The biomass industry has spawned plenty of studies, proposals and papers on intensive biomass farming, but Greenwood Resources (GWR) is one of the very few that’s currently commercially operating and proving the feasibility of intensive feedstock production through a tree farming model that delivers the exact quantity and quality—at the right time.

In recent years declining paper demand combined with the recession has led to significant consolidation and downsizing of several clean chip markets supplied by Seaway Timber Harvesting (STH) in upstate New York. The company’s largest and closest market just across the Canadian border closed in 2005 and in the last couple of years, a board plant in Ontario and two more large paper mills in Quebec also closed.

The Biomass Processing/Handling Review 2011 includes Duratech, Morbark, Komatsu, Peterson, and Bandit.

Loggers from across the Pacific Northwest and beyond made the trip here for the 73rd Oregon Logging Conference (OLC) at the Lane County Fairgrounds and Convention Center February 24-26. The event included plenty of opportunities to network with other loggers, attend educational seminars, learn about the economic forces swirling around the Northwest logging industry, and view the latest advances and newest models in logging machinery.

In 2004 Hurricane Ivan blasted southwest Alabama, among other destruction leaving behind millions of dollars in downed/damaged timber. That was also the year Jimmy Pritchett, owner of Pritchett Logging LLC, became a contractor for the Westervelt Company, a major landowner in parts of Alabama and Mississippi. It was the budding of a relationship that has enabled the 39-year-old logger to go against the grain by expanding during challenging times.

Response to Timber Harvesting’s 2011 Logging Business Survey, sent to our logger subscribers in an e-mail blast on February 9, has been tremendous. By the middle of March 516 of you had participated. Thank you so much.

Oglethorpe Power is putting its plans to construct three 100 MW biomass power plants on hold indefinitely due to federal regulatory uncertainty. In 2008, Oglethorpe Power announced plans to build up to three biomass plants in Georgia, and was studying the best potential sites.

At CONEXPO-CON/AGG in Las Vegas on March 22, Komatsu America Corp. revealed two significant developments: the rebranding of its Valmet products and the introduction of new track-type forest machines.

As many of you are aware, several states across the country have been trying to balance their budgets. The entire country saw what was going on in Wisconsin. Gov. Scott Walker and the State Legislature were trying to deal with a $3.6 billion deficit.