Economic Feasibility Analyses 



3571 



28-32 $69.0 MILLION— COMPLETE-TREE PROCESSING 

 USING SHAPING-LATHE HEADRIGS'' 



BRUSH (Biomass Recovery and Utilization with Shaping-lathe Headrigs) is 

 a system conceived by Koch (1976ab) for removing and utilizing unwanted 

 hardwoods, leaving the sites ready for planting with pine. Puller-bunchers (figs. 

 16-32 through 16-34) lift trees with roots attached; self-propelled swathe-felling 

 chippers (fig. 28-11) then recover residual trees and shrubs as fuel chips or 

 mulch and prepare the site for planting. At the mill, shaping-lathe headrigs (figs. 

 18-104ABCD and 18-252) turn logs and bolts into cants by removing residue as 

 flakes. The cants are converted to crossties (figs. 18-104D bottom, 20-7, 20-12, 

 and 20-13), pallet parts, and studs, or are peeled and the thick veneer laminated 

 into lumber. Flakes are pressed into structural flakeboard (chapter 24). Returns 

 from the products reduce type conversion costs, which otherwise would be 

 prohibitively expensive. Since there are no ongoing BRUSH enterprises, the 

 study is based on descriptions of component machines and assumed resource 

 conditions. 



Figure 28-36 depicts the material balance for utilization of complete trees. 

 From the 585,000 tons (ovendry-weight basis) of wood harvested annually, the 

 mill produces 391,950 tons of salable products. Structural flakeboard accounts 

 for 52.6 percent of the tons of product produced. The only other product whose 

 tonnage exceeds 15 percent of the total is laminated lumber, 16.4 percent. 

 Products sold will include 675 thousand dowel-laminated crossties, 51,570 

 thousand board feet of laminated lumber, 31,980 thousand board feet of pine 

 studs, 31,500 thousand board feet of pallet parts, and 215,172 thousand square 

 feet of structural flakeboard. 



Figure 28-36.— Yield from one ton of wood and bark, ovendry-weight basis, harvested 

 by the BRUSH process. (Drawing after Anderson 1981.) 



^"^ Abstracted from Anderson (1981). 



