CAN BEETLE KILL BECOME A BLESSING?
BIOMASS ENERGY MAKES GRAND SENSE
By Cindy Kleh / Graphics Courtesy of Colorado Forest & Energy

SUFFICIENT BIOMASS: Grand County was chosen by CF&E as an ideal location for BioMax100 units because beetle-kill pine is abundant.

WANTED: A community that embraces sustainable clean energy with access to an abundant biomass supply, and has a need for both electric power and thermal energy.

Could any community need to get rid of forest biomass waste more than Grand County? Of the 647,000 acres of forest in this county, 579,000 are affected by the mountain pine beetle – that equals a 90-percent Lodgepole Pine infestation!

Colorado Forest & Energy (CF&E) is a Littleton, CO-based company that finances, installs and operates bioenergy units for schools, municipal buildings, recreation centers, and large commercial buildings. They have set their eyes on Grand County as a location with an overabundant “feedstock” – beetle-kill wood- chips. In cooperation with the US Forest Service and Mountain Parks Electric, Inc. (MPEI), CF&E hopes to bring the BioMax 100 to facilities in Grand County.

The BioMax 100 is a unique biomass power generation unit using a down-draft gasifier. It has been designed and developed by Community Power Corporation of Littleton through $30M in competitive grants over the past 15 years. A BioMax 100 is now installed at Ft. Carson Military Base in Colorado Springs, consuming two and a half tons (a mounded pickup truck-full) of mountain-pine-beetle woodchips per day to generate thermal heat and electric power with a negative carbon footprint!

BIOMASS LOCATIONS: Colorado Forest & Energy hopes to place bioenergy units, called BioMax 100, in three to five locations in Grand County.

No water is needed for the gasification process, and there are no particulates or smoke emitted. The two byproducts are low-energy gasses (hydrogen, carbon and methane) and ash certified as “pristine carbon” that can be used as a soil amendment. BioMax units are fully-automated and can be operated from a web browser or iPhone.

Facilities from Winter Park to Hot Sulphur Springs are being considered for potential deployment of a BioMax unit. CF&E is talking to Ranch Creek Sawmill on Highway 125 as a possible collection center and supplier of woodchips. The Fraser Valley Metropolitan Recreation District has agreed to a preliminary site-engineering assessment at its Grand Park Community Recreation Center. Excess electricity generated at a facility would be sold to Mountain Parks Electric, Inc.; MPEI has been cooperating with CF&E to find sites for the BioMax project and associated electrical and thermal loads.

Phil Kastelic of CF&E emphasizes that this project will not happen overnight. “There are a lot of moving parts – investors, facility agreements, economic realities and feedstock supply agreements – which must be coordinated.”

* This material is based upon work supported by the Department of Energy under Award Number DE-EE0000913.
Disclaimer: This report was prepared as an account of work sponsored by an agency of the United States Government. Neither the United States Government nor any agency thereof, nor any of their employees, makes any warranty, express or implied, or assumes any legal liability or responsibility for the accuracy, completeness, or usefulness of any information, apparatus, product, or process disclosed, or represents that its use would not infringe privately owned right. Reference herein to any specific commercial product, process, or service by trade name, trademark, manufacturer, or otherwise does not necessarily constitute or imply its endorsement, recommendation, or favoring by the United States Government or any agency thereof. The views and opinions of authors expressed herein do not necessarily state or reflect those of the United States Government or any agency thereof.

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