Cut and dried

AZDailySun.com
JOE FERGUSON Sun Staff Reporter azdailysun.com .
Posted: Sunday, October 3, 2010 5:05 am

In a small garage in east Flagstaff, Ward Davis and Lar Reibold are perfecting a technology they believe could revolutionize the biofuels industry.

The pair has a working prototype of a portable, biomass dryer designed to suck the water out of the chipped wood in slash piles created by thinning projects.

For years, attempts to turn slash piles into a "green" fuel source have been delayed by the inability to secure long-term agreements with agencies and municipalities to turn over the wood rather than burn them on site. And hauling the heavy, wet wood limits the effective operational range for biomass plants and wood fuel pellet manufacturers.

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