Forest thinning idea grows

The adventure started as a way of helping people
in Lincoln County dispose of small diameter trees cut down to improve the
health of the watershed and to reduce the wild fire danger.

The timing was right following a series of catastrophic fires across the
West, including New Mexico.

Dianne Stallings, ruidoso news staff writer

(Thanks to Nan Christianson at the Bitterroot National Forest for passing this along- Russ)

Sherry Barrow of Sherry Barrow Strategies and her husband, Glen Barrow,
found grants to help buy the equipment, leased a rural events center owned
by the county but seldom used and connected the dots for a final salable
product ? SBS Wood Shavings.

And now the duo are working on an easier way to collect the timber piled
after a thinning project.

Their accomplishments, the system design and the impressive array of
equipment they have assembled from all over the country to carry out the
mission of shaving the timber, then processing and drying the shavings for
bedding material, also drew national attention.

After multiple visits by federal representatives, the operation is a leader
on a list nationwide for the award of a biomass generator pilot project
being put together through the U.S. Forest Service. Officials with Forest
Products Lab in Madison, Wis., said an announcement on the project may come
down as early as next week. According to information from the Community
Power Corporation, over the past two years in conjunction with the U.S.
National Renewable Energy Laboratory, Shell Renewables and the California
Energy Commission, more than $2 million was invested to design and
demonstrate a new state-of-the-art small modular bio-power system. The
unit, and modified versions to follow, will be capable of operating on
forms of woody biomass and agricultural residues.

The unit is mobile, automated, designed for low capital cost and high
volume manufacture, low emissions and an "ultra low tar" gasification. CPC
plans through the U.S. Forest Service and NREL to place BioMax systems at
six sites around the nation to demonstrate how forest residues can provide
high value energy services to rural communities and enterprises.

The company also was awarded a project by the Western Regional Biomass
Energy Program of the U.S. Department of Energy to develop and demonstrate
a hybrid designed as a home power system that can operate on wood pellets,
wood chips or farm residues such as corn.

The Barrows are ready if the approval comes through, saying they plan to
use the unit to run all the lights and direct the thermal portion to heat
the office. They already are using sawdust to produce drying heat for the
shavings they produce.

Walking through the different phases of handling, Glen Barrow, who runs the
operation, said logs arrive at the center and are stored in a yard until
they are ready to be loaded onto a deck by a Bobcat. They move to two
rotating drums with 12 huge knives that shave the logs while an operator
monitors the procedure.

The shavings are conveyed into a bin where a blower moves them through a
chute out of the building roof and into a drying system located outside ? a
cone-shaped cyclone.

"Any time you move something pneumatically, you have to separate the air
that moves it and the product once it reaches its destination," Barrow
explained. The dryer’s blower is fired by the sawdust produced as a
byproduct.

"We co-generate our own fuel," he said. "The dryer ( a drum measuring 8×24
feet) heats to 1,400 degrees. We can dry four tons of product per hour."

From the blower, the shavings are sucked through another chute to a second
cyclone that removes any remaining moist air from the product before
sending the shavings back into the building into a shaker screen. The
screen removes sawdust, which becomes fuel for the blower.

Temporary storage was created outside to ensure the company has enough
product on hand if any problem develops with the equipment. When needed,
the shavings are moved by an auger to a surge bin at the ceiling. From
there, the assembly miracle continues as the bagging machine’s arms prepare
the containers, fills them, compresses 9 cubic feet of product into 3 cubic
feet and then folds and seals the top of the bags, which sport a newly
designed logo.

A door opens, another arm pulls the bag out and onto a conveyor that weighs
and counts it.

"It’s a similar technology to bagging potato chips," Barrow said. The last
step sends the bag down a conveyor onto waiting pallets that will be loaded
onto trucks.

"We got it operational a couple of weeks ago," Barrow said. "We can run it
manually, but it’s all automated."

As much of a challenge was devising a system cutting the logs to the right
length and getting them to the center, he said.

"We have two contractors working with us," Barrow said. "One is doing it as
his main business and the other as a sideline. A number of people are
thinning, but there is no real means of transporting the logs. What we’re
trying to implement came about after doing a lot of research."

Their pallet rack system ? designed with an expert who has a doctorate in
industrial engineering, was reviewed on site a few weeks ago by
representatives of the Bureau of Land Management, the Bureau of Indian
Affairs and the Forest Service, who are interested in finding a place to
process their smaller diameter wood, Barrow said.

"We will rework a pickup truck and take the rack wherever someone is
thinning. We drop them off and they fill them with 100-foot-long logs of
small diameter. The racks are easy to load. Two people can do it or a small
Bobcat. When they’re full, we pick them up. We use a retrofitted forklift.
There are cables on the rocks and we load a whole rack at a time. The slash
can go to Sierra Contracting. We tell them if they have sawmill source,
take it there. We’ll take the lower end ? a four-inch minimum.

"I think we will help the community and us. We’ve probably had 20 to 40
calls from people doing small private projects with wood but with no way to
transport it."

Once in full production, the operation will consume about a dozen cords of
wood a day, he said. They have 80 cords stored now and another 40 in the
forest ready to haul.

"We should be bagging in two weeks," Barrow said. "Some tweaking will be
needed before we start full production. Then there will be a product to
sell. We have a long list of contacts. It will be premium quality, dried
and screened shavings."

After that, the focus will shift to marketing.

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