Program Tracks

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General Session   Pellets & Densified Biomass  Biomass Power & Thermal    Biogas & Landfill Gas   
Advanced Biofuels & Biobased Chemicals    Bonus Panels   

General Session

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Exploring the Position and Trajectory of On-Site Energy
On-Site Energy Management joins leading distributed energy developers, designers and OEMs on one of the biggest stages in clean energy to discuss the changing landscape of regional, national and global on-site energy markets, from CHP and trigeneration to industrials, microgrids and critical facilities. The magazine’s editor will lead a discussion on the state and direction of on-site generation writ large, breaking down key areas of market growth, outlining core market drivers, new technology, financing solutions and more. Panelists will provide broad insight on the state of the marketplace through the lens of their respective offerings and verticals.

Moderator: Tom Bryan, Editor in Chief, On-Site Energy Management

Track 1: Pellets & Densified Biomass

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The Critical Importance of Building Biomass Supply Chains that Yield Consistent, High-Quality Feedstocks
Feedstock quality impacts every stakeholder along the woody biomass production and use supply chain. The quality of the delivered energy depends greatly upon the quality of the biomass the moment it is harvested and the degree to which that quality is preserved throughout the product’s life cycle. This discussion will begin with an argument for clearly defined and well understood standards, move into a practical discussion of how feedstock quality is measured and tracked in the field, and finish by looking at how these emerging demands for quality feedstock are impacting other users of the material.

Moderator: Katie Fletcher, Associate Editor, Pellet Mill Magazine Investigating the Impact of a Growing Wood Pellet Industry on Forest and Carbon Inventories
The societal benefit of replacing coal-generated power with biomass-generated power is that it drives carbon dioxide out of the production-and-use lifecycle, all without creating a demand that the forest inventories can’t sustain. Industry advocates point to study after study that clearly articulate the point, and yet the calls for greater certainty continue. This panel will allow attendees an opportunity to learn what the most current studies say, how the arguments are being made and how they are being received by the policymakers they were intended for.

Moderator: Katie Fletcher, Associate Editor, Pellet Mill Magazine Surveying the Promise of Bio-coal as a Drop-In Replacement for Baseload Power Assets
The differences between coal and biomass are significant enough that in order to drop biomass feedstocks into existing coal-fired equipment, modifications must be made to the plant. This capital intensive proposition has bottlenecked the deployment of large-scale, coal-to-biomass conversions. This panel features the work being done to change the biomass material, not the facility using it. The promise of bio-coal is generating significant interest particularly in the context of the Clean Power Plan and compliance plans for states long in coal-fired generation.

Moderator: Katie Fletcher, Associate Editor, Pellet Mill Magazine Technologies Available to Control Emissions as Biomass Power and Pellet Production Facilities
Both biomass power and pellet producers must pay critical attention to their stack emissions if they hope to comply with regulated limits. As the understanding of the sources of the pollutants continues to evolve, so too do the technologies available to control them. This panel will feature the technologies currently available to producers to achieve compliance and strategies for their seamless and cost effective deployment.

Moderator: Katie Fletcher, Associate Editor, Pellet Mill Magazine The Growing Role that Briquetting Technologies are Playing in Biomass Densification
While on the increase, installed wood heating appliances that can use wood pellets are greatly outnumbered by wood heating appliances that cannot. Increasingly, producers looking to market densified products to the entire wood heating marketplace are adding briquette manufacturing to their production environment. The utility of briquetting does not end there, and multiple presentations will make clear that there are industrial applications for briquettes worth pursuing as well.

Moderator: Katie Fletcher, Associate Editor, Pellet Mill Magazine Upgraded Biomass: How Torrefaction and Biochar Production can add Real Value to a Multitude of Biomass Streams
This panel will offer attendees an opportunity to look closely at biomass upgrading approaches like torrefaction and hydrothermal carbonization from a number of different vantage points. With discussions ranging from the economics of monetizing biochar field applications to the unique safety challenges producers engaged in torrefaction face, attendees will get a broad view of these promising but challenging conversion platforms.

Moderator: Katie Fletcher, Associate Editor, Pellet Mill Magazine

Track 2: Biomass Power & Thermal

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Clean Power Plan: Gauging the Potential for Biomass within Obama’s Final Environmental Effort
In September, each state will have to provide the Environmental Protection Agency with their plan to achieve the carbon dioxide goal set out for them in the Clean Power Plan, or an initial plan along with the request for an extension. The role that biomass will play in each state is already being considered. Presenters in this panel are well versed in the efforts to build an effective on-ramp for biomass into the Clean Power Plan and the work left to do before the industry can call the CPP a regulatory victory likely to yield greater opportunities.

