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World’s first full-scale AI Innovation Center and electric biomass processing facility opened in Grand Rapids

Grand Opening of Woodchuck Biomass Facility and AI Innovation Center
Patrick Center
/
WGVU Public Media
Grand Opening of Woodchuck Biomass Facility and AI Innovation Center

Thursday's event showcased waste stream divergence, carbon capture and renewable energy production technology.

That’s the sound a new red, two-story, 1,000 horsepower electric grinder makes that can process 100 tons of wood waste an hour.

“This is not a pile of waste. Before Woodchuck, this was. It would all go to the landfill. This is now a pile of future of future energy.”

Based in Grand Rapids, Woodchuck.AI CEO Todd Thomas explains that its technologies divert wood products from waste streams.

“We process the wood into biomass, and we bring it to our partners at NorthStar Clean Energy that turn it into renewable energy for the state of Michigan.”

Near Grand Rapids Butterworth SW Trash and Recycling Site, the biomass is collected by NorthStar Clean Energy.

“We’re taking the wood waste and we’re taking it to our biomass plants where we’re able to capture the carbon, create energy and put the carbon deep underground.”

Creating negative carbon. Brian Hartman is President of NorthStar Clean Energy. He says the biomass plants will remove nearly a million tons of carbon from the atmosphere annually while producing clean, baseload energy.

Governor Gretchen Whitmer attended the event. She said the state has the fastest growing green energy jobs in the country and the cutting-edge technology is a result of prioritizing climate work.

Patrick joined WGVU Public Media in December, 2008 after eight years of investigative reporting at Grand Rapids' WOOD-TV8 and three years at WYTV News Channel 33 in Youngstown, Ohio. As News and Public Affairs Director, Patrick manages our daily radio news operation and public interest television programming. An award-winning reporter, Patrick has won multiple Michigan Associated Press Best Reporter/Anchor awards and is a three-time Academy of Television Arts & Sciences EMMY Award winner with 14 nominations.