Waste to Energy Systems is proud to be featured on This Week in Louisiana Agriculture. In the segment "Turning Wood Waste into Renewable Energy," TWiLA's Neil Melancon visits us in Albany to see how we're turning discarded wood into energy, and something to grow with.
It started with wood worth saving
For more than 50 years, Albany Woodworks has reclaimed old-growth heart pine and cypress from buildings headed to the landfill. As founder Richard Woods explains in the interview, they were the first in the United States to do it, and today it's a movement around the world.
But reclaiming wood creates its own byproduct: sawdust. So Richard asked a simple question. What if we could reclaim that, too? At 63, he started Waste to Energy Systems. At 76, he's working to take this idea global.
How gasification turns waste into power
After testing different technologies, we landed on gasification. Our bioHearth® system converts carbon-based solids into combustible gases, carbon monoxide and hydrogen. Those gases run a generator to deliver combined heat and power.
Our system runs on wood chips and sawdust pressed into briquettes but we are testing the systems ability to utilize a range of organic feedstocks. A single facility's waste becomes its own daily fuel.
Carbon negative, with a product left over
The story doesn't end at power. An auger running through our gasifier and cooler collects the carbon and minerals that fall out of the process. That's what makes our system carbon negative.
This material becomes a product of its own: activated charcoal, or a nutrient for agