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Heat Energy Systems Supplier Opens Office
Factory Sales & Engineering, Inc, (FSE) has opened a regional sales and engineering office in Cumming, Ga. to support increased growth in the Eastern U.S. and serve as a base for FSE’s continued growth in the process heating, thermal oil, and biomass fired hot gas energy systems for rotary dryers, which are used in the wood pelleting and engineered wood products industries.
Cumming is 30 miles north of metro Atlanta, and the office will initially be staffed with four to six sales service and engineering professionals with plans to increase these numbers based on project demands and product development lifecycles. Visit fsela.com.
PHG Energy Partners With TVA Program
PHG Energy has demonstrated its ability to produce renewable electricity from scrap wood chips and is now officially a part of the TVA Generation Partners Program.
PHG Energy used a clean thermo-chemical gasification process to produce a fuel much like natural gas, and then processed and purified that gas so that it could be used to run in a 1 MW Caterpillar generator. The successful demonstration took place at a Boral Bricks Inc. plant in Gleason, Tenn.
“We have trialed our gasification equipment producing fuel gas to fire large brick kilns here in Gleason as well as at two other manufacturing facilities in Georgia and Alabama,” says PHG President Tom Stanzione. “We have more than 40,000 hours of successful gas production from waste biomass products on these gasifiers.”
PHG’s gasification equipment can utilize many biomass feedstocks, such as wood chips or foresting wastes, and often takes advantage of recycled waste materials from industrial and manufacturing operations.
The project to produce electricity has been supported over the past year through collaborative contributions and funding from the U.S. Dept. of Energy as part of the ARES Program, Caterpillar, Inc. and Boral Bricks Inc. Boral Bricks has allowed PHG Energy to maintain and operate three of the six gasifiers at the Gleason site that were installed to fire the brick kilns at that location.
The ‘Missing Piece’ In Boiler Technology
LEI Products introduces The Bio-Burner BB-500, a green biomass boiler capable of burning wet wood chips, sawdust and other biomass fuels while producing heat energy for commercial and light industrial applications.
This “missing piece” represents the need for a boiler that can burn multiple types of biomass and fill the gap in the niche market of affordable 100k – 1 million BTU multi-fuel multi-day biomass boilers, according to the company.
Heat energy is created by burning both “non-traditional” solid biomass fuels (dirty fuels, fine dust products, crop stover, etc.), which in the past have been impractical to burn due to the lack of technology, and traditional fuels (wood chips, corn, pellets, etc.). All of these fuels can be burned in the same unit; therefore, whatever fuel is available or least expensive at the time can be used with the option of changing fuel when necessary.
The Bio-Burner product line includes the BB-100, a 100K BTU (29 kw) solid biomass boiler for residential or light commercial use; the BB-500, a 500K BTU (150+kw) boiler for commercial / light industrial use; the BB-FPS, Bio-Burner Fuel Processing System, that processes fuel into a usable size and then dries the fuel with heat from the BB-500.
The BB-500 can also handle fuels with up to 50% moisture content so wet wood chips and sawdust, normally unusable as fuel, can be burned straight from a sawmill.
The Bio-Burner uses a Fuel Feed System design with new computer control technology. The Fuel Feed Systems range in size from 2 to 22 yds (1-5 tons).
LEI Products was founded in 2007 by Scott Laskowski and his father, Donald Laskowski. The Laskowski family has over 80 years of combined experience in building and managing successful companies like Wood-Mizer Products. Visit bioburner.com.
Logging & Biomass Expo Is A Hit
Weather was ideal, traffic was heavy and the overall outlook was noticeably bright during the The Mid-Atlantic Logging & Biomass Expo held October 7-8 near Smithfield, NC. Sponsors placed total attendance at near 3,000 and valued equipment-products on hand at more than $100 million.
This was the largest show of its type to be held along the central East Coast as well as the first live show held in the region in four years. This year the NC Assn. of Professional Loggers (NCAPL) and Hatton-Brown Publishers (publisher of Wood Bioenergy magazine) joined hands with the NC Forestry Assn. (NCFA) to develop the new and expanded live show.
A common topic in show chatter was the belief that there won’t be enough logging capacity when the market rebounds. Even those manufacturers with captive financing will be forced to apply stricter rules, making it more difficult for new loggers to get financed and fill in the gap when demand does return.
Forestry Mutual Insurance Co. hosted the Logger’s Challenge tree felling competition. The top finisher was Eddie Norton of Burnsville, NC. The Prentice Loader Championship remains a popular attraction. Jamie Lindley, Siler City, NC, took first place. The competition raised $868 for Log A Load For Kids.
