Greenwood Fuels has decided to expand from its home base in Green Bay, Wis. First stop? Ohio.
The alternative fuels company has announced plans to build a new fuel pellet fabricating plant near Hamilton in southwestern Ohio.
Rolando Sanz-Guerrero, vice president of sales and marketing, says the company is working on a short-list for a new site. When operational -- no definite timetable has been announced -- the facility will employ 35 to 40, Sanz-Guerrero says.
The move to Ohio effectively doubles the size of
Greenwood Fuels, which has been manufacturing fuel pellets from waste paper since 2009.
"Everything we use is paper that would not be able to be recycled for one reason or another," Sanz-Guerrero explains. The resulting fuel pellets can be used in any solid fuel furnace and is a cost-competitive, high-BTU and environmentally friendly alternative to coal, he says.
"Plants don't have to do a lot of capital investments. They can simply take the pellets as they are, use them in their boiler to produce either steam or power, and off they go."
Greenwood currently produces 125,000 tons of pellets a year in Green Bay; the goal is to increase that volume to 150,000 tons a year at each facility as the company expands to other states.
The company's choice of Hamilton was influenced by its relative proximity to Wisconsin, the company's good relationship with customer
SMART Papers there, plus "we liked the city of Hamilton, we liked the economic development group, we liked a lot of things about what they could bring."
Source: Rolando Sanz-Guerrero, Greenwood Fuels
Writer: Gene Monteith