Heating Homes With Biobased Pellets

by Dan Emerson

There was great excitement when Robert Walker and his wife, JoAnn moved into their new home, but when they got a whopping heating bill several months later, it got Walker thinking. An experienced inventor and entrepreneur, Walker had founded one of Minnesota’s most successful companies – air-bed maker Select Comfort Corp. Now he decided to use his skills to find an efficient way to heat homes.

A rural North Dakota native familiar with corn-burning stoves used to heat farmhouses, Bob saw biomass as the alternative energy source with the greatest potential for reducing energy costs. Marion Mast had spent about 18 years working on the concept in Bixby, Minnesota. Mast was using a prototype to heat a 6000-square foot building when he approached Walker with his ideas. In 2001, they founded Bixby Energy Systems.

Corn-burning furnaces aren’t new, but Bixby’s proprietary technology makes them more efficient. Bixby’s “MaxYield” system incorporates high levels of oxygen, for 99.7% combustion efficiency, compared to 48-52% for earlier generation stoves. The stove maintains a temperature in the 400-450 degree range for maximum efficiency and performance.

By spring, he plans to move to a new 75,000 square foot factory and office facility that will produce up to 100 units a day. Raising capital from private sources to finance his vision hasn’t been difficult, he says. “When people see what we’re doing, they get it and believe it.”

Walker says the Bixby plant already has orders for 6000 biomass home furnaces, from about 120 wood-stove and fireplace dealers around the country. Customer surveys of buyers of the $2,999 stove indicate about 30% consider themselves “early adopters” of new technology, and another 30% are farmers or neighbors of farmers.

Walker says one reason biomass hasn’t been exploited more efficiently is that research has been conducted “from the wrong end of the bottle” – much of it done by local and regional agricultural -related organizations searching for a way to dispose of waste, rather than focusing on biomass as a cost-effective, nationwide source of heating fuel.

The firm has also developed a more efficient biomass fuel source: pellets covered with an all-natural, beeswax-based coating, which can be made from a wide range of agricultural waste products. In addition to corn cobs and other Midwestern agricultural waste, the pellets can be made from a wide variety of discarded plant matter from around the country: grape waste from California, almond shells, cotton gin and tobacco waste from the southern states … and more.

The coating eliminates two problems involved in transporting and storing biomass; it prevents moisture and infestation by insects and rodents. This spring Walker plans to open a pelletizing plant in southern Minnesota.

This plant matter waste represents a huge opportunity for reducing dependence on oil, Walker contends, noting that the U.S. has been called “the Saudi Arabia of biomass.” “By using “super pellets” made from ag products, there’s a double benefit. The money for our energy isn’t leaving the country, plus we’re using up a low-value product that is really a valuable, renewable resource. It could also create 40,000 jobs in rural America.

Early on, Walker realized that previous attempts to promote alternative energy solutions lacked efficient, large-scale delivery systems. To address that piece of the puzzle, Walker acquired Stepsaver, Inc., a Minnestoa-based firm which delivers water-softener salt pellets to homes in a number of Midwestern and Western states.

Piggybacking on Stepsaver’s existing delivery infrastructure, and partnering with other firms that deliver propane and fuel oil to homes in rural areas will be an efficient way to both deliver the heating pellets and remove the ash left behind. Stepsaver’s trucks are equipped with 220-foot long hoses used to deliver product, which can also be used to remove ash.

Another indicator of the market for biomass stoves: the world’s largest cornstove manufacturer, Hutchinson, Minnesota-based American Energy Systems, recently announced it is tripling production capacity and launching distibution in Europe. According to industry date, in 2001, sales of corn-burning appliances were up 500%. In 2002, 35 manufacturers introduced their own versions.

Later this year, Walker plans to begin production of a home central heating system. Using biomass to heat homes is only the first step in Bixby’s business plan: in three or four years he hopes to develop small, home-based biomass plants that will also generate electricity and, eventually, large, centralized, generating plants. By fall of 2004, he plans to have a residential central heating system on the market. “We can build just about any size furnace; it’s a highly scalable technology that can also run on propane or natural gas.

“Building a home furnace to prove the efficacy of the concept was one of the most difficult things to accomplish,” Walker explains. “When you build a stove for a home it has to be much quieter than an industrial furnace system; it must generate a lot of heat in a compact unit and have an attractive design.”

Alan Doering, a technical services specialist with Minnosota Agricultural Utilization Research Institute, helped Walker’s firm characterize various agricultural biomass sources in regard to their BTU value, sulfur content, moisture, density and quantity of ash produced. Multiple combinations of ag co-products were pelleted and tested to identify optimal combinations with desired characteristics. Doering thinks Walker is on the right track, citing his ability to deliver a consistent quality fuel product, and his emphasis on making biomass energy user-friendly.

“In a time when fossil fuel use continues to grow and there is continued demand for electricity, biomass is going to become the practical and affordable solution in the next 5-15 years,” he predicts. “Bixby Energy should be one of the leading companies to accomplish that.”

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FROM Biocycle, a SustainableBusiness.com Content Partner.