Each year comes with a news report of fire departments responding to a fire reported at a densified biomass production facility. For facilities that process hundreds of thousands of tons of combustible wood fiber annually, deploying the best available fire and explosion abatement technologies is of paramount importance. The topical material covered in this panel has become a mainstay at the International Biomass Conference & Expo and for good reason. The compelling presentations in this panel will catch and hold the attention of producers charged with protecting their people, their plant and their production uptime.

• Geffrey Mitchell, Western Regional Sales Manager, IEP Technologies
  Passive Vs. Active Explosion Protection: Which Is More Appropriate For Your Plant?
• Anders Bergstrom, General Manager, Firefly AB
  Combining Spark Detection Systems And Quick Suppression Systems To Increase Fire Safety In Plants Handling Biomass
• Lindsey Scharg, Fire Rover, LLC
  Fire & Explosion Risk Management Utilizing 24/7 Remote Video Thermal Monitoring & Suppression
• Jason Krbec, Sales Engineering Manager, CV Technology, Inc.
  Advancements in Explosion Venting Technology for Biomass Operations

This panel will examine the two factors most responsible for achieving yield targets at biomass-to-energy operations, efficient fuel feeding and efficient conversion reactions. The first two presentations will offer strategies to improve fuel feeding in biomass boilers while the final two presentations dive into maintenance protocols aimed at maximizing yield within a reactor. The panel’s gaze looks beyond power generation with the inclusion of a fuel handling presentation aimed at biofuel production facilities as well.

• Derek Stuart, Global Product Manager – Power, AMETEK Land
  Thermal Imaging of Fuel Feed Issues in Biomass Boilers
• Jacob Miller, Engineering Manager, Detroit Stoker Company
  Wood Pellet Handling Strategies for Grate Fired Boilers
• Jayant Khambekar, Senior Consultant, Jenike & Johanson, Inc.
  How to Reliably Feed a Biofuel Reactor
• Mitchell Pezzi, President, KEPS SPG
  Effective On-Line Boiler Cleaning with Shock Pulse Generators
• Lawrence Berg, Vice President – Engineering, RJM Corporation (USA), Inc.
  CFD Based Performance Improvement of Fluidised Bed Gasifier Firing Waste Wood

Cookies, Coffee, Tea & Soda

This panel promises presentations that assert that dust hazards at operating densified biomass facilities must be met with a high level of import and urgency. Presenters will make clear that the consequences of inaction can be devastating, if not deadly. This dour tone will be balanced by establishing that producers have a broad assortment of technological and process solutions available to them to keep the specter of catastrophic fire or an explosion at bay.

• Christopher Giusto, Director of Industrial Projects, Hallam-ICS
  How to Make a Business Case for DHAs & Combustible Dust Safety
• Stephen Kasik, Technical Sales, Osprey Corporation
  Capturing Process Air: A Look A Collecting And Managing Combustible Dust
• Dane Floyd, President, Biomass Engineering & Equipment
  The Time Bomb: Dust Safety in Pellet Plants
• Timothy Heneks, Director of Engineering Services, Dustcon Solutions, Inc.
  Finding Your Footing: One Pellet Plant's Journey to Fire & Explosion Safety

Lost in all the societal benefit of biomass-to-energy production is the reality that biomass power producers must conform to the same emissions parameters as their fossil-fuel marketplace counterparts. In fact, in the court of public opinion biomass-to-energy operations are often held to a higher standard because of the clean energy assertions made as part of the industry’s value proposition. This panel will offer technical presentations aimed at not only meeting mandated emissions control metrics, but exceeding them thereby preserving the industry’s clean energy claims.

• Daniel Menniti, Business Development Director, Mississippi Lime Co.
  Advances in Acid Gas Capture with Enhanced Hydrated Lime
• Martin Schroeter, Product Manager, Tri-Mer Corp.
  Advanced Completely Dry Multipollutant Emission Control in The Exhaust of Biomass and Waste Fueled Gasification, Pyrolizing and Boiler Application
• Rui Faria, Project Sales Manager, Advanced Cyclone Systems, S.A.
  The Role of Cyclones in Negative Emissions Processes (Removing CO₂ From The Atmosphere).
• Keith Day, Regional Sales Manager, Nol-Tec Systems
  Dry Sorbent Injection: Controlling HCL, SO2, SO3 in Biomass Boilers

Carnitas Stations w/ Chips & Salsa, Beer, Wine, Soda

Breakfast Burritos, Fruit, Coffee & Tea

The global industrial wood pellet market was built upon a foundation of the carbon benefits of replacing fuels heavy in geologic carbon with fuels comprised of biologic carbon. As the industry has grown and matured, so too has the scrutiny of policymakers, the academic community and global activist watchdog groups. Presenters in this panel will outline where wood pellets stand in the global effort to decarbonize power production, how producers are being asked to prove their carbon benefit and the pressure to more fully articulate where and how their fiber is procured.

