WALNUT, Calif., Feb. 24, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- VIASPACE Inc.
(OTCQB: VSPC) conducted a full production scale test of Giant King
Grass grinding equipment on February 18,
2014 in Portland, Oregon.
6,000 pounds of 18 foot tall Giant King Grass stalks were cut and
shredded in a few minutes in a test of a candidate grinder for the
12 MW Giant King Grass power plant being developed in Nicaragua.
Pictures and videos from the from the test grind are available
on the VIASPACE Facebook page www.facebook.com/viaspaceinc or can
be accessed directly at http://vimeo.com/87430477.
The grinding test was conducted on a large, stationary,
horizontal grinder manufactured by West Salem Machinery Company of
Salem, Oregon that was installed
at the Greenway Recycling Facility in Portland, Oregon. Three tons of Giant King
Grass were harvested from the VIASPACE propagation nursery in
California and were then
transported to Portland for the
test.
VIASPACE CEO Dr. Carl Kukkonen
reported, "When Giant King Grass is ready for harvest, each plant
has 15 to 25 stalks, and each stalk is 16 to 20 feet tall. The
Giant King Grass must be cut into smaller pieces in order to be
used in a power plant or biofuels facility. This size reduction and
shredding can be done as part of harvest with a forage harvester,
or whole stalks can be harvested and transported to a central
processing facility adjacent to the power plant where an
electrically powered processing system can be utilized (as opposed
to using diesel powered machines in the field). The latter approach
is being used in Nicaragua."
"An electrically powered grinder is lower cost and has lower
maintenance than a diesel powered grinder. We plan to install the
grinder in our fuel processing and short-term storage facility just
outside the power plant. Since it is a stationary and large
machine, the only way to test it was to bring the Giant King Grass
to the grinder. That is what we did. Our production needs are
36 tons per hour, 24 hours per day, and 365 days per year."
"I met with the West Salem Machinery team and visited their
facilities where they manufacture their mill duty equipment. I want
to thank Greenway Recycling for interrupting their business and
allowing us to use their equipment for the Giant King Grass
grinding test."
West Salem Machinery CEO, Mark
Lyman stated, "Our company is family owned and has been in
business since 1947. We make heavy duty, industrial strength,
stationary grinders for the biomass, wood processing and recycling
industries. We have installations at biomass power plants and
biofuels facilities in the US and overseas. While we knew early on
that our machine installed at Greenway Recycling was not ideally
configured to process Giant King Grass, we were able to determine
from this test that a customized version of our Titan-Series
Horizontal Grinder would be capable of processing up to 40 tons per
hour of raw stalks to a 50-100 mm sized fuel product suitable for
the VIASPACE Giant King Grass power plant application. The full
scale test was very important, because now we know exactly what
Giant King Grass is and how to optimize our machine and the
material flow for this application."
VIASPACE Chairman, Dr. Kevin
Schewe, commented, "It takes energy to make energy and in
this case we are using the sun and agriculture to efficiently
produce Giant King Grass and then converting that product (or
stored energy) to usable electricity that is available 24 hours a
day, 365 days a year. We now have proof of concept that we can use
an electrically powered grinder to prepare Giant King Grass for
direct combustion in our Nicaragua
power plant at a lower cost, lower maintenance and lower carbon
emissions than using diesel powered grinding. Our overall corporate
objective is not only to show our customers and partners how to use
Giant King Grass as the most productive biomass platform in the
world but also to demonstrate the very best method to efficiently
convert Giant King Grass to electricity using the most profitable
and reliable business model. Then we have a duplicative business
model of 'growing your own electricity' that can be replicated
anywhere in the world with land, water and a suitable climate for
growing Giant King Grass. I am pleased to report that we continue
to move forward on multiple fronts and I am more enthusiastic than
ever regarding the direction and pace of progress for our company
and its shareholders."
About West Salem Machinery Co.
Founded in 1947,
West Salem Machinery is a US based manufacturer of mill-duty
biomass processing machinery and systems. With a focus on
innovation and product/process improvement, WSM delivers superior
processing solutions for a wide range of biomass feedstock
materials, including purpose-grown energy and feed crops such as
Giant King Grass. WSM specializes in stationary, electrically
driven equipment designed for 24/7 operation that can be found in
the most demanding applications around the world, including biomass
power plants, pulp & paper mills, pellet production lines,
bio-refineries, and cellulosic ethanol plants. Customers
count on WSM to provide processing solutions built to perform and
built to last. Contact WSM today for more information and
visit their website at www.westsalem.com.
About VIASPACE Inc.
VIASPACE grows renewable Giant
King™ Grass as a low-carbon fuel for clean electricity
generation; for environmentally friendly energy pellets; and as a
feedstock for bio-methane production and for green cellulosic
biofuels, biochemicals and biomaterials. Giant King Grass is a proprietary, high yield,
dedicated biomass clean energy crop. Giant King Grass when it is cut frequently at 4 to 5
feet tall is also excellent animal feed. The USDA granted approval
for planting Giant King Grass throughout the US and cooperates in
exporting by performing the required inspections and issuing the
phytosanitary certificate needed for import into foreign countries.
Giant King Grass is being grown in
California, Arizona, Hawaii, St. Croix Virgin Islands, Nicaragua, South
Africa, China, Myanmar and Pakistan. For more
information, please go to www.VIASPACE.com or contact Dr.
Jan Vandersande, Director of
Communications, at 800-517-8050 or IR@VIASPACE.com.
Safe Harbor Statement
Information in
this news release includes forward-looking statements. These
forward-looking statements relate to future events or future
performance and involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and
other factors that may cause our actual results, levels of
activity, performance or achievements to be materially different
from those expressed or implied by these forward-looking
statements. Such factors include, without limitation, risks
outlined in our periodic filings with the U.S. Securities and
Exchange Commission, including Annual Report on Form 10-K for the
year ended December 31, 2012, and
other factors over which VIASPACE has little or no control.
SOURCE VIASPACE Inc.