiple plants that are shipping through the same ports,” Weick said. “Although we cannot confirm how many more plants we are looking at constructing, our Selma plant is the first in a series of 200,000-400,000 t/yr plants that we will construct in the future.”

Zilkha Black pellets are not torrefied, according to Weick, but are pre-processed according to a technology acquired by the company a few years ago.

“Although both routes can theoretically produce a dense, waterproof pellet, there is a pretty clear difference between Zilkha Black pellets and torrefied pellets,” Weick said. “Essentially torrefaction drives the process conditions so hard and so far that the final material is really charcoal, whereas we use a completely different approach and avoid that more destructive route. As a result, we can make a good, hard, low dust pellet that is waterproof without incorporating any additives in the pellet.”

Zilkha believes that pre-processed biomass either as Zilkha Black pellets or perhaps torrefied material will be the preferred biomass product once it is readily available, due to its reduced capital costs for conversion, its coal-like properties, the safety benefits due to less dust and the fact that it can be stored outside — despite the higher purchase price of the fuel, Weick said.

“Our first cargo was loaded in the rain, and the fuel was absolutely fine,” he said. “Black pellets are around 10pc cheaper all-in, even though the purchase price is higher.”

Beaumont, Texas—The region of East Texas once considered behind the “Pine Curtain” is now becoming the “wood basket.”

That “wood basket” describes a 75-mile radius from a wood-pellet mill to be built south of Woodville by a company called German Pellets.

The “basket” is a swath of East Texas timber country that provides the raw material with which to make wooden pellets, which are about the size of a dowel that might be used in furniture-making.

However, instead of joining legs to a table, the dowel-sized pellets are heading to the furnaces of electric power-generating plants in Europe. There, they will help replace coal.

German Pellets is making an investment of about $100 million at the former North American Procurement Co. plant about two miles south of Woodville, said Tyler County Judge Jacques Blanchette.

North American Procurement Co., or NAPCO, sold its shipping mill and acreage to German Pellets, which will demolish parts of the existing mill and build a pellet-making plant in its place. The pellets are produced from logged trees.

The new manufacturing plant and the existing timber activities that will support it amount to between 250 and 300 jobs, Blanchette said.

Tyler County Commissioners Court approved a 10-year tax abatement for the plant, offering a first-year abatement of 90 percent on improvements which goes down to 10 percent in the final year.

German Pellets still must secure applicable state permits to operate, which are expected at the earliest in February.

Peter Liebold, the Wismar, Germany-based company’s chief executive, said in a prepared statement that wood pellets are a “fuel of the future” and he expects European consumption to increase to between 15 million and 25 million metric tons per year by 2020. A metric ton is equal to 2,204 pounds. Current European consumption is 11 million metric tons.

The Woodville plant’s output is expected to be about 500,000 metric tons per year when production begins in 2013.

“The market for industrial-grade pellets will continue to experience especially strong growth due to coal-fired power plants switching from coal to pellets,” Liebold said.

Canada is Europe’s largest supplier at 1 million metric tons last year. However, Canada is expected to keep a larger percentage of its production for its own power generation, Liebold said.

German Pellets’ production in Woodville will be shipped through local ports, Liebold said.

A Houston-based company, Zilkha Biomass Fuels, is producing what it calls “black pellets” from a plant in Crockett. Zilkha shipped 6,000 metric tons of pellets from the Port of Beaumont to a customer in Europe in December as part of a test run, said Zilkha logistics coordinator Zoe Russell.

Zilkha said its patented process to make black pellets makes them waterproof, pre-drying them to reduce moisture content. Unlike white pellets, which can disintegrate on exposure to rain or snow, the black ones can be stored outdoors, the company contends.

The Crockett plant is capable of producing 40,000 metric tons per year, Russell said. If the company decides to expand to commercial scale, it could go to as much as 300,000 metric tons per year, she said.

One of the Port of Beaumont’s warehouses is filled with black pellets from Zilkha. The pellets have an earthy aroma, not as sharp as roasting coffee beans, but still noticeable. There isn’t any dust, but the pellets spill through crevices in the concrete walls of the bins where they are stored.

At a recent Port of Beaumont commissioners meeting, board member Henry Nix referred to a recent book titled “Back to Work” by Bill Clinton, in which the former president talks about the wood pellet business as an opportunity for American export and domestic jobs.

Nix is not alone in encouraging the wood pellet business. The Port of Port Arthur also is interested, said Orlando Ciramella, its director of trade development.

“We’re close to signing an agreement,” Ciramella said.

He said both ports can benefit because they are close to the source of timber and where pellet mills are being built.

“That makes it really feasible,” he said.

Chennai/Bangalore, India—To meet ever-increasing energy demand, the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE) is looking at the possibility of generating 10,000 Mw of power in the next ten years from surplus biomass.

“The rising demand for energy on one hand and depletion of fossil fuels and increasing import of coal on the other, has made it necessary for us to look at dedicated plantation-based biomass power and energy as an alternative source,” MNRE Secretary Deepak Gupta told a national workshop on “Dedicated Plantation based Biomass Power and Energy” here today.

