Biofuel industry gets boost from Louisiana wood waste By Tom Kelly While the fortunate ones in the Haynesville Shale and other oil and gas producing regions of north Louisiana continue to enjoy the high times of lucrative leases, royalties, and gushers of money from construction of new pipelines, storage facilities, and the free spending free wheeling ways of the oil patch economy, the differently blessed regions of Louisiana and the Piney Woods continue to try to strike oil--or an approximation of it--from wood chips, logging slash, pellets, cellulosic ethanol, corn squeezin's, even hog lard and chicken fat. Call it Biofuel. But wait--coming with the end-of-November announcement of the Sundrop biofuels plant in Central Louisiana is news that the Piney Woods and the oil patch will become partners in providing raw material for renewable "green" gasoline, a first in the world. How's that? See the Page One story from Alexandria. With the Sundrop announcement capping a year of on-again, off-again biofuel moves, it appears that 2012 might be the year when everything gels, and "green" really gets rolling. The energy company planning to build a $120 million wood pellet manufacturing plant at the Port of Baton Rouge says it has signed a construction contract. Point Bio Energy Chairman and CEO William New says the Conti Group is expected to break ground on the plant at the end of the first quarter of 2012. "We need to start deliveries in the second quarter of 2013," he says. Contracts with European utilities that plan to burn the wood pellets with coal to reduce the amount of carbon released into the atmosphere are in place, New says, though he declines to identify the utilities. When complete, the plant is expected to be among the largest of its kind in the country, producing about 400,000 tons of wood pellets for fuel per year. The pellets are made from pulpwood and forest thinnings-small trees cut down so others will grow faster. The plant is expected to have 87 workers with a $6 million-plus annual payroll, and bring about $825,000 a year to the Port of Baton Rouge. The port's board approved a 20-year lease with Point Bio last year. The company is currently based in LaPointe, Wis., but plans to move its headquarters to Baton Rouge. The pellets would then be shipped and used as a fuel source in electricity-generating plants, most likely in Europe.\par }{\plain New said Point Bio has a 10-year deal with a European utility, the name of which he said he cannot disclose. Port Director Jay Hardman praised the construction contract in a written statement Tuesday. He said, "there have been unexpected challenges due to uncertainty in worldwide economic markets, but the signing of this contract strengthens our confidence that significant progress is being made toward getting this plant built and realizing the positive economic impacts it will have for our region." The Point Bio plant would grind wood into sawdust and press it into small pellets with the same kind of machinery used to make dry dog food. New has said he has letters of intent from local and regional wood suppliers to supply green wood to the plant for the next 10 to 20 years. Dynamic Fuels, a joint venture of Tyson Foods, Inc., and Syntroleum Corporation, located on the Mississippi River at Geismar, between Baton Rouge and New Orleans, began production in early October, converting animal fats and greases into high quality diesel fuel. The Piney Woods Journal reported plans for the Dynamic Fuels plant in 2007. The company began production with 2,500 barrels per day, and growing, according to a company news release on November 8. Dynamic Fuels uses non-food grade animal fats and greases to make "some of the highest quality diesel fuel in the world," with a carbon footprint 75% lower than that of petroleum diesel, the company said. The company has been producing jet fuel for testing by the Air Force Research Laboratory, the first renewable jet fuel to be tested for Air Force use. Dynamic Fuels utilizes beef tallow, pork lard, chicken fat and greases, with the plant designed to produce up to 75 million gallons of renewable fuel per year. The plant currently has 44 permanent full time positions. Weyerhaeuser Company announced in September that it is participating in a consortium led by Washington State University to study feasibility of producing jet biofuel from woody feedstocks in the Pacific Northwest. Weyerhaeuser plans to establish a new research site near Springfield, Oregon, to provide information on effects of biomass removal, compaction, and fertilization on soil water, and wildlife. Weyerhaeuser is also partnered with Chevron company in KiOR, Inc., a 50-50 venture with Catchlight Energy LLC to develop a renewable fuels plant at Columbus, Mississippi using forest-based feedstock. Also in Mississippi, an Israeli company, plans four plants in Mississippi to convert wood chips to cellulosic sugars for manufacture of various consumer products. The company will be headquartered at Olive Branch, Mississippi. The State of Mississippi has approved a $100 million financing package for the operation. |