No timber suppliers bid on contract to feed UM’s biomass boiler
Cost savings and a readily available fuel source prompted theThompson Falls School District five years ago to switch from usingprimarily diesel fuel to woody biomass to heat its classrooms.
The district is just beginning to realize the benefits of thatchange.
For schools in western Montana that have switched to burningbiomass as their primary heat source, the transition hasn’t alwaysbeen easy. Figuring out the best biomass source is part of thedifficulty.
“If I had a brand new school and was building a heating system,I would have to look seriously at whether I would go with a biomasssystem,” said Thompson Falls Superintendent Jerry Pauli.
The University of Montana is proposing to make a similar leap -switching from primarily natural gas to woody biomass, a renewableresource. when the announcement was first made, the timber industrywelcomed the idea, especially in the aftermath of Smurfit-StoneContainer Corp.’s closure in Frenchtown.
Although the plan is still just that, UM recently issued a”Request for Proposal” seeking interest from timber suppliers thatwant the university’s biomass contract.
The August deadline came and went without a single logger ormill responding to UM’s request.
Part of the problem was the quality of fuel UM wants to buy.Timber companies said they couldn’t provide that quality withinUM’s price range of $38-$70 per bone dry ton.
To avoid some of the headaches other school districtsexperienced trying to find the best fuel source for their boiler,UM set its fuel standards high. the university has since broadenedthe scope of acceptable fuels and streamlined the bid process, inhopes that timber suppliers will bid on the project when therequest goes out again in a few weeks.
“I think we set the bar too high,” said Tom Javins, UM’s biomassproject manager. “Our goal was to minimize the risk. There’s aprice associated with risk. we were asking the wood suppliers toassume all that risk. We’ve since taken on some of that risk.”
UM is proposing to use 16,400 tons of ground wood peryear to feed its $16 million biomass boiler, which isslated for construction adjacent to the existing heating plant oncampus. the university predicts the project will reduce its carbonfootprint by 22 percent and save $1 million in natural gasexpenses.
While UM is now open to using pellets, post peelings or woodchips, the university has based the project’s costs on ground wood,often the cheapest source of woody biomass.
Wood chips are made of whole trees and chipped intomatchbox-sized material. Ground wood, often called hog fuel,consists mostly of stumps, roots and bark and is ground usingautomated hammers that tear the wood apart.
“That ended up being a nightmare,” said Jim Efta, administrativeservices director for UM Western in Dillon, which has a biomassgasification boiler.
“Hog fuel doesn’t work,” Pauli said. “The theory that we can gointo the forest and take all the slash and use it no matter whatkind of state it’s in caused too many problems. we always hadmaintenance problems and then we had to resort back to diesel.”
“What worked best was the wood chip,” said Rick Scheele,building supervisor for Darby schools, which use a biomass system.”It’s the least amount of maintenance, as far as keeping the boilerclean and running efficient.”
Hog fuel, said Javins, is a rather “ill-defined term,” and it’sa term open to interpretation.
There’s always the question as to how ground wood will flowthrough the boiler system, Javins said. larger boilers have atendency to be more robust and UM’s will be larger than otherbiomass boilers in western Montana. They can handle hog fuel withmore ease, Javins said. UM also sent a batch of biomass fromColumbia Falls and Darby to the manufacturer’s test boilers inCanada and the results were positive.
Javins compares biomass boilers to a strainer – the tinier onesclog easier, he said. Just in case, UM plans to have a grinder onsite so maintenance crews can reduce oversized wood pieces, whichcould also cut down on the price of biomass per ton.
When Glacier High School solicited bids from the timberindustry for its biomass boiler in 2007, a half-dozencompanies bid on the project.
“That’s more than we anticipated,” said Jason Betterly,facilities supervisor for the Kalispell School District. “We expectto have three times that much response when we go out to do thenext (Request for Proposal).”
Glacier High, located in a more rural area of Kalispell, uses950 tons of wood chips a year. the school went from paying $45 pergreen ton of ground biomass to $57.70 for those chips. the cost ofhauling is included in that price. Only if the price of diesel hitsa certain mark is the district billed extra for the gas used intrucks that haul chips. last year they paid $300 in dieselsurcharges.
Despite that, the energy savings have been immense.
Betterly estimates the school would pay between $120,000 and$160,000 a year in natural gas without the biomass boiler. Instead,last year the district paid $21,000 in natural gas, which includesthe gas used in the kitchen and science labs, and $44,000 forbiomass.
What keeps Kalispell from using biomass at its other schools andsports complexes is the smell of wood burning in more urban areasand the cost and problems associated with retrofitting existingboilers.
Glacier’s boiler was designed to use wood chips, but thedistrict tried ground wood because it’s less expensive.
