Lots Of Buzz

Fourth Edition Of Wood Bio

Upon entering the Grand Ballroom on Tuesday, April 5, at the OMNI Hotel at CNN Center in Atlanta, attendees of the 2016 Wood Bioenergy Conference & Expo were greeted to a diverse group of 40 keynote speakers and technical presenters with a show floor of 70 exhibiting suppliers. And when they departed the event when it was over, if they didn’t feel fully updated on the state of wood bioenergy, they must not have been paying attention. The information that spilled forth over these two days, and the quality of the speakers and exhibitors dishing it out, left little doubt that the Wood Bioenergy Conference & Expo is the best event of its kind in the world.

Instead of going into detail about the presentations, all equally enlightening and engaging, we’re just going to refer you to page 12. There you can find the in-depth report on the event, along with photographs, compiled by the editorial team at Wood Bioenergy magazine.

A new sidelight to the conference was the addition of WoodBio Buzz. Modeled after your local evening news, as the camera rolled, WB editors Dan Shell, Jay Donnell and Jessica Johnson spent time each day talking with speakers and attendees about their experiences not only at the conference, but what they might have up their sleeves for their various facilities. As one attendee told me while I made my pitch for him to be a part of WoodBio Buzz: “I’m here to learn. Often, we are in our own ways and get caught up in that without taking a chance to see what other folks are doing. What they are doing could help us.”

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From Left: Jessica Johnson, Associate Editor; Dan Shell, Managing Editor; Jay Donnell, Associate Editor; Rich Donnell, Editor-in-Chief; David (DK) Knight, Co-Publisher/Executive Editor; David Abbott, Senior Associate Editor;

Didn’t have a chance to get to Atlanta, but want to know what everyone had to say? Click over to bioenergy show.com/woodbio-buzz or any of Wood Bio’s social media channels or the magazine website to view both WoodBio Buzz videos, brought to you by sponsors, Morbark and TSI. We like to think the videos are a crisp snapshot from the event: upbeat, but with some meat on the bone.

The conference offered it all, including out of this world food and the chance to mingle with friends and suppliers over a beverage or two. Eight keynote talks to the entire attendance were supported by dozens of individual session technical presentations. Another new twist was the Chip Chip Hooray! session, moderated by the bubbly Jessica Johnson, that really brought the energy up. You could hear her crowd saying “Chip! Chip! HOORAY!” as if they were at a high school pep rally. Read about the Chip Chip Hooray! presentations beginning on page 25.

The wood bioenergy industry as of late has been trying to find its footing, but in Atlanta it found solid ground.