Hog Fuel

Hog fuel is an unrefined mix of coarse chips of bark and wood fiber. Hog fuel is any type of wood byproduct or waste that can be burned for fuel but can’t be categorized as chips, shavings, bark, or sawdust. It is the basic feedstock for biomass-fired power plants and is fast becoming a hot product. It is the single largest on-going cost item for energy plants.

Hog fuel is also used in horse riding grounds, paddocks and dog runs and paths. It is even used to build temporary roads. This variety of hog fuel is made when the material left over from cedar shakes and shingles is run through a machine and is ground into a fibrous material. Be it hog fuel or other waste wood like sawdust, chips etc. in today’s world, they are put to good use rather than burnt down or rejected as unusable waste.

Wood wastes now used as biomass fuels in modern energy plants, are resources that have traditionally been landfilled or burned in open piles on-site as simple waste. Recovered wood fuel products such as hog fuels replace non-renewable fossil fuels like oil or natural gas at the engineering energy facilities that use them. Wood is a renewable material as trees absorb carbon dioxide throughout its life and emit it during burning, thereby recycling carbon in the environment rather than adding new greenhouse gases.

All biomass combustion conveniences in the United States must meet strict environmental values nowadays by judiciously regulating air emissions and removing pollutants. A majority of industrial hog fuel users operate cogeneration facilities that create heat or steam for their internal energy requirements as well as electricity. In certain instances electricity is even supplied back to the local power grids.

Every ton of wood waste used as hog fuel yields almost 10.4 million thermal units of energy- the equivalent of almost two barrels of oil and over 3 Megawatts of electricity – sufficient to power an average U.S. home for about 4 months.

While biomass energy markets have driven the expansion of today’s wood recycling industry, the recycling companies are all committed to maximizing the benefits of recycling for the community as well as the environment. This industry has supplied prudently processed wood inputs for pulp and paper production, industrial manufacturing of complex building resources and several other applications. They also produce high quality hog fuel from urban wood waste. Furthermore, their mobile operations, using exclusive grinding equipment and trained operators can produce good quality hog fuel from land clearing debris.