Companies, environment benefit from biomass furnace

Monday, October 4, 2010

ST. MARYS - Piles of sawdust used to be a problem for Penn Pallet, Inc. in St. Marys, but now that saw dust has become a way to create energy and make a profit.
Both Penn Pallet and Abbott Furnace Systems will benefit from the installation of a biomass furnace at Penn Pallet.
As the economy began to dip, Abbott Furnace Company, which builds continuous belt furnaces used by the powdered metal and other industries, began to look at new options for generating business and the idea to create biomass furnaces and Abbott Furnace Systems was born.
Abbott created its first furnace in 2009 for Horizon Wood Products in Kersey. The furnace is large and designed to be used indoors and heat both manufacturing buildings and heat drying kilns.
Abbott didn't stop there though. It wanted to also create a smaller system that could be outside since some companies may not have room to put a large furnace inside.
It planned to create a furnace for its building, but since it doesn't produce wood waste, it decided it would be better to work with a company that does.
Penn Pallet, which creates new pallets and reconditions used and damaged pallets, does produce a lot of wood waste. It also needs to produce heat for its drying kilns, which it has been doing with natural gas. It plans to have heat treated over 225,000 by the end of the year.
Due to wood ingesting insects, such as the Asian Long-Horned Beetle and the Emerald Ash Borer, which have killed trees in 13 states, including Pennsylvania and Canada, any exported pallets must be heat treated to kill any insects in them. Other industries, such as the pharmaceutical industry, also require heat treated pallets.
Abbott has worked with Penn Pallet in the past as it developed its first biomass furnace and it offered to build a vortex biomass furnace for Penn Pallet as a joint venture.
Penn Pallet has worked to reuse or recycle as much of the material that comes into the plant as it can from nails to sawdust since the 1980s, so the idea of having another way to make use of the wood product left from manufacturing appealed to Penn Pallet. Penn Pallet was already selling sawdust and wood chips left from its manufacturing process to businesses, hospitals and schools with those type of furnaces.
The two formed a partnership, with Abbott investing in the development of the furnace and Penn Pallet paying the costs of having it transported and set up. Abbott will be able to have potential customers see a working furnace and Penn Pallet will monitor the furnace for the next six months to help Abbott determine if any changes should be made.
The beauty of the furnace for Penn Pallet is the fuel for the furnace is already readily available at the plant.
"We produce 11,000 tons of ground wood and sawdust (a year) between the St. Marys and Woodland locations," Doug Cunningham, general manager of Penn Pallet, said. "That's enough sawdust to cover a football field 30 feet high."
Half of a truck load of sawdust could heat a home for a year, so more than 1,000 homes could be heated from the sawdust Penn Pallet creates, he said. It would take over a million gallons of fuel oil to do that.
Abbott's vortex furnace uses a different technology than the indoor one, Stephen Feldbauer, VP of engineering for Abbott Energy Systems, said. The furnace sits outside of a building and wood chips are put in the top of the furnace so as the chips fall, they burn. The motors in the furnace include fans, which create a vortex so that a "tornado of fire" is created, Feldbauer said. Very few of the chips will actually make it to the floor.
"It's an extremely efficient way of burning chips," Feldbauer said.
At the bottom of the furnace is a dust collector, it's just a small bucket compared to the size of the furnace because the system is so efficient that all that remains is 1-2 percent ash from the load.
It works as a heat exchange and a dust collector together, Feldbauer said.
The furnace is providing another way for Penn Pallet to help keep pallets and particles out of the landfill. It is expected to be running within two weeks.
In 1980, Penn Pallet began restoring pallets despite concerns that it might reduce new pallet sales. Today, it is one of the largest suppliers of new and recycled pallets in the region, shipping over 50,000 new and reconditioned pallets every week all over the country.
To deal with the major cost of disposing of the broken wood components, it later purchased a grinder to create a product that could be used for other industries.
In the last few years, the demand for the saw dust and wood chips has increased as biomass equipment is installed at schools, businesses and hospitals. In 2006, Penn Pallet began accepting wood waste from its customers and other businesses and combined it with the sawdust from the new pallets. This has helped Penn Pallet generate enough wood waste to support the sales, while also reducing the amount of wood waste entering landfills.
"We're excited because we want to see if we can get some energy savings out of it," Doug Cunningham said.
Rep. Matt Gabler, R-DuBois, said typically people have the idea that industry only wants to do the wrong thing, but this is an example of industries coming together to do the right thing. It makes sense economically and for the environment. You use and reuse everything, he said.
"This is a testament to the ingenuity of Elk County," Gabler said.
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Reported by JoAnn Seltzer, staff writer. E-mail:jseltzer@thecourierexpress.com.