Moderator: Anna Simet, Managing Editor, Biomass Magazine Deploying Combined Heat and Power Biomass Technologies to Deliver Maximum Economic and Environmental Benefit
Deriving two energy products off of one system offers tremendous advantage and operational efficiency. That said, situations where the demand for both produced heat and power are in sync are rare. This panel features case studies where combined heat and power systems, appropriately sized, offer incredible environmental, social and economic benefit. Each case study will help attendees better understand the conditions where combined heat and power systems can flourish.

Moderator: Tom Abbott, Farm Manager, USDA-ARS Sugarcane Field Station Boilers 1: Technological Approaches for Handling the Challenges Inherent in Biomass Feedstock Streams
The prevalence of earth metals like potassium in biomass feedstock streams makes their use in biomass power applications more difficult and in some situations makes their use altogether not feasible. These earth metals lead to operational challenges like slagging, fouling and corrosion. Understanding the practical approaches to mitigate these negative effects is critical to unlock the energy potential in more biomass streams. This panel will offer attendees a thorough overview of the data gathered in an ongoing study of this problem and review some technologies engineered to better manage these challenges.

Moderator: Anna Simet, Managing Editor, Biomass Magazine Boilers 2: Operational Approaches Available to Biomass Power Producers to Maximize their Boiler's Output
The second panel in a two-part series built specifically for boiler operators features practical advice for managing the challenges inherent in biomass feedstocks and the markets biomass power operators compete in. The panel begins with a discussion on the use of additives to greatly reduce slagging and concludes with a look at a practical technological approach to measure not only inbound biomass streams but combustion air as well.

Moderator: Anna Simet, Managing Editor, Biomass Magazine The Near Term Opportunity for Biomass as a Low-Carbon Coal Supplement or Replacement
Again and again the gaze of the biomass-to-energy industry falls on installed coal-fired generation infrastructure, and for good reason. With a few modifications, to the plant or to the biomass, a fuel switch can be accomplished and the plant remains a generation asset, a low-carbon generation asset. This panel will explore the technological challenges of biomass inclusion with coal or total replacement and the industry’s readiness to overcome them.

Moderator: Elliott Levine, Biopower Technology Development Manager, U.S. Department of Energy Tracing the Efforts to Drive Biomass Gasification towards Economic Feasibility and Greater Marketplace Deployment
Gasification holds incredible promise as a transformative technology in the broad biomass-to-energy landscape. The technology is able to handle a multitude of inputs, of varying qualities while offering output flexibility to project owners. How then should the technology be deployed and which conditions offer the greatest likelihood of economic success and propagation? This panel will offer attendees guidance on where and how the technology is being deployed and where it is having some success.

Moderator: Anna Simet, Managing Editor, Biomass Magazine

Track 3: Biogas & Landfill Gas

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Strategies for Removing Impurities from Biogas to Increase its Downstream Utility
Removing the impurities found in biogas, principally carbon dioxide and hydrogen sulfide, is a requisite step for nearly every downstream application. Engineers and biogas generators continue to drive down the total cost of gas clean-up as in many instances, this step represents 20% of the total operating expenses. This panel will look closely at technologies working to not only deliver the gas purity operators require, but do it while reducing the total overall cost of the process.

Moderator: Tim Portz, Executive Editor, Biomass Magazine Leveraging Available Technologies and Funding Opportunities to Unlock the Potential of Widely Available Waste Streams
Biogas proponents have long pointed to virtually unlimited potential for anaerobic digestion as a means to remediate a multitude of waste streams. For now, however, every project that gets built requires the tireless work of a team committed to assembling the right mix of technologies and financing to bring these first-of-a-kind plants into production. Two of the presentations on this panel feature projects available to attendees on the industry tour.

Moderator: Tom Abbott, Farm Manager, USDA-ARS Sugarcane Field Station It’s in the Way that You Use It: Conversion Approaches that Add Value to Produced Biogas in a Cost Effective Manner
As the biogas industry matures it continues to attract engineers and technology providers hungry to win market share by developing incrementally better approaches to the same problem. With a focus on driving the complexity out of new biogas projects, the presentations featured in this panel promise solutions that are cheaper to deploy, easier to operate and able to generate greater economic return.

Moderator: Joseph Curro, Principal Engineer, CDM Smith Exploring the Increasing Role Anaerobic Digestion is Playing in Global Wastewater Treatment Assets
Anaerobic and aerobic digestion are widespread approaches being utilized at wastewater treatment facilities around the world. The capture and use of produced biogas is far less common however. So far the economics of upgrading biogas haven’t been attractive enough for the practice to become widespread. This panel is populated with forward looking operators and technology providers who have developed or are developing systems capable of delivering the kind of financial return their industry peers are hoping for.

