Site search
sponsored by
News
Sports
ENLARGE
JEFF WICK/The News-Review
Bob Agee of Dixonville, left, and Cottage Grove's Jim DeLapp, a retired soil scientist for the Umpqua National Forest, examine the texture of the feed stock for the fast pyrolysis machine Wednesday.
So you know ...
Tuesday's fast pyrolysis demonstration will be repeated on a larger scale Saturday in Glide at the old mill site off Bug Farm Road. The tour begins at 8:30 a.m. at the Ford Community Meeting Room of the Douglas County Library, 1409 N.E. Diamond Lake Boulevard, before leaving for the Glide site.
Another demonstration is scheduled in Merlin on Aug. 26.
Though buses are already full, people interested in driving themselves out to the site and bringing along their own lunches are welcome at the Glide and Merlin demonstrations, organizers said.
Information: (971) 673-2955.
Another demonstration is scheduled in Merlin on Aug. 26.
Though buses are already full, people interested in driving themselves out to the site and bringing along their own lunches are welcome at the Glide and Merlin demonstrations, organizers said.
Information: (971) 673-2955.
|
ENLARGE
|
Bryan Burns of RL Consulting, which designed the electronics and gages of the fast pyrolysis machine, answers questions about the demonstration in the Umpqua National Forest near Lemolo Lake Wednesday. Curious onlookers stuck fingers in the bio-oil.
|
LEMOLO LAKE – A few drops of iodine-colored liquid, smelling faintly like a fish smoker, plunked into a clear canning jar on Wednesday near Lemolo Lake.
One man in the crowd jockeying to see the fast pyrolysis product said it looked like 10-weight oil.
Bingo.
Agencies involved in bringing the demonstrations to Douglas County hope the bio-oil produced from quickly burning and then cooling wood feedstock in pyrolysis will help reduce domestic dependency on foreign oil, among other applications.
Douglas County and the U.S. Forest Service's Umpqua National Forest sponsored Wednesday's event, supported by many other groups looking into the technology as a way of creating jobs and restoring overgrown, unmarketable forest underbrush to healthy levels.
“I don't know if this is going to work,” said Cliff Dils, forest supervisor for UNF. “Is there something real here? Is there a financial piece that will pencil out … we're trying this to find out what is and is not real.”
Pyrolysis is not a new process, as presenters explained to the roughly 90 people who attended Wednesday, some hailing from Washington, D.C., and other states outside Oregon. The process can take any biomass and thermally decompose it in the absence of oxygen, producing oil, char and gas.
Mike Cloughesy of the Oregon Forest Resources Institute characterized using woody biomass to produce energy products as a triple win for the forests, economy and in reaching renewable energy goals.
Gabe Dumm, UNF fuels planner and fire ecologist, was interested in how using pyrolysis to process slash and unmarketable, small trees might be able to reduce fire fuels that have reached unhealthy levels.
“Where it's appropriate, we want natural fire to come back to the forests,” he said. “But the fuels are out of whack. We want to get that piece back to historic levels so fire can return.”
Tour buses en route to the demonstration drove past the scars of four wildfires that cost taxpayers millions. The cost of fighting the recent Williams Creek Fire is already approaching $10 million, Dumm said.
Burning woody material to make oil to make vehicle fuel has been done since World War II, presenters said.
There are several kinds of pyrolysis methods, but the kind local agencies are interested in is fast pyrolysis, which takes about three seconds – one second to heat the wood feedstock and two seconds to cool it back down, according to Phil Badger of Renewable Oil International, a company out of Alabama that brought its portable demonstration unit.
In addition to the demonstration, researchers from the University of Idaho and the University of Montana presented information from their studies on fast pyrolysis.
Mark Coleman, associate professor of forest resources for the University of Idaho, is looking into the application of using the bio char on forest land as a soil amendment to improve growth. The bio char also stores carbon for hundreds or possibly thousands of years, he said.
“So all we've done is extract the energy and put the nutrients back,” he said.
At this point, researchers aren't sure if such a project is economically viable, as average yearly returns in one study were estimated at about $66,000 after more than $3 million was invested in start-up costs.
