KANE — The April 11 Roach-Bauer Forestry Forum will feature discussion on innovations in using low-grade wood materials and an update from the Pennsylvania Hardwoods Development Council (HDC).
Jonathan Geyer of the Pennsylvania HDC, Royce Novosel-Johnson, AJ McGarity and Lindsey Novosel of Woodside Oils and Luca Pandolfi of Woodland Biomass Innovations will be featured speakers.
Geyer is the executive director of the Pennsylvania HDC, and will discuss “How Innovations in Wood Utilization Fuel Sustainable Forest Management.” He will set the stage about changes occurring in Pennsylvania’s forests, the need for viable ongoing markets to promote best practices in wood harvest and how specific grant programs support market development.
Woodside Oils’ Novosel-Johnson, McGarity and Novosel will follow that presentation.
Woodside Oils opened in April 2023 in Kane and is the world’s first commercial mass producer of pure, all-natural birch oil made from the bark of black birch available on the Allegheny Plateau. Woodside Oils is owned and operated by doTERRA, the largest essential oil company in the world, based in Utah.
Pandolfi is the founder of Woodland Biomass Innovations, a business that will produce sustainable transportation fuel from low-grade woody materials. WBI has developed a process to convert woody biomass into “drop-in” gasoline, and they are currently navigating the channels required to bring this concept to fruition.
The biomass-to-fuel process will produce gasoline identical to existing fossil fuel sources, meaning that the gasoline will work with current vehicles and infrastructure, hence a “drop-in” product.
Pandolfi will discuss WBI’s concept, and the market/forest management needs that their process can help to address.
The forum will be at the Wilcox Community Building (also called the Jones Township Community Center) at 320 Faries St., Wilcox.
Preceding the talk will be a no-host social hour from 5:30 to 6:30 p.m., and dinner at 6:30 p.m. The program will start immediately after dinner. Reservations are required. No reservations will be accepted after April 6.
For reservations, contact the Allegheny Hardwood Utilization Group, P.O. Box 133, Kane, Pa., 16735, at (814) 837-8550 or email bcarson@ahug.com.