• Joseph Kochanski, Director, Sales & Marketing, SCS Global Services
  Incentives, Challenges, Trends, and Requirements of Sustainability Certifications for the Wood Pellet Supply Chain
• Holger Streetz, COO & Board Member, Bathan AG
  New Approaches to Sustainable Raw Material Tracing
• William Strauss, President & Founder, FutureMetrics
  Industrial Wood Pellet Markets: Pellet Fuel Is a Significant Part Of The Strategy To Decarbonize The Power Sector In Many Countries
• Tim Portz, Executive Director, Pellet Fuels Institute
  Sustainable to Whom? Our Industry's Effort to Take the Right Message, to the Right Audience at the Right Time

The bar for combustible dust management is being raised by regulatory agencies and manufacturers of woody biomass energy products have been put on notice. Fortunately, the fundamentals of combustible dust hazards have been codified within the NFPA 652 and can be utilized to guide best practices within biomass handling operations. Presenters in this panel will walk attendees through the process of identifying the dust hazards in their operation and deploying the best available technologies to control and mitigate them.

• Vahid Ebadat, CEO, Stonehouse Process Safety
  Compliance With NFPA 652 And Other Standards On Combustible Dust? How Industry Is Adopting NFPA 652 In Practice
• Bruce McLelland, Business Development Director of Explosion Protection, Fike Corporation
  Regulatory Requirements Lead to Fire and Explosion Risk Abatement
• Jeff Davis, Director of Engineering, Conversion Technology, Inc.
  The DHA and Lessons Learned Since Issuance of NFPA 652

Presenters in this first of two panels dedicated to developing successful biogas operations will work to establish with attendees the hallmarks of the projects that attract investors and get built. The presentations promise discussions that focus on ‘first things first’ items including building a strong project team, establishment of offtake partners, proximity to feedstocks and vital infrastructure and calculating and growing the value of the environmental attributes of the project.

• Douglas Tholo, Client Manager – Sales, Symbiont Science, Engineering and Construction
  Keys to Successful Project Development for EPC Execution of RNG Projects
• Kevin Tangen, Principal, Evergreen Engineering
  Good Contracts Make Good Projects: 10 Things to Consider Before Signing
• Todd Taylor, Attorney & CEO, Avisen Legal
  Beyond Dairy RNG: Food Waste RNG Project Developing and Financing

The highest yielding biomass conversion technology is worthless without an efficient material handling system reliably delivering feedstock to it around the clock, day after day. Moreover, most biomass conversion platforms require feedstock to align with the quality parameters outlined during a project’s design phase. Presenters in this panel will share observations from the field about how to best move biomass at scale, how to identify and isolate out of spec inbound material and keep plant reactors supplied with ready-to-process feedstock.

• Steve Nelson, General Manager/Engineer, Wolf Material Handling Systems
  Solid Bulk Material Handling for Biomass-Based Gasification
• Tony Lubiani, BMH Technology Oy
  Biomass Fuel Preparation for Large Scale Facilities
• Carrie Hartford, Senior Project Engineer, Jenike & Johanson, Inc.
  “Smart” Transfer Chutes with In-Line Acoustic Sensors for Bulk-Solids Handling Solutions
• Troy Semelsberger, Technical Staff Member, Los Alamos National Laboratory
  Acoustic Sensors for "in operando" Moisture Measurement and Wear Monitoring

A combination of key federal policy wins, continued appetite for industrial pellets in global markets and increasing interest in wood pellet barbecuing has fueled a mini-boom of new pellet plant construction. The pellet plants of today are being built with an eye on reduced construction time, built-in safety and increased throughput. This panel of equipment and whole plant providers will offer attendees their vision of what a best-in-class pellet plant design looks like and why their approach makes the most sense for producers serving today’s markets.

• Mike Curci, Director of Sales, PRODESA
  Changing the Paradigm of Pellet Plants by Making Them Economically Viable to Operate as Smaller Plants
• Jason Kessler, President, KESCO, Inc.
  Islands are for Vacations, Not Pellet Plant Designs
• Timo Mueller, Marketing Manager, Salzhausener Maschinenbautechnik SALMATEC GmbH
  Turning Wood By-Products into A Valuable Energy Source

In this panel, the hazardous dust conversations moves beyond the global view offered by a comprehensive dust hazard analysis (DHA) and into options available to address risks in specific plant trouble spots. Two presentations will focus on managing risk inherent in plant conveyance systems and the discussion will conclude with a unique packaging concept aimed at mitigating the risk of self-ignition of finished fuel products.

