The future of the region may be in what is currently thrown
away.

On Monday, the state Department of Environmental Protection and
Pennsylvania Energy Development Authority announced a ,1 million
grant for American Refining and Biochemical Inc., to construct a
new biomass facility.

“They are going to take all types of biomass and almost turn
them into charcoal and this makes a dense charcoal-like product,”
explained Charlie Young, spokesman for the DEP. “It will be one of
the first operating commercially in the country.”

Harvey Golubock, president and chief operating officer of
American Refining Group, explained American Refining and
Biochemical is an affiliated company of ARG. “It’s 100-percent
owned by Harry Halloran,” he said, referring to the chairman and
chief executive officer of ARG.

“ARB has been funding a project to study torrefaction,” Golubock
explained, “which is a technology for converting biomass to a
usable energy form that could be used in conjunction with coal or
could be used to replace wood pellets. It’s a technology that’s not
been commercialized almost anywhere. There are a number of
companies working on it here and abroad.”

He explained the company has engaged a consulting firm,
Bioenergy Consulting. The principals of the firm are former county
commissioner Tom Causer and his wife, former county administrator
Michele Alfieri-Causer, who are investigating the torrefaction
process and technology.

“Some time ago they submitted a grant application for the
construction of a facility in McKean County,” Golubock explained.
“There’s still a lot of work that needs to be done before a
commercial plant is built.”

He didn’t have a timeline for the project at this point, saying
it is still in the early stages. So what is the next step?

“We’re meeting later this week to assess that,” he said. “One of
the issues will be raising the additional capital necessary. The
plant costs ten-to-twelve million dollars. This is not a
particularly favorable market for raising capital.

“We’re still developing the timeline. Without the grant there
wasn’t a whole lot we could do,” he said. “Now we’ll see what we
can do with the grant and see how far we can get with the project.
It’s exciting and we’re very pleased.”

Golubock explained that Halloran has been supporting research in
alternative energies, such as biomass and wind technology. And this
region is conducive to development of such a facility, he
added.

“Biomass can be obtained from forest waste. This could lead to
developing crops that are a renewable source for biomass,” he
said.

“We would like to use the facilities at the Energy Institute at
the University of Pittsburgh at Bradford for testing and some other
application projects. This could very well be a major project for
the Energy Institute.

“Torrefaction by its nature … the idea is to build plants
relatively near the source of the supply, so you are not
transporting long distances,” Golubock said.

Further out in the future, there is a possibility of multiple
biomass plants in the area, he added.

“Each plant doesn’t employ a large number of people,” he said,
estimating there would be about 25 to 30 employees in the original
plant.

The facilities can have some benefits to the environment as
well, including a decrease in air pollution from the burning of the
biomasses instead of other fuels.

“We use resources otherwise laying fallow,” Golubock said. “We
use farmland lying fallow for viable land. (The biomass) can be
grown on soils not necessarily good for growing food crops.

“This has a lot of pluses,” he said. “Biomasses are far better
than burning wood.”

Golubock said there are several locations around the county
being considered for placement of the facility.

The plant would process up to 180,000 tons of biomass per year
into more than 60,000 tons of a coal-like product. According to the
DEP, production of 65,000 tons of product would have a fuel value
of 1.3 million Btu. Use of the product would avoid air pollution
from traditional power plants, including 241,000 tons of carbon
dioxide, 337 tons of nitrogen oxide and 1,600 tons of sulfur
oxide.