Slash to cash: Local plant expanding

Owners Lane Parry and Kyle Dunning started Elkhorn Biomass on the former Ellingson Lumber Co. mill property in 2008.

Dunning said work on the expansion will begin around the end of this year and is expected to be completed by the fall of 2010, in time for the heating season.

So far, Elkhorn Biomass’ firewood operation, processing 1,000 to 2,000 cords per year, has created a market for logs cut to reduce the fire danger and improve the health of area forests, Dunning said.

“Our goal was to show we could bring a slash market into a manufacturing facility,” Dunning said.

Adding wood briquettes and fire logs will require about 10,000 tons of woody biomass per year to start (35 truckloads), with the supply growing to 20,000 tons a year, and possibly more, Parry said.

The plant could be further expanded to produce far more firewood if the Obama Administration and Congress come through with all or part of a $4.5 million request made last winter for federal stimulus funding, Dunning said.

A wider variety of wood wastes, such as ground up branches, slash piles and other material that would otherwise be burned at logging sites on both private and public forests, can also be used to make briquettes and compressed fire logs, Dunning said.

“Our production will be dictated by the amount of biomass we are able to procure,” he said. “The Small Woodlands Association of Baker County will play a role. They have control over the raw material.”

“As with any commodity the price will fluctuate with the markets. Right now prices for the raw material are pretty low,” Dunning said. “What we are trying to do is make it work for everybody.”

He said the Elkhorn Biomass plant expansion is the result of several years of research and feasibility studies, much of which was done on behalf of the Woodlands Association, including a recent study by Wallowa Renewable Resources.

“This is a cooperative effort,” Dunning said, adding that Elkhorn Biomass is exploring joint marketing with West Oregon Wood Products out of Columbia County, and Wallowa Renewable Resources.

In a Tuesday press release, Dunning and Parry said their business essentially provides woodland owners and logging companies with cash for slash.

At full production, the company will add as many as 10 jobs at the Baker City plant, which employs six now.

“We’ve had a very favorable response from the community,” Dunning said. “We’ve invested a lot here to support good jobs and create new ones. We like having a positive impact on the community and on forest health with renewable energy. So it’s exciting to take the business to the next level with the briquette technology.”

Using a machine called a briquetter, the 100 percent wood fire logs and briquettes (which resemble hockey pucks) will be created by compressing dry, shredded woody biomass under heat and pressure. The result is a high BTU, long-burning, low emission, and low cost heating fuel that allows the company to utilize woody material that’s not sound enough to be chopped into conventional firewood.

The compressed wood logs and briquettes are ideal for traditional fireplaces and wood stoves, according to Elkhorn Biomass.

The new products complement the company’s Eco-Friendly Firewood, which entered the market in December of last year. Like the bundled firewood, the fire logs and briquettes will be available locally through retail outlets, according to the press release.

Parry said one of the goals of Elkhorn Biomass is to revive local forest jobs, while providing much-needed ecosystem benefits.

“This will give woodland owners a market for their wood,” Parry said. The company’s motto is “heat and eat local.”

Until the company began bundling firewood last year, there wasn’t a viable local market for price-depressed pulp logs or slash left from logging.

“We’re doing something that has never been done here before — creating a sellable and high-demand product from something that was considered waste,” said Parry. “The fire logs and briquettes are another opportunity for us to create a local market to utilize pulp logs and slash. Historically that material has been piled and burned. Having a market for it benefits everyone — it generates energy and improves forest health. It’s a positive domino effect all the way down the chain.”

As a professional forestry consultant, Parry sees the benefits from three sides — the landowner has additional saleable product; the logger is able to realize more income from each job; and the community benefits through local investment and associated work both at the plant and for private contractors in the forest industry.

Residential and commercial customers gain highly-efficient, low cost heat for homes and structures from locally produced renewable energy.

The timing is perfect for the new products.

Homeowners are increasingly interested and supportive of renewable energy. When they can utilize clean-burning wood heat from locally reclaimed firewood or the new fire logs and briquettes, it makes ecological and financial sense.  There are also incentives at the residential level — in 2007 the Oregon Legislature made high-efficiency wood stoves eligible for the Oregon Residential Energy Tax Credit Program.

At the commercial level, state and federal incentives, and proposed legislation like the Renewable Electricity Standard, are providing industrial and municipal entities, schools, and businesses with financial support and motivation to convert from environmentally degrading fossil fuels to more efficient and less costly biomass boilers to utilize clean renewable energy.

For more information, contact Elkhorn Biomass at 541-403-2727.