• Bruce McLelland, Business Development Director of Explosion Protection, Fike Corporation
  Dust Management / Fire & Explosion Risk Abatement It’s the Little Things-Dust
• Magnus Rundqwist, Director Global Bulk Sales, BRUKS SIWERTELL
  Got Dust?! – Material Handling and Dust Mitigation In a Modern Biomass Facility
• Greg Bierie, Technical Specialist, Benetech
  Production Done Safely - Conveyor Technology and Best Practices to Control Combustible Dust and Spillage
• Thomas Nelson, CEO, Torresak, LLC
  Modified Atmosphere Packaging: Preserving Feedstock and Preventing Fires

Building on the base of information established by its sister panel, presenters in this discussion will outline strategies to leverage good project fundamentals to win public and private financing. The biogas sector is enjoying incredible momentum and this discussion will help attendees understand why. The impressive roster of presenters assembled for this discussion bring with them decades of experience in the successful financing of a wide array of bioenergy projects.

• Mark Riedy, Partner, Kilpatrick Townsend & Stockton LLP
  Cutting Edge Funding and Contractual Structures for Successful Biogas/RNG Project Financing
• Andrew Eastman, Senior Counsel, Husch Blackwell, LLP
  Financing a Biogas Project
• Todd Taylor, Attorney & CEO, Avisen Legal
  The Cow Jumped over the Digester: Getting a Dairy RNG Project Financed
• Jason Kuzma, Partner, STROOCK
  Biogas/RNG at Wastewater Treatment Facilities

The promise and flexibility of pyrolysis as a biomass conversion technology has catalyzed the continued investment and development in this unique approach. This panel will feature presentations from four leading companies working to bring this carbon beneficial, multiple-output technology platform into the bioenergy mainstream. Presentations will focus on specific deployment opportunities that allows pyrolysis to flex its ability to generate both gas and solid fuel products out of even the most challenging and pernicious biomass feedstock streams.

• Diego Guevara, Global Product Manager, ARTi - Advanced Renewable Technology International
  Carbon Sequestration with Biochar: A Business Opportunity for Biomass Producers
• Andrew White, CEO, CHAR Technologies
  Pyrolysis, Upgraded Biomass as Coal Replacement, RNG
• Christopher Headrick, Founder & President, H2 Energy Group, Inc.
  Sustainable & Renewable Hydrogen from Biomass
• Thomas Miles, Principal, TR Miles Technical Consulting Inc., Exec. Director, US Biochar Initiative
  New Opportunities for Biochar from Biomass Energy: Overview of Biochar Opportunities

Breakfast Monte Cristo Sandwiches, Fruit, Coffee & Tea

Every day biomass power plants deliver renewable electrons to the grid, a portion of which end up charging the batteries in connected electric vehicles. Ostensibly, the Renewable Fuels Standards rewards renewable transportation fuels with valuable Renewable Identification Numbers (RINs). For now, however, generators of renewable electrons have found no traction nor return within the RFS. This panel will feature an update from association leaders on the effort to clear a path for biomass power and biogas operators to the financial rewards promised within the RFS.

• Carrie Annand, Executive Director, Biomass Power Association
• Patrick Serfass, Executive Director, American Biogas Council

While biogas deployments so far have clustered around traditional host sites like dairies, landfills and wastewater treatment plants, developers are hard at work to bring other waste streams into the mix. The presentations in this panel are unique from current approaches in both feedstock and end use. The panel will feature a discussion about separated MSW as an LCFS qualifying feedstock, a self-contained biogas production and distribution unit for transportation vehicles and even the International Biomass Conference’s first presentation featuring cryptocurrency.

• Ernie Pollitzer, Senior Engineer, First Environment, Inc.
  Separated MSW as Biogas Feedstock
• Patrice Gouin, Business Development Director, Canada and US, PRODEVAL Canada
  Power Your Car from Your Wastes
• Art Nash, Energy Specialist/Associate Professor of Energy, UAF Cooperative Extension Service
  Supercritical Water for BTU Extraction From Liquified Biomass
• Andrew Eastman, Senior Counsel, Husch Blackwell, LLP
  Landfill Gas-to-Electricity... to Cryptocurrency?

