Fueling The Fire

By now, most people are all too familiar with "pain at the pump." While they might not be happy about it, most drivers are used to paying more than $3 per gallon fueling cars and trucks just to get around.

However, automobile owners and their wallets aren’t the only victims of high gas prices—the price for natural gas, the kind that is used for power generation and heating, is also on the rise, driving demand for alternatives like wood biomass fuel. With more companies clamoring for this product, the equipment used to make it—horizontal grinders—is also seeing a boost in popularity.

Rising gas prices have had a huge effect on the market for horizontal grinders, according to Mark Lyman, president of West Salem Machinery of Salem, Ore. "A lot of companies can’t afford to pay high natural gas bills, so they burn wood as a heat source," he says. "It’s absolutely had a big effect on the demand for wood fuel and the market for horizontal grinders."

Equipment salespeople have perhaps the clearest view of this market development. "More and more people are supplying wood fuel every day," says Travis Lint, large equipment sales manager for Bandit Industries, Remus, Mich. "We are selling more horizontal grinders and chippers to do this work than we ever have."

Tim Griffing, from grinder manufacturer Continental Biomass Industries (CBI) Inc., Newton, N.H., adds that another market he’s seen growing is the use of ground mixed construction and demolition debris as fuel in cement kilns. "It saves millions of dollars per year in cement fuel," he says.

While high gas prices are driving the demand for wood fuel and biomass fuel products, which has in turn increased the demand for horizontal grinding equipment, operators need to be aware of the flip side of the equation, according to Dan Brandon, marketing manager for Morbark Inc. of Winn, Mich. "Yes, rising gas prices have created more interest in products used to create wood fuel. This is a bit of a Catch-22, however, because the cost of fuel to run a grinder has also increased."

With that in mind, operators can pay special attention to infeed sorting to remove contaminants and help save on wear costs. System setup is also particularly important for operators looking to get involved in the market for wood fuel products.

The wood fuel and biomass markets demand close attention to sorting systems setup, according to Mike Byram, senior director of environmental solutions for Vermeer Manufacturing Co., Pella, Iowa. "Oftentimes, consistency in product size is very important in these types of markets, so having the right machine setup and grinder supplier support is crucial," he says.

Ideally, some sorting and contaminant removal should be done throughout the grinding process. "Reducing contaminants needs to take place on both ends of the grinder," says Lint. It is particularly important to have a way of separating the majority of contaminants prior to the grinding process, he adds. This is typically accomplished by manual sorting stations, where pickers remove large, potentially damaging material like metal by hand.

Large pieces of steel are the No. 1 contaminant to watch out for, says Heather Strahm, sales and marketing coordinator of grinder manufacturer DuraTech Industries, Jamestown, N.D. "Large pieces of steel can wreak havoc on the hammermill," she says. Horizontal grinders offer an additional advantage in removing such contaminants on the infeed, she adds. "On the intake, there is more visibility with the horizontal grinder so contaminants are more easily removed."

On the downstream side, operators can use magnets to pull any remaining metal, according to Byram.

In addition, how an operator chooses to load a grinder can also help reduce contaminants, according to CBI’s Griffing. "Using an excavator helps, rather than a loader, because an excavator pulls the material toward the operator rather than pushing it away where he can’t see it," he says.

In addition to the boost from the wood fuel market, horizontal grinders also continue to enjoy more traditional niches.

Because of their design, horizontal grinders have earned a reputation as a safer and more versatile alternative when compared to tub grinders, which is also pushing their popularity, according to Griffing. "The trend is going toward horizontal because they’re safer," he says.

Material feeds into a horizontal grinder from the side, where a tub grinder is fed from the top, so horizontal models tend to contain material more effectively inside the grinding chamber, adds Lyman. "Tubs are well known for ejecting material," he says. "So in an urban setting, where a C&D facility is located a lot of the time, that’s a huge factor."

The more closed grinding chamber of a horizontal fed machine versus the open grinding chamber of a tub also contributes added safety, according to Morbark’s Brandon.

The long hopper also means an operator can grind without cutting the material, adds Strahm. "The horizontal grinder is more forgiving of construction debris with contaminants found in C&D recycling," she says.

Horizontal grinders also offer a versatile option to operators, according to Lyman. "They have the ability to take different types of waste streams that might be coming into a C&D plant, the sorted C&D wood, the green waste, all those components that need to be processed."

In addition to more traditional feedstock such as wood debris and mixed C&D material, Lint reports that many of Bandit’s machines have been put to use grinding shingles. "This end product is mostly used in hot mix asphalt applications," he says.

With such a variety of markets to serve, manufacturers foresee demand for horizontal grinders remaining strong in the near future.