Document text
44 °F Forecast | Road Cams Friday, March 11, 2005 Today's News | Classifieds | Autos | Homes | Jobs | Tempo | Health | Community | Home Delivery SECTIONS Home Page Local News Sports Business Obituaries Life Opinion Tempo AP News Weather Classified Archives Site Map SPECIAL SECTIONS Since We Asked Outdoor Journal Menu Guide How To Guide Health Readers' Choice Real Estate Showcase Real Estate Guide Joy Magazine Homelife Magazine Wedding Guide Passport to the Rogue Valley SHOP OUR VALLEY AutoFinder HomeFinder JobFinder Classified Place an ad TOP JOBS EXTRA NIE Personals Movie Times TV Times E The People Volunteer Moving here? eSouthernOregon CUSTOMER SERVICE FAQ's Advertise with us Home Delivery Employment Contact Us Media Kit Oregon Road Conditions & Cams Email Story to a Friend August 27, 2003 The �Slashbundler� turns logging slash into 10-foot-long bundles that can be used as fuel for power plants. The Finnish machine is being tested on U.S. Bureau of Land Management land on the Dead Indian Plateau. Mail Tribune / Jim Craven ‘Slashbundler’ scours timberlands By PAUL FATTIG Mail Tribune The growling green monster is insatiable. It gobbles up logging slash, compressing the debris into a "log" the size of an old-growth trunk, and spews it out for cogeneration production. Known as the Energy Wood Harvester or "Slashbundler," the new technology is being tested for the next two weeks on a 30-acre, selectively logged U.S. Bureau of Land Management unit on the Dead Indian Plateau. "This could be a win-win situation," said Blair Moody, the BLM site coordinator, as he watched the machine munch and crunch slash into 10-foot-long, 30-inch-thick logs neatly tied with light rope. Advertisement "There is no question most of our timber stands are overstocked," he said. "The problem is we only have a narrow window when we can burn the slash because of our fragile airshed." The other problem is air pollution: Prescribed burning produces 252 pounds of carbon monoxide per ton compared to 140 pounds per ton from a wildfire and a scant 3.2 pounds per ton from a power plant, according to the BLM. But employing such a machine to bundle slash instead of burning it depends on how it fares in ongoing studies looking at everything from ground compaction to cost-effectiveness, he said. Built by Timberjack Inc., a subsidiary of the John Deere Co., the machine was originally developed in Finland, where Slashbundlers have been used for four years to produce fuel for energy plants out of forest waste. Now the potential of the machine is being tested in the western United States, beginning with an initial appearance at the Western Governors Conference in Montana in June, followed by two demonstrations in Idaho and one near LaGrande. The studies are being conducted by the Forest Service’s Southern Research Station in Auburn, Ala. "When we heard about this new technology to bundle biomass to make it more cost-effective to handle, we wanted to look into the potential," explained Bob Rummer, a forester and engineer with the station. "The machine is working really well," he added. "We’ve seen applications where this would be the tool of choice." At a cost of a little more than $400,000, the computer-controlled vehicle comes with plenty of bells and whistles, said Dave Wellman, a Timberjack representative. "If you happen to break a hose on this, you just flip a switch and an electric vacuum pump stops any oil from falling on the ground," he said. He noted that steep slopes can be a problem for the rubber-tired vehicle, although it has operated on slopes up to 47 percent. "This material is generally piled up and burned," Wellman said. "I think this will be cost effective when you think about all the other costs if we don’t do it." He hopes a $25-a-green-ton federal government subsidy contained in a bill now before Congress will be approved. "I look at this material as green oil," he said. Bundles created from the BLM logging slash will be trucked to the Biomass power plant in Central Point, as well as the Wheelabrator Shasta Energy Co. Inc. in Anderson, Calif. Wheelabrator, which has a 50-megawatt power plant, the largest cogeneration facility in California, will take all it can get, said Stephen Jolley, the firm’s fuel manager. "We are the bottom feeders — there is no denying that," he said. "This material (logging slash) has been the hardest to get your hands on because of the expense of picking it up." When the firm started 15 years ago, all of its fuel came from the timber industry, he said. By last year, because of the downturn in the timber industry, less than half of its fuel came from the industry, he said. "I’m anxious to get my hands on as much of this as I can, as long as it’s affordable," he said. "Will it pay its way out of the woods? Not entirely. However, if you leave it here, it becomes fuel for the next fire. And I have yet to see a fire pay its way out of the woods." The point, Jolley said, is that reducing the cost of fighting a wildfire needs to be figured into the equation when it comes to cost- effectiveness. "We’re hoping this material will eventually become available throughout the West," he said. Reach reporter Paul Fattig at 776-4496 or e-mail him at [email protected] Mail Tribune Home | Local News | Sports | Business | Obituaries | Life | Opinion AP News | Archives | Site Map | Community | Classified Copyright © 1997-2005 Mail Tribune, Inc. All rights reserved. Privacy Policy | Terms & Conditions | Website Feedback Student Loan Consolidation Conference Calls - $50/Month Home Security Systems Trunks, Footlocker, Trunk, Footlockers home equity loans helzberg Slippers Student Loans afsa teleconferencing Memory Foam Mattress Advertisement s