Celebrating Industry Leaders

March 12, 2015

BY Anna Simet

For the past three years, Biomass Magazine has recognized outstanding industry contributions and achievements through two special awards granted at the International Biomass Conference & Expo.

The first is Groundbreaker of the Year.

Last year, that title was nabbed by Abengoa Bioenergy of Kansas for its cellulosic ethanol facility in Hugoton, Kansas, and in 2013, it was received by power utility Dominion for simultaneously converting three projects in Altavista, Southampton and Hopewell, Virginia, from coal to woody biomass.

In its first year, the award was given to Ameresco Inc. and the U.S. DOE for its Savannah River Site Biomass Cogeneration Facility near Aiken, South Carolina.

It takes a ridiculous amount of time, money, dedication and determination to take a biomass project from concept to reality. A small percentage of proposed projects make it out of the woods, and it’s important for us to recognize the standouts.  Have a company, organization or project in mind that you think fits the bill of Groundbreaker of the Year? We want to hear about it.

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And I should note, the project does not have to be complete—just needs to have achieved meaningful headway and must also be a commercial-scale biomass-to-energy project. I realize “meaningful headway” may mean something quite different from one person to the next, but we figure most in the industry have a pretty good idea of what we’re looking for when we say that.

The other award is the Excellence in Bioenergy. With this one, we’re looking to recognize the leaders in industry, academia and public policy. People who have or are making outstanding and/or meaningful contributions. This might be someone who has worked within in the broader, long-established wood-to-energy industry their entire lives, or perhaps somebody who entered the much younger advanced biofuel industry five years ago.

Previous winners of this award include my friends William Strauss of FutureMetrics, Charlie Niebling of Innovative Natural Resource Solutions and John Ackerly of the Alliance for Green Heat.

Have any suggestions that you feel strongly about? Here’s a link to the short nominations form. Or shoot me an email at asimet@bbiinternational.com.

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Looking forward to and sincerely appreciate your feedback.

 

 

 

 

 

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