“(Ground wood) really worked the system over,” Betterly said.”Then we changed to a chip fuel. It was like night and day.”
Kevin Jump of John Jump Trucking supplies Glacier High Schoolwith its biomass, but he questions whether grinding is economicalin western Montana. after Smurfit-Stone closed, Jump moved hislargest grinding operation to Idaho, where he’s secured two largeU.S. Forest Service contracts. Jump maintains a small grindingoperation to supply Glacier High School with biomass, but hequestions whether that makes financial sense.
Jump didn’t bid on UM’s biomass contract for a number ofreasons.
It’s not enough work to keep his crews busy all year. Thequality of fuel that UM asked for was too specific and hard tosupply for the price UM desired. and locating a storage site nearUM was a concern. Plus, the contract is seven years and UM’s boilerisn’t even built, yet.
“That’s a long time to hold out to be ready to do that,” hesaid. “A lot of things can happen in that time.”
Thompson Falls Superintendent Pauli calls the DarbySchool’s biomass boiler the “Cadillac of all Cadillacs.”It can handle hog fuel as long as it contains no more than 20percent byproducts – needles and bark. Throw pellets in? Noproblem. It takes pulp and post peelings, too.
“We pretty much could burn anything,” Darby’s Scheele said. Woodchips, he found, worked best and they were cheaper thanpellets.
Darby burns 1,000 tons of biomass annually and has paid a highprice of $42 a ton.
On the other hand, Thompson Falls, some 160 miles north, paysSt. Regis-based Tricon Timber $62 a ton for biomass. That’s a starkcontrast to the school district’s feasibility study, where thecontractor figured the district would pay $12 a ton forbiomass.
The mill in Thompson Falls doesn’t have the right deliveryequipment to supply the school district.
In fact, the school district went through six different timbersuppliers in three years before finding a wood chip that didn’tcause headaches for the maintenance supervisor. the originalmaintenance man resigned after a couple of years, partly because ofthe time he spent babysitting the district’s new heatingsystem.
Thompson Falls had woody biomass shipped in from Kalispell andDarby, and spent a significant amount of money on unanticipatedmaintenance problems, for which the Vermont-based boilermanufacturer offered no help.
Despite all the troubles early on, though, Thompson Falls hasseen the savings.
Pauli estimates the district saves $70,000 a year in energycosts by using biomass instead of diesel. That savings has beenrealized in the past two years, and the district is finallybreaking even after five years.
In addition, the school doesn’t have to shut off its heat whenstudents leave the building at 4:30 p.m. each day. With the highcost of diesel, Thompson Falls only heated its school during classhours. now, the district can afford to heat the school seven days aweek. From a learning standpoint, that’s a win for the school,Pauli said.
The only thing that makes Pauli nervous going forward is theavailability of fuel. If the Tricon Timber mill in St. Regis wereever to close, Pauli doesn’t know what the district would do.
That’s why he was ecstatic upon learning that UM was looking atswitching to biomass.
“I jumped up and down with glee,” he said. “Now, the need isgreater. If someone can supply them, then we’ll always have asupplier. You always feel more secure with more people.”
The project most similar to UM’s proposal isthe gasification boiler at UM Western in Dillon. Western installedits biomass boiler in 2007. before that, the school relied onnatural gas.
While the school uses 2,500 tons of biomass per year, thatfigure was reduced to 1,000 tons last year because Western couldn’trun its boiler in the evenings. the state labor agency hadrestricted the college’s use of its biomass boiler because therewasn’t a licensed operator manning a part of the heating system atall times. Western has since modified its system to take care ofthe problem, Jim Efta said.
Western pays $42 a ton for post peelings from a Clancy-basedtimber post and furniture company.
Maintenance crews in Dillon have found that wood chips burn moreefficiently than post peelings. While wood chips are moreexpensive, Efta says it’s worth the investment for Western toswitch to a more expensive, better-performing wood chip the nexttime the school bids out the supply contract.
“I personally don’t feel (post peeling) is an optimal fuel,” hesaid.
Looking back, it’s hard to say whether Efta would choose biomassover natural gas again.
“There’s certainly pros and cons with the current price ofnatural gas,” Efta said. “I suspect (biomass) would be harder tojustify.”
UM recently readjusted its natural gas projections based on newinformation released by the Northwest Power and ConservationCouncil, slowing the projected rate of increase in natural gasprices.
UM budgets $6.5 million annually for utilities right now, $2million of which goes to natural gas. Administrators believe theywill save $1 million by switching to woody biomass.
“These projects live and die by fuel costs and quality,” Javinssaid. “If we were using propane or diesel fuel, we’d have a goodsolid project financially. Because of natural gas, it’stighter.”
Reporter Chelsi Moy can be reached at 523-5260 or at chelsi.moy@missoulian.com.
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