MNRE was exploring the possibility of generating 10,000 Mw of power in the next 10 years from surplus biomass, both agro and forest residues, he said. In addition, small megawatt biomass power plants could be set up for feeding power at the tail end of the grid (11 KV line).

These plants would ensure power to many villages. MNRE proposed to bring together stakeholders to formulate a strategy to provide sustainable and reliable energy solution at an affordable cost at the grassroot level in an integrated and environment-friendly manner, he said. Presently, biomass-based power plants are mainly based on surplus agro residues such as rice husk, cotton and arhar stock and other agro and forest residue and availability of biomass has been a major issue to operate the plants to full capacity.

The problem could be over come if these plants were linked with dedicated energy plantations on degraded or waste lands for supplementing the biomass fee stock demand. This would also help in reducing the need for transportation of biomass over long distances.

MNRE initiated a new scheme in 2009-10 to promote grid interactive biomass based projects (up to 2 MW) at the tail end of the grid, as they help in reducing T&D losses and stabilising grid voltages, besides offering many other socio-economic benefits in rural areas, including rural employment, he said.

MNRE Director MNRE D K Khare said the recent draft “National Mission Document on National Mission for Greening India” by the Ministry of Environment and Forest aimed at increasing forest-tree cover on 5 million hectares of forest/non-forest lands and improving the quality of forest cover on another 5 million hectares of degraded forest land.

He said recent efforts made by private developers in raising plantation of fast growing tree species such as bambusa balcooa (bema bamboo), melia dubia, paulownia have shown encouraging results by demonstrating a high yield of 40-60 tonnes per hectare per year in a rotation of 3-4 years. In view of this, plantation of bema bamboo — which yields about 40-50 tons per hectare — on 150-200 hectares of degraded/marginal forest/non-forest degraded land could provide sustainable supply feedstock for one megawatt plant, he said.

Bangalore, India—India is targeting to generate about 10,000 MW of energy from biomass over the next decade, Deepak Gupta, Secretary, Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE), said here on Tuesday.

He was speaking at the inauguration of National Workshop on Dedicated Plantation-Based Biomass Power and Energy. He said power shortage was a big problem in the country and with a question on the safety of nuclear energy, there was an urgent need to resort to other sources of energy.

He added that currently up to 70 per cent of the electricity and other energy generation in the country depends on imports. He said if something was not done, by 2030 around 90 per cent of our energy generation would depend on imports.

Gupta pointed out that India had under-utilised its potential to generate energy from biomass. He said India could generate around 16,000 megawatt from biomass but was producing only around 1,000 megawatt. He said wasteland could be used to raise dedicated and high-yielding plants for biomass generation.

AK Verma, MD, Karnataka State Forest Industries Corporation Limited, highlighted the importance of plantation, especially bamboo, to provide sustainable supply of feedstock for power generation.

Dr D K Khare, Director, MNRE, said absence of clear state policy, clarity in procedures, and getting clearance from the Government and Forest Department for the plantation land were another roadblocks.

The secretary to the MNRE said the ideas and recommendations put forth in the workshop would be taken up and forwarded to government for implementation if they were found feasible and genuine.

Shankar Gowda Patil, Chairman, KSFIC, K Krishan, President, Grameena Abhivrudhi Mandali, Bangalore, were also present.

A Montville Patch Article by Carrie Jacobson
March 23, 2011

The Montville NRG plant is planning to shift to biomass, according to documents released recently by the company.

The change means that the plant will be produce 40 megawatts of what the company describes as “clean, renewable power.”

The change also means that the plant will continue to operate, according to documents, will bring in increased property tax revenues, and, in the construction phase, will add roughly 75 jobs.

The fuel will be clean wood biomass, which should improve emissions from the site. The change will also allow NRG to get a top energy certification, the documents say.

Currently, the plant runs on natural gas and oil. The biomass program takes one of the plant’s steam-producing units and renovates it to run on wood.

While the change will reduce the output of the unit while it is operating on the biomass fuel, it will diversify the fuel source, and help contribute to the state’s goal of producing 20 percent of its power by renewable sources.

Dave Gaier of NRG said that the unit will be able to ramp up its output quickly when more power is needed, running on natural gas or oil.

Forty megawatts of power is enough to supply fuel to 30,000 homes, the company says. “By running on ultra-low sulfur liquid fuel or natural gas,” the documents say, “the project will still be able to generate its full (megawatts), enough to support over 65,000 homes.”

A-Power Energy Generation Systems has signed an agreement to develop the first phase of a biomass power generation plant in Shandong province, China.

As per the RMB125m ($19m) contract, the China-based company will develop the 12MW renewable energy project in Yangxin county.

Under the first phase, A-Power will act as the engineering, procurement and construction contractor for the power project.

Construction on the renewable energy project, which is owned by Yangxin County Jinyuan Biomass Thermal Power Generation, began on 18 March 2011 and is slated to be completed by the end of this year.

A-Power is a provider of distributed power generation systems in China and a manufacturer of wind turbines.