Anchorage Daily News

HOUSTON -- Wood-chip exporter NPI of Port MacKenzie is considering expanding into the wood pellet industry.

NPI logistics manager Chad Schumacher last week said company plans are in the formative stages but Houston and Fairbanks are potential sites for manufacturing plants.

"It would be a real opportunity for the city to get an industry in here that is green and environmentally friendly," said Houston City Councilman Roger Purcell.

Schumacher briefed city councilors Thursday but said a pellet plant in the Matanuska-Susitna Borough would need a reliable supply of wood.

The company is at odds with the borough over a 3-year-old ban on timbering borough property. NPI filed suit in 2007 in Palmer Superior Court claiming that the borough timber ban jeopardized the NPI operation at Port MacKenzie. The company partnered with the borough and paid $3 million to expedite construction of a deep-water dock and built an $8 million conveyor system for loading wood chips.

The company shut down its wood chipping operation at the Mat-Su port and last shipped a load of wood chips from there in July.

Meanwhile, Schumacher said that stored wood waste at a Fairbanks sawmill could provide enough material to make pellets for at least three years. A plant could be built there in six to eight months, he said. But the company must first buy land and establish a market for the pellets.

In Fairbanks, a city surrounded by mountains that block winds and promote smog from its many coal- and wood-burning stoves, some see pellets as a way to clear the air.

"That's what our big push is, to reduce emissions," said Cassie Pinkel, a project manager at the Fairbanks Economic Development Council.

The U.S. Department of Energy Consumer's Guide to Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy calls pellet stoves the cleanest solid fuel-burning appliances available for home heating.

A federal Environmental Protection Agency chart puts pellet stove emissions at a fraction of what comes out of fireplaces, wood stoves and even EPA-certified wood stoves outfitted with emission-reducing catalytic combustors.

Schumacher said NPI is interested in pellets because the waste from wood chipping, such as tree limbs, branches and sawdust can be turned into a product instead of being spread across the harvested area as compost.

The pellets look a little like rabbit feed and can be made from almost any type of untreated wood. To make the pellets, wood is ground and pressed into pellet shape, then heated in a kiln until it contains less than 10 percent moisture. Schumacher said the low moisture content holds the pellets together and creates a cleaner-burning fuel with less ash.

After cooling, the pellets are sorted and bagged or poured into silos for bulk storage.

Schumacher said NPI hopes to sell bagged pellets for $275 a ton, although the price would depend on the cost and availability of a wood source. Lowe's in Wasilla currently sells the pellets for $8.49 for a 40-pound bag or about $390 a ton.

Schumacher said NPI would like to produce 30,000 tons of pellets each year in Houston. The company would need about 2,000 harvestable acres of forest to meet that goal. A plant there would provide about 20 jobs, he said.

Houston is ideal because it's close to timber sales and also to the Alaska Railroad and the Parks Highway, which cuts transportation costs, he said. But there's a long road ahead, beginning with a study of whether a project there makes sense.

"This is definitely right at the ground level right now," Schumacher said Monday.

Find Daily News reporter Rindi White online at adn.com/contact/rwhite or call her in Wasilla at 907-352-6709.

ADVERTISEMENT