Moderator: Tim Portz, Executive Editor, Biomass Magazine Demonstrating the Potential for Biogas Feedstocks to Produce Renewable Hydrogen for Fuel Cell Vehicles
The potential for fuel cells in a reimagined energy future is enormous. Their efficiency and input diversity continue to attract interest, investment and new approaches for their deployment and use. This panel will walk attendees through a thorough examination of where things stand with regard to their commercialization, how they can add value to biomass-to-energy operations and what the Department of Energy is doing to accelerate this promising technology’s development.

Moderators: Pete Devlin, Market Transformation Manager Fuel Cell Technologies Office, U.S. Department of Energy; Greg Moreland, FCTO Contract Support, CSRA Inc.

Track 4: Advanced Biofuels & Biobased Chemicals

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Innovations in Feedstock Harvest, Collection and Pre-Processing
For the advanced biofuels industry to ever fully realize its full potential and begin delivering the tens of billions of gallons it is expected, the harvest, collection and storage of vast quantities of agricultural biomass must be perfected. This panel takes attendees to the field to explore the developments in implements and pre-processing downstream converters are counting on to efficiently and cost effectively deliver materials to their plant gates.

Moderator: Ali Manesh, President, American Science & Technology Building Biomass Feedstock Supply Chains that Deliver Economic Opportunities to All Project Stakeholders
One of the key tenets in the value proposition of an expanding bioeconomy is the economic impact it will have on farmers and foresters in rural areas. For this expanding industry to really drive opportunity into rural America, entrepreneurialism must be stoked all along the biomass supply chain. Presentations in this panel will explore producer attitudes around these opportunities while also offering some go-forward strategies to capture even more of the value of the bioeconomy for rural economies.

Moderator: Ron Kotrba, Editor, Biodiesel Magazine Biological Pathways to Advanced Biofuels and Novel Approaches to the Better Utilization and Monetization of Resultant CoProducts
First generation ethanol production hinges on the use of biology to breakdown and later ferment the sugars found in inbound corn. This panel will feature the work of technology and process developers hoping to establish their biological approach and win market share as the developers of next generation assets make their process decisions. Presentations will dig into biological pathways to not only cellulosic ethanol but also bio-based platform chemicals.

Moderator: Matt Abele, Clean Transportation Specialist, NC Clean Energy Technology Center, North Carolina State University Investigating Thermochemical Conversion Pathways and Gauging their Efficacy as a Means to Produce Biofuels and Bio-chemicals
The processes by which first generation biofuels are produced are well understood and widely deployed. The story is altogether different for advanced biofuels, and the race to develop an economically viable pathway is global. The first of two panels dedicated to conversion approaches looks at the efficacy of different thermochemical pathways in the context of low energy prices.

Moderator: Ron Kotrba, Editor, Biodiesel Magazine Examining Promising Research in Algal Cultivation and Conversion into Advanced Biofuels and Biochemicals
One of the most forward looking segments of the biomass-to-energy industry has to be algal cultivation and conversion. The promise of these carbon dioxide hungry diatoms and their value added potential are well understood. Still, commercialization has proven challenging. This panel will offer attendees an opportunity to catch up on the segment’s progress in both cultivation and downstream conversion. The role that algae may be able to play at wastewater treatment facilities will be explored in depth during the discussion.

Moderator: Ron Kotrba, Editor, Biodiesel Magazine Identifying Inventory Levels and Conversion Metrics of Well Established and Emerging Feedstocks to Speed the Development of Bioenergy Projects
The economic activity for agricultural producers being generated by the handful of marquee advanced biofuels production facilities is not going unnoticed. The market opportunity for feedstocks created by an expanding bioeconomy has the potential to add value to a wide variety of crops and cropping systems. Capturing this opportunity, however, depends upon positioning. This panel looks closely at the work to put a class of biomass feedstocks in line to be the inputs for the next generation of biorefineries.

Moderator: Ron Kotrba, Editor, Biodiesel Magazine

Bonus Panels: Bioenergy Markets

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Bioenergy Market Snapshot 1: Current and Future Opportunities for Bioenergy Deployments in the United States
This first of a two-session panel series dedicated to market updates will focus exclusively on emerging biomass-to-energy markets in the United States. Broad in scope, this panel offers attendee overviews of the biogas, biofuels and woody biomass markets and opinions on their likely trajectories. This panel is split between marketplace assessments that are regional in scope and presentations that are national in scope.

Moderator: Tim Portz, Executive Editor, Biomass Magazine Bioenergy Market Snapshot 2: Current and Future Opportunities for Bioenergy Deployments Worldwide
Biomass-to-energy is a decidedly global opportunity. In some instances, biomass utilization technologies just starting to gain a foothold in North America are common in other parts of the world. Each of the presentations in this panel will showcase the potential for increased biomass-to-energy deployments by responding to the unique feedstocks, economic conditions and energy requirements found in a given place.

Moderator: Tim Portz, Executive Editor, Biomass Magazine