When we set out to reimagine the Forest Biomass Business Center, we didn't want to replace one large power plant with another single high-risk project. We needed to find out what actually works here, for our forests, our workforce, and our rural location.
We hired forest products consulting firm The Beck Group to run a full screening of the options. Their Technology Screening report is the first of three feasibility studies forming the foundation of our new business plan.
Starting Wide: 60 Ways to Use Wood
The study started with a broad list of 60 options for wood fiber. We looked at everything from firewood and fence posts to mass timber, biochar, essential oils, battery materials, and hydrogen. The goal was to map the full landscape before cutting anything.
Stage 1: The Fatal Flaw Test
A 100-acre rural campus has real physical and financial constraints. We applied a simple pass/fail filter across five operational criteria:
Sustainable raw material availability
Capital investment requirements
Commercial scale track record
Air-quality permitting hurdles
Fit with restoration-grade wood supplies
Failing a single metric removed the option. This step dropped the list from 60 to 29, weeding out technologies that sound good on paper but do not fit a site like Camptonville.
Stage 2: Scoring the Contenders
We scored the remaining 29 options across six weighted criteria: market demand, feedstock usage, economics, practical implementation, campus integration, and alignment with local restoration goals.
Key findings included:
Proven businesses won. Traditional operations like bundled firewood, fence posts, and specialty sawmilling scored highest due to lower operational risk and established markets.
Feedstock flexibility is required. Forest restoration yields mixed species, small diameters, and variable quality. Technologies that handle rougher inputs scored far higher than those needing uniform logs.
Co-location adds value. Several options that looked weak on their own made financial sense when paired together, such as using one process's waste (bark, sawdust, offcuts) as another's raw material.
The Top 3 Candidates
Three technologies moved forward to full feasibility testing:
Specialty Sawmill: A flexible mill focused on timbers, fencing, decking, and restoration-grade logs. It serves as the anchor facility, generating sawdust, chips, and bark for neighboring operations.
Extractives & Essential Oils: High-value products pulled from local conifer species. While market development takes more effort, it provides higher margins and market differentiation.
Wood Wool Cement (WWC) Wall Systems: Fire-resistant, low-carbon building panels made from small-diameter logs and mill residues.
Moving Forward
This process validated a major strategic shift: instead of depending on a single large facility, we are building a diversified, interdependent campus. The feasibility studies for these three options are complete and are being integrated into the full business plan.
Read the full Technology Screening report in our reports library.