The first in a two-panel discussion focusing on sustainable aviation fuels (SAF) will set a foundation outlining the current and anticipated size of the SAF market, the motivations for finding a non-fossil derived alternative and the technology platforms capable of yielding a jet-grade fuel. This panel features presentations based on the conversion of non-food feedstocks including municipal solid waste, ag waste, wastewater sludge and railway ties which presenters will assert increases the overall value of the project and its yielded fuel.

• Dane McSpedon, Board Member, Wilson Bio-Chemical
  Sustainable Aviation Fuel from MSW
• Kevin Hershner, Founder, Tributary, LLC
  How will SAF Markets Meets the Challenges of Decarbonizing Aviation?

The road to a successful groundbreaking, commissioning and start up is littered with failed projects that failed to build a complete understanding of the project’s available and suitable feedstock. This panel will help attendees understand how and why feedstock questions must be answered early in the project development lifecycle. The panel begins with a presentation about the efforts to quantify feedstock risk to help financiers make sound investment strategies and then moves into discussions that highlight how available feedstocks can drive technology choices and final product quality.

• Jordan Solomon, CEO, Ecostrat, Inc.
  The BDO Zone Initiative: Accelerating and de-risking biobased investment and infrastructure development in communities across North America
• Eberhard Lucke, CEO, Lucke Consulting Technical Services, LLC
  Feedstock Characterization as Starting Point for Process Selection
• Neal Yancey, Engineer, Idaho National Laboratory
  Developing Blended Feedstocks to Improve Performance
• Edward Wolfrum, Principal Investigator, Feedstock Conversion Interface Consortium, National Renewable Energy Laboratory
  The Feedstock Conversion Interface Consortium - Understanding and Mitigating the Impacts of Feedstock Variability in Bioconversion Processes

Biocoal proponents have long held that their fuel is a true replacement for fossil coal, needing little to no changes to existing power station boilers or fuel transportation and storage infrastructure. The fuel’s BTUs and hydrophobic nature are music to the ears of power station operators looking for a low-carbon fuel that can simply drop-in to their current operation. This panel will bring attendees up to speed on where biocoal is in its development lifecycle and what questions need to be answered before it gets its chance to shine.

• Roland Verhe, Scientific Manager, RenaSci
  Production Of Bio-Ethanol And Biocoal From The Organic Fraction Of Municipal Solid Waste And Refuse Derived Fuel
• Suzanne Allaire, CEO, GECA Environnement
  The Industrial Race to Supply Biocoal

Presenters in this panel will assert that wood chips, which require fewer energy inputs to produce and move, offer greater carbon benefit and more utility than wood pellets. The applications shared in the panel range from very small deployments like space heating in remote Alaska up to base-load power generation. Two presenters will examine the benefit of phyto-sanitation as a means of producing a stable and predictable biomass product ready for exportation for both energy and non-energy uses.

• Mark Froling, President, Froling Energy
  Screened Dry Wood Chips--the Middle Biomass Fuel
• Art Nash, Energy Specialist/Associate Professor of Energy, UAF Cooperative Extension Service
  Biomass Heating for Classrooms and Greenhouses
• Thomas Cunilio, CEO, Center of Sustainable Agroforestry
  Why Consider Dedicated Energ Crops for Co-Firing with Wood Chips

According to data maintained by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency the United States has nearly 500 landfills producing biogas for energy use. The agency estimates there are another nearly 500 landfills that are quality candidates for biogas capture and use. This panel features a blend of presentations that range from strategies to increase biogas yield to unique energy conversion approaches including organic rankine cycle and conversion to hydrogen.

• Will Charlton, President, Digester Doc
  Case Study: Anaerobic Digester Startup to Full Production in Six Weeks
• Joseph Curro, Principal Engineer, CDM Smith
  Citrus Processing Plant Gets Juiced on Landfill Gas
• Mark Bertane, Principal Executive, Blackhawk Technology Company
  Zero-Emission Solar/AC Piston Pumping Boosts RNG in Landfills and WTE
• Jessie Howell, Sales Manager North America, ElectraTherm
  Landfill Gas Utilization through Organic Rankine Cycle

This second in a two-panel discussion will dig further into how the aviation market continues to generate interest throughout the broader bioenergy industry. The opportunity for technology and project developers is enormous. While replacing the fossil-based version of a transportation fuel with an annual demand approaching 100 billion gallons is an enormous challenge, the potential returns are also enormous. Attendees looking to sharpen their understanding of the state-of-play in the race for economically viable sustainable aviation fuel production will appreciate this exhaustive two-panel review.

