Part of the price of anything, from food to fiber to bioproduct or fuel, is the cost of transporting that product. West Virginia University joined an effort to cut delivery costs of bioenergy feedstocks.

Faculty from WVU’s Davis College of Agriculture, Natural Resources and Design will partner with the SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry on a $3 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy.

“It is the most prestigious woody biomass advanced logistics project ever funded by the Department of Energy,” said Jingxin Wang, professor of wood science and technology in the Davis College. “This is a great opportunity for us to work with SUNY, the Idaho National Lab, and industry partners in this field.”

Wang’s colleague, Jamie Schuler, assistant professor of silviculture, is also on the WVU team.

The grant will be used to lower the delivered cost of short-rotation woody crops; rapidly, accurately, and reliably assess feedstock quality; and improve harvest and preprocessing operations to produce feedstocks that meet key biorefinery partner specifications.

SUNY and WVU will work with partners including Case New Holland Industrial, GreenWood Resources, Applied Biorefinery Sciences, the Idaho National Lab and others to complete the project.

Timothy Volk, a research scientist who leads the willow project for SUNY, said the ultimate goal is to make renewable biomass feedstocks more affordable.

“The principal objective of this project is to lower the delivered cost of short-rotation woody crops feedstock by optimizing and demonstrating a commercial-scale supply system,” he said.

Getting wood chips into the hands of businesses that produce biofuels, bioproducts and bioenergy is a complex process, Volk said. This project will focus on improving existing harvesting technologies and handling, storage and transportation infrastructures. The project will also monitor the quality of the biomass material in the process and come up with recommendations to maintain high quality in the material all along the supply chain. Also, the project will include the evaluation of preconversion techniques and blended feedstocks to meet biorefinery partners’ target quality parameters and demand for year-round supply.

-WVU-

dw/04/07/15

CONTACT: David Welsh, Davis College of Agriculture, Natural Resources, and Design
304.293.2394, David.Welsh@mail.wvu.edu

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