But Tyron Venn of the University of Montana's college of forestry and conservation said he and fellow researchers think a small entrepreneur or agricultural cooperatives might take on such a businesses.
For one tour participant, the returns in value to the forest were a good deal.
“My economy is measured in air quality and in water quality; the economy will eventually catch up with that,” said M.A. Hansen, president of the Umpqua Bio Alternative Cooperative. “It's called taking care of your resources.”
Cloughesy said Douglas County is well situated to provide woody biomass for a pyrolysis undertaking as it far outpaces any other Oregon county, with more than 600,000 acres that could supply material.
“(Douglas County Commissioner) Joe Laurance coined the term, ‘Douglas County is the Saudi Arabia of biomass,” he said.
• You can reach reporter DD Bixby at 957-4211 or by e-mail at dbixby@nrtoday.com.
One man in the crowd jockeying to see the fast pyrolysis product said it looked like 10-weight oil.
Bingo.
Agencies involved in bringing the demonstrations to Douglas County hope the bio-oil produced from quickly burning and then cooling wood feedstock in pyrolysis will help reduce domestic dependency on foreign oil, among other applications.
Douglas County and the U.S. Forest Service's Umpqua National Forest sponsored Wednesday's event, supported by many other groups looking into the technology as a way of creating jobs and restoring overgrown, unmarketable forest underbrush to healthy levels.
“I don't know if this is going to work,” said Cliff Dils, forest supervisor for UNF. “Is there something real here? Is there a financial piece that will pencil out … we're trying this to find out what is and is not real.”
Pyrolysis is not a new process, as presenters explained to the roughly 90 people who attended Wednesday, some hailing from Washington, D.C., and other states outside Oregon. The process can take any biomass and thermally decompose it in the absence of oxygen, producing oil, char and gas.
Mike Cloughesy of the Oregon Forest Resources Institute characterized using woody biomass to produce energy products as a triple win for the forests, economy and in reaching renewable energy goals.
Gabe Dumm, UNF fuels planner and fire ecologist, was interested in how using pyrolysis to process slash and unmarketable, small trees might be able to reduce fire fuels that have reached unhealthy levels.
“Where it's appropriate, we want natural fire to come back to the forests,” he said. “But the fuels are out of whack. We want to get that piece back to historic levels so fire can return.”
Tour buses en route to the demonstration drove past the scars of four wildfires that cost taxpayers millions. The cost of fighting the recent Williams Creek Fire is already approaching $10 million, Dumm said.
Burning woody material to make oil to make vehicle fuel has been done since World War II, presenters said.
There are several kinds of pyrolysis methods, but the kind local agencies are interested in is fast pyrolysis, which takes about three seconds – one second to heat the wood feedstock and two seconds to cool it back down, according to Phil Badger of Renewable Oil International, a company out of Alabama that brought its portable demonstration unit.
In addition to the demonstration, researchers from the University of Idaho and the University of Montana presented information from their studies on fast pyrolysis.
Mark Coleman, associate professor of forest resources for the University of Idaho, is looking into the application of using the bio char on forest land as a soil amendment to improve growth. The bio char also stores carbon for hundreds or possibly thousands of years, he said.
“So all we've done is extract the energy and put the nutrients back,” he said.
At this point, researchers aren't sure if such a project is economically viable, as average yearly returns in one study were estimated at about $66,000 after more than $3 million was invested in start-up costs.
But Tyron Venn of the University of Montana's college of forestry and conservation said he and fellow researchers think a small entrepreneur or agricultural cooperatives might take on such a businesses.
For one tour participant, the returns in value to the forest were a good deal.
“My economy is measured in air quality and in water quality; the economy will eventually catch up with that,” said M.A. Hansen, president of the Umpqua Bio Alternative Cooperative. “It's called taking care of your resources.”
Cloughesy said Douglas County is well situated to provide woody biomass for a pyrolysis undertaking as it far outpaces any other Oregon county, with more than 600,000 acres that could supply material.
“(Douglas County Commissioner) Joe Laurance coined the term, ‘Douglas County is the Saudi Arabia of biomass,” he said.
• You can reach reporter DD Bixby at 957-4211 or by e-mail at dbixby@nrtoday.com.