• Mark Yancey, Chief Technical Officer, D3MAX, LLC
  Production of Sustainable Aviation Fuels from Corn Stover via NREL’s Deacetylation and Mechanical Refining Technology
• John Pierce, Partner, STROOCK
  Sustainable Aviation Fuel
• David Skibinski, President & CEO, FiberX
  Corn Stover, Lignin-Based Resin

• Han-Sup Han, Professor, Northern Arizona University
  Forest Biomass Collection, Processing, and Transportation
• Nathaniel Anderson, Research Forester, US Forest Service
  Economic Analysis of Small and Medium-Scale Conversion Systems In The Forest Sector
• Lawrence Sullivan, Biomass Practice Manager, Forest2Market
  Renewable Forest Raw Materials as Feedstocks

• Melissa Leung, Business Development, GECA Environnement
  Leveraging The Carbon Market for Ethanol, Biogas & Other Types of Productions
• James DeSellem, Advisory Engineer, Technology Group, Babcock & Wilcox
  Carbon Neutral to Carbon Negative with Biomass? Yes, And Easier Than You Might Think
• Vijay Rengaraju, Global Market Segment Leader for Renewable Energy, ABB Inc.
  Capex Optimization and Low Carbon Profitability
• Scott Tolbert, Senior Engineer, Conservation Systems Team Lead, Energy & Environmental Research Center, University of North Dakota
  Biomass Cofiring with Precombustion Carbon Capture Baseline Testing at UND EERC

By folding renewable natural gas volume into their total gas portfolio, utilities can access the carbon intensity reductions they are increasingly required to demonstrate without having to invest in parallel distribution infrastructure. This panel will begin with a presentation from a gas utility explaining how decarbonization has increased their appetite for RNG and then move into technical presentations including the further reduction of carbon intensity in produced RNG and methods for determining gas quality.

• Greg Morse, Director of Policy and Planning, Vermont Gas Systems, Inc.
  Gas Utilities Embracing RNG and Decarbonization
• Scott Coye-Huhn, Program Manager, Low Carbon Fuels, SCS Global Services
  How to Focus your Resources for Low Carbon Fuel Markets: Lessons Learned from the First Year of Third Party LCFS Verification
• David Elam, Vice President and Project Director, TRC Environmental Corp.
  Demonstrating Renewable Natural Gas (RNG) Quality to Ensure Pipeline Injection
• Brad Pleima, President, EcoEngineers
  Carbon Intensity Reduction Strategies for RNG

This panel celebrates and highlights the wide variety of conversion approaches under development to bring value to biomass streams of every variety. The panel will feature a torrefaction project aimed at reducing fuel loading in the Pacific Northwest, a gasification project in the Netherlands converting household waste, advanced yeasts that can simultaneously create food and fuel products and a promising pretreatment approach that yields greater volumes of convertible sugars.

• Peter Flippo, Business Development Manager, Bioprocess Pilot Facility
  Valorization Of Residual Biomass Streams
• Gerhard Eickermann, Chief Commercial Officer, GIDARA Energy
  Gasification, a Proven Path Towards Advanced Biofuels
• Geoffrey Bell, CEO, Microbiogen Pty Ltd.
  Maximising Biomass Value and Sustainability through the Latest Biotechnology Solutions

Pastries, Coffee, Tea, Soda

The U.S. Department of Energy most recently published its third installment of the Billion-Ton report in 2016. The report highlights how vast and varied biomass resources are in this country. For now, however, just a small handful of biomass varieties enjoy widespread commercial use. This panel features presentations that highlight the promise of biomass sources like peanut hulls, ag-residues, energy crops and industrial hemp and the work that remains to bring them into commercial scale deployments.

• Brock Harrington, Biofuel Sales Manager – North America, ANDRITZ Feed and Biofuel
  Agri-Residues and Energy Crops Pelleting
• Robert White, Representative, Warren & Baerg Manufacturing, Inc.
  Densifying Non-Woody Biomass Feedstocks
• Holger Streetz, COO & Board Member, Bathan AG
  Peanuts – An Alternative Renewable Material Source

• Doug Jones, Senior Project Engineer, New York Blower Company
  Specification Of Fans and Blowers - Penny Wise And Pound Foolish
• Burkhard Barton, Business Development Manager, KSB SE & Co. KGaA
  Efficiency Increase of Boiler Feed Pumps in Power Plants
• Ravi Jethra, Global Industry Manager – Power, WIKA Instrument, LP
  Field Instrument Surveys in Energy from Waste Plants

• Ron Pagel, Sr. Project Manager, Pond & Company
• Miles Walker, Principal, Argo Development Partners
• Kamal Daghistani, Senior Associate, Spring Lane Capital