Web exclusive posted June 23, 2008 at 2:40 p.m. CST

Renewafuel LLC, a subsidiary of Cleveland-Cliffs Inc., will build a biomass fuel production facility at the Telkite Technology Park in Marquette, Mich. The plant will annually produce 150,000 tons of biofuel cubes from a sustainable composite of collected wood and agricultural feedstocks, including wood byproducts, corn stalks, grasses and energy crops. Production is projected to begin in the first quarter of 2009. "We are happy to announce our first commercial-scale facility for Renewafuel," said Dana Byrne, Cleveland Cliffs' vice president of public and environmental affairs. "Cooperation with the Michigan Department of Agriculture, Marquette County, the Michigan Economic Development Corporation, Telkite Technology Park and the Marquette Board of Light and Power helped make this happen, and we appreciate the efforts of their representatives."

The company has worked closely with the Michigan Department of Agriculture to make the facility a reality. "Michigan's administration has been very supportive of renewable energy businesses coming to Michigan," said Jim Mennell, president of Renewafuel. "Also Cleveland-Cliffs operates two large mine facilities in the Upper Peninsula (of Michigan). So building a facility close to those mines would allow us to sell to those mines as well as other entities."

Another reason for locating in the upper peninsula of Michigan is the abundant supply of woody biomass. In the beginning the plant will rely on sustainable forestry residue but will consider using dedicated energy crops such as switchgrass when it becomes available. "Switchgrass could be grown on the tailings basins and reclamation activities at the mines," Mennell said. "We eventually want to use a combination of grasses, agricultural coproducts and forestry coproducts as feedstocks with the predominant source likely being forest residue."

Renewafuel's biofuel cubes generate about the same amount of energy as coal from the Western United States; however, the cubes emit 90 percent less sulfur dioxide, 35 percent less particulate matter and 30 percent less acid gases than coal. Because of their size and density, the cubes can be used in most applications that now use coal. "Our mission is to supply a green supplement fuel for large industrial and institutional operations," Mennell said. "We think we will be cost competitive with coal or possibly less expensive. It will be carbon neutral and be a 100 percent reduction in creditable carbon dioxide emissions. Michigan is looking to implement a renewable portfolio standard and this will allow them to obtain allowances in that market. So our cubes are both economically and environmentally superior to coal."

Renewafuel has operated a pilot biomass facility at Battle Creek, Mich., for more than three years. Mennell said the lessons learned at that facility will be implemented in the Marquette plant. "We learned what moisture, what type of sizing and what type of products we can blend together and maintain cube integrity," he said. "We also learn that we engineer cubes differently for different applications. If you feeding a stoker boiler it is one design, if you are feeding into a pulverized coal application it is a very different design."

At full production, Renewafuel will produce approximately 60,000 tons of biomass fuel cubes for the municipal utility Marquette Board of Light and Power's steam plant. The remaining 90,000 tons of production will replace a portion of coal used at Cliffs' Michigan iron ore mines to fuel kilns used to harden iron ore pellets. The facility will cost approximately $10 million and employ 25 people directly. "But as you know, many more will be employed who are collecting the feedstock, whether they are loggers or farmers or the truckers bringing the feedstock to the plant," Mennell said. "Businesses in those sectors will be adding jobs as well."