Shaping Up

For A Good Year

This issue, the first of this magazine’s fifth year in existence, is partially given over to the Wood Bio Guide. This is a section devoted to listings of manufacturers and products for the wood pellets, biomass power, biofuels and in-woods harvesting sectors of the industry. It’s still in its infancy—this being only the third year we’ve produced it—and it’s extremely important that your information is in here and that it’s correct.

Speaking from experience, it takes time to build and shape these special reference guides, but we’re confident the Wood Bio Guide will evolve into the industry’s leading directory, as has been the case for directories we do in three of our other magazines—Timber Harvesting, Timber Processing and Panel World—for their respective industries.

If you have questions about the Wood Bio Guide, contact our circulation director, Rhonda Thomas, by email: rhonda@hattonbrown.com.

Biomass Resource Image 001
From Left: David (DK) Knight, Co-Publisher/Executive Editor; David Abbott, Senior Associate Editor; Dan Shell, Western Editor; Jessica Johnson, Associate Editor; Rich Donnell, Editor-in-Chief



  • We sadly report that our long-time senior associate editor, Jennifer McCary, is retiring from the trade. Jennifer may still do a little freelance writing for us now and then, but her regular contributions to all of our magazines will be missed, and will create a tough void to fill. Jennifer has traveled and written for us since 1987.

Fortunately, as of last May, we had already hired an associate editor, so our loss of “manpower” won’t be as overwhelming as it could have been. Jessica Johnson is our new “kid” on the block and you can see her in the editors’ photo elsewhere on this page. She joins yours truly, Dan Shell, David Abbott and DK Knight on the editorial team. So far, she seems to be a perfect fit, especially in the woods on her initial visits to various logging jobs throughout the South.



  • The next Bioenergy Fuels & Products Conference & Expo is scheduled for March 18-19, 2014, to be held in the Grand Ballroom North of the Omni Hotel at CNN Center in Atlanta, Georgia. Wood Bioenergy and Panel World magazines serve as media hosts of the event, which is held every other year.

The 2012 Bioenergy Expo featured 45 speakers, 75 equipment and supplier exhibitors and boasted a total attendance of 400. In a post-event survey, 100% of the attendees said they definitely or possibly took something home from the conference and expo that would be useful in their business.

The Bioenergy event will again be followed by the Panel & Engineered Lumber International Conference & Expo on March 20-21. Many exhibitors and attendees participate in both events

  • This issue of Wood Bioenergy also features two in-depth articles, one on the state of the industrial pellets industry, and the other on how the “new” bioenergy industry is impacting the in-woods markets. To give you some idea on the rapidly evolving wood pellets business, several new pellet plant projects were announced even after Dan Shell had started his research for the article. Two of those plant project announcements came from Drax of the United Kingdom. Chuck Davis, CEO of Drax Biomass International, answered a few questions about those projects beginning on page 8.

    • 2013 promises to be another eventful year for the new generation wood bioenergy industry. We’re excited to be a part of it.