Perhaps the biggest single crowd magnet was the tent occupied by logging celebrity Bobby Goodson and the Swamp Loggers crew. Even when the show traffic was lighter, the biggest crowd always seemed to be around Goodson, who did not appear to leave his table during the entire show except when standing up for photographs.
Exhibit Space Sales Opens For Richmond
The 33rd East Coast Sawmill and Logging Equipment Exposition, scheduled May 18-19 at Richmond Raceway Complex in Richmond, Va., is accepting exhibitors.
With more than 12 acres of outdoor exhibit space and hundreds of indoor booths, the Richmond Expo provides over one-half million square feet for active equipment demonstrations, exhibits and static displays. The exposition is co-sponsored by the Virginia Forest Products Assn. and the Cooperative Extension Service and Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University.
Attendee pre-registration forms will be available in early 2012 in trade publications and direct-mail forms from the exposition office. There will be no charge for any forest products industry member who pre-registers, and a small fee will be collected from on-site registrants.
Contact Mike Washko, Exposition Manager, East Coast Sawmill and Logging Equipment Exposition, P.O. Box 160, Sandston, VA, 23150-0160. Phone: 804-737-5625; Fax: 804-737-9437; E-mail: vfpa.mike@att.net.
Bandit Announces Dealer in Mid-South
Bandit Industries has added dealer Williams Equipment and Supply, which operates at six locations in Tennessee, Mississippi and Arkansas. Contact Williams Equipment and Supply at 888-553-8211 or online at www.williamsequipment.com.
Vermeer, Pellet Tech Form Alliance
Pellet Technology USA, a biomass processing technology company, has formed an alliance with Vermeer Corp. in which Vermeer will serve as the exclusive supplier of the feedstock grinder to be used in Pellet Technology USA’s patent-pending system to manufacture pellets from stover, wood, energy crops and other agricultural residues.
The Vermeer HG6000 horizontal grinder, complete with a patented Series II duplex drum, will be integrated with the Pellet Technology air-assisted feed system, allowing for higher moisture agricultural residue to be processed. The Vermeer horizontal grinder features a self-cleaning “bioscreen” that maintains an even level of biomass throughput while preventing flow blockage.
Mid-South Event Scheduled October 5-6
Organizers of the Mid-South Forestry Equipment Show, which goes back to 1983, have selected October 5-6 as the timeline for the 2012 event near Starkville, Miss. A spokesperson for the show acknowledges that the date conflicts with that of at least two other industry events and meetings but pointed out that the football schedule in the SEC Conference, along with weather concerns, resulted in very limited options.
Boiler Tube Saw Cuts Clean, Straight
An air powered saw and track system which attaches easily to water wall boiler tube sections to produce perfectly square cuts that require no further rework is available from ESCO Tool of Holliston, Mass.
The MILLHOG APS-438 Air Powered Saw and EscoTrack System lets an operator efficiently cut sections of water wall boiler tubes by allowing the leading edge of the blade to cut each pipe with 1⁄8 in. accuracy. Easy to attach and align, the track fully supports the saw which glides along smoothly and can produce a clean, straight 43⁄8 in. deep cut while reducing operator fatigue.
The product features a 3 HP pneumatic motor and uses 12 in. reinforced fiberglass abrasive blades that can cut stainless steel, Inconel, ash pipe and lined pipe. The saw requires 90 psi @80 cfm and the steel track comes in 5 ft. sections and attaches using weld tabs. Visit escotool.com.
Venture Introduces Biomass Burner
Green Clean Heat and Nord Energy Systems have formed a joint venture aimed at providing economical, high-efficiency heating systems. The Nord Energy Gasification Burner is a technologically advanced heating unit designed to replace oil burners in furnaces and boilers used in residential and small commercial applications. It utilizes sophisticated computer controls to ensure the high-efficiency gasification and combustion of sustainable, biomass resources (pellets and wood chips). With emphasis on reducing particulate emissions to an absolute minimum, this new burner provides 17kW (58,000 Btu), with larger systems providing up to 200kW (682,000 Btu).
Green Clean Heat of Newton, NH is a subsidiary of Continental Biomass Industries, Inc.
Komptech Hosts Dealer Event
Komptech held its 2011 Sales and Service Training in California. The hands-on part of the training took place at the Napa Recycling Facility in Zamora Calif., where Komptech had three machines on site—a Topturn X67 compost turner, a Multistar L3 star screen, and a Crambo 5000 wood shredder.
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