Cutting-edge machine makes big bales of energy:

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Saturday, March 13, 2010 5:51 PM

The new biomass machine cuts brush to burn while opening habitat for sharp-tailed grouse and deer.

(Source: Duluth News-Tribune (Duluth, Minn.))By John Myers, Duluth News Tribune, Minn.

FLOODWOOD -- Steve Traeger drove the 200-horsepower, all-wheel-drive tractor into a wall of willow and alder and never flinched.

Brush and small trees bent and snapped, and the BioBaler towed behind the tractor was chewing it up and packing it tightly into half-ton bales as if it were hay.

"When you turn on your lights next week you'll be burning these bundles,'' said Paul Sandstrom of the Laurentian Resource Conservation and Development office, a branch of the U.S. Department of Agriculture in Duluth.

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