[Strawbale] Fiberboard plant was Re: 3-string bales...

[Denise Ohio]

>
>Oh hi ohio,
>Are the straw fiberboard fire resistant? Are they
>taped at the joints? Do they have a texured finish?
>Shody


Shody,

I don't know anything about the product, other than that CalAg got the 
financing. This is what Jerry sent me (this is not an endrosement or 
anything else---I'm just passing on the article):


Willows company's plant will turn waste into fiberboard.

By Jim Downing - Bee Staff Writer

Last Updated 12:09 am PDT Thursday, March 22, 2007

Story appeared in BUSINESS section, Page D4

Ever since the Legislature restricted the fall burning of rice straw in 
1991, inventors and entrepreneurs have searched for a profitable way to 
reuse the leftovers from the half-million-acre Sacramento Valley rice harvest.

They've had limited success: Only about 5 percent of the straw is now 
collected and used off the farm.

But on Wednesday, a small company in Willows announced that it has secured 
$240 million in financing -- including a $175 million low-interest loan 
from the state -- to build a factory that would use 20 percent of all the 
waste straw produced in the Valley.

Jerry Uhland, president of CalAg LLC, said that his firm has developed a 
way to produce fiberboard, a common construction material, from rice straw.

Uhland said the key to winning financial backing was showing his product 
had a large and established demand and could match the quality of standard 
wood-based fiberboard.

"Our product is a known commodity," he said. "We've pre-sold it for the 
next 15 years."

Plans call for the factory to turn 120,000 acres of rice straw into 150 
million square feet of fiberboard each year, starting as soon as the 2008 
harvest.

Fiberboard is used in a wide variety of indoor construction applications 
such as flooring and cabinets. CalAg has a long-term contract with 
Portland, Ore.-based Columbia Forest Products, which will process and sell 
the fiberboard, according to Columbia spokesman John McIsaac.

McIsaac said his company was especially eager to get Uhland's fiberboard 
because it is made without formaldehyde, a chemical used to make 
conventional particle board that is facing strict regulation because of the 
potentially harmful gases it releases.

Uhland, a former rice farmer, has been working on the fiberboard project 
since 1996. He raised $10 million from family and friends to develop the 
patented straw-into-fiberboard technique.

Once the process was perfected, he raised $65million in financing through 
the private sector. On Wednesday, the company received an additional $175 
million in state bond financing from the Treasurer's Office.

Groundbreaking on the new plant is scheduled for late April; construction 
is expected to take 14 to 18 months. Uhland said the plant would employ 
about 115 people year-round.

Before air quality concerns forced restrictions on the burning of rice 
straw, farmers had an inexpensive and simple way to dispose of the straw 
left on their fields.

Since then, farmers have generally tilled and flooded their fields to 
encourage the straw to decompose. That process can cost as much as $90 an 
acre, depending on fuel prices. Uhland said growers will pay $25 an acre to 
have the rice straw removed.

Turning straw into cabinets instead of plowing it does have a potential 
drawback: It could mean farmers will have to add more fertilizer to their 
fields, said Chris Greer, rice farming systems adviser with University of 
California Cooperative Extension.