Restoration Fuels shutters John Day torrefaction plant
Published 7:00 am Wednesday, July 31, 2024
- Mark Allen, operations manager at Restoration Fuels in John Day, discusses the process of making biochar.
JOHN DAY — News of Malheur Lumber’s impending shutdown plans follows the closure of another wood products business that had been operating at the same site.
Restoration Fuels, which built a torrefaction plant on the Malheur Lumber property in 2020, closed on July 15, laying off 11 employees. The workers were provided with severance packages, according to a company spokesperson.
The company is a subsidiary of the U.S. Endowment for Forestry and Communities, a not-for-profit public charity created by the U.S. and Canadian governments in accordance with the terms of the 2006 Softwood Lumber Agreement. According to the endowment’s website, its purpose is to work with the public and private sectors to develop new products that are environmentally sustainable and support forest-dependent communities.
Restoration Fuels initially produced torrefied wood — wood that has been partially burned through the torrefaction process — for use as a cleaner-burning alternative to coal.
Plans were in place to sell high-carbon pellets made from torrefied wood to Portland General Electric’s Boardman power plant and other customers overseas, but that idea was scrapped after the Boardman generating plant shuttered in 2020 and shipping costs for other would-be buyers proved prohibitive.
In 2021 the company pivoted to producing biochar — a product similar to charcoal — for use as a soil amendment and in filtering toxic chemicals and metals out of polluted water. Because biochar sequesters carbon from waste wood, it also held promise as a source of carbon credits that could be sold to large corporations.
Restoration Fuels officials told the Eagle in July of 2023 that they hoped to be able to expand their markets and scale up production, but now they’ve decided to pull the plug.
The company had been leasing space for its operations from Malheur Lumber, which also supplied raw material for biochar in the form of wood chips and sawdust generated by the sawmill.
Restoration Fuels President Matt Krumenauer said the plant was shut down for a combination of two reasons: It had served its purpose by establishing the commercial viability of torrefied wood and biochar, and no private investors were expressing interest in taking it over.
“The scope of the Restoration Fuels project was to successfully create a proof-of-concept for torrefied fuel production; this was completed, and the business pivoted to demonstrating commercial-scale production of biochar and carbon removal credits,” Krumenauer said in a prepared statement.
“The project was successful in this endeavor; however, ongoing sole ownership of a manufacturing subsidiary is not within the scope of the U.S. Endowment for Forests and Communities’ core mission, and a decision was made by the board to close the plan permanently.”
