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Prairie Fire BioEnergy moves forward with construction of the first biomass fuel processing facility in KansasKansas Prairie Fire is excited to announce that they are moving forward with construction of the biomass processing plant located in Healy, Kan. This announcement comes less than a year after starting the share drive for prospective members. Prairie Fire BioEnergy Cooperative is owned by 86 members from nine western Kansas counties. Officials of the cooperative are in the final planning stage, securing necessary permits and purchasing construction material for the project. The location of the facility will be one and one-half miles west of Healy on Highway 4. At this location, Prairie Fire will collect and process biomass derived from agriculture waste streams from its owner members. The processed biomass will then be delivered to gasification boilers and/or made into fuel pellets for the wholesale export market to Europe and local residential heating market. Located on the site will be a fully operational gasification boiler driving a turbine, with the capability of producing electricity to power the pellet production operation. The gasification units are manufactured by Uniconfort, a 50 year old gasification boiler manufacturer located in Italy. The turbine is of new technology designed and manufactured by Mechanology of Attleboro, Mass. In January of 2008, Prairie Fire entered into a working relationship with Alternative Energy Solutions of Wichita, Kan. AES provides expertise in engineering and boiler application and is the North American distributor of Uniconfort gasification boilers. Gasification boilers have been used extensively in Europe but have seen limited use in the United States. With this technology Prairie Fire can offer substantial savings over natural gas produced steam. Prairie Fire is targeting small to medium steam users and can convert potential customers to biomass derived steam with no conversion cost to the customer. These potential customers include, but are not limited to, feed mills, ethanol plants, meat packing plants, hospitals and schools. Prairie Fire and Sunflower Electric signed an agreement in February to prove the feasibility of co-burning biomass with their current plant in Holcomb as well as their other electric generation locations and expansion projects. Prairie Fire has delivered biomass samples to Sunflower for their testing and continues to work with them on renewable energy issues. 5/19/08 Date: 5/15/08 Advertisement
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