Wood chips - tons of them - to power lab's new heating system

Chicago Tribune Business
Bob Fowler
Knoxville News Sentinel
6:20 a.m. CDT, May 4, 2012

OAK RIDGE — Smoldering wood chips in oxygen-starved chambers will be used to generate steam heat for most of the buildings at Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

The new energy-efficient process also provides a market for low-grade wood that loggers would otherwise leave on the forest floor, officials said.

The cutting-edge biomass gasification plant replaces four worn-out boilers that were 64 years old and were first powered by coal and later, natural gas.

The new $60 million system will create enough steam heat to power the equivalent of 18,000 homes, said Bob Baugh, director of the lab's utilities division.

At the lab, it'll heat about 100 buildings and serve other uses such as sterilizing autoclaves.

Read more