Bio-Coal Manufacturer im Maine - Article

[peakbagger]

The facility is being installed at the old Great Northern Paper facilities in Milinocket Maine. Considering that the prior owner was days from starting to tear the place down, its nice to see that the new owner is running the papermill in East Millincoket and building the biocoal facility in Millinocket. I expect that at some point this will shift dwon to replace wood pellets as the higher btu content and no need for keeping them dry will equal lower shipping costs and less storage space.

http://biomassmagazine.com/articles...lant-will-house-novel-torrefaction-technology

Cate Street is currently building a 250 million dollar biomass power plant in Berlin NH.

 

[flyingcow]

We're curious how this goes. They're not doing anything with the old mill( in Millinoket) as of right now. The mill in East Millinoket is up and running again. That wood to wood coal thing is a new idea. Not sure if it will be a profitable deal. Hopefully.

 

[spirilis]

The coolest part of that IMO is the way they're heating the wood. Using microwaves! Fascinating way to internally dry the biomass...

 

[peakbagger]

The Millinocket papermahcine doesnt make financial sense to run unless they have natural gas on site. They allegedly were looking at bringing in LNG but given that Verso, and New Page has warehouses of coated paper stored away in Southern Maine, I expect they will wait until the gas line goes in. It will touhg no matter what as they need to purchase kraft fiber on the open market to feed the papermachine while theri competitors priduce it themselves. No matter it beats, ripping evenry thing down and scrapping it.

There was an article in the Bangor Daily News that the owner had done timber studies that indicated that there is a large volume of wood that is going to open up soon as all the areas replanted after the budwood epidemic of the seventies is going to need to be trimmed. If it isnt trimmed, the quality and quantity of high grade timber is substantially reduced over the long run.

 

[flyingcow]

The east millinoket mill is producing paper out of softwood trees right now. Always have in the past, but they were also using recycled newsprint then. Not sure if they will fire up the de-inking plant again or not. They are trying to get back into the accountants they lost while the mill was shut down. Lost a lot of customers in that time frame. The budworm problem was a few decades ago, not a big factor anymore.

On the bio-coal thing- IF that starts, which i think will be a few yrs down the road, it will be done at the "Old Millinoket" mill. It's more just a sight to do this at than anything. The natural gas pipeline is just talk at this point. There is another mill, looking into this, which would help on useage, to make the pipeline a viable option to install. Could truck/rail it in, but for long term, they will need to see the pipeline be approved.

I was told that Cate Street bought the patent or rights to the process of turning wood into bio-coal. Lets hope it works. But for now, we hope the East Millinoket mill gets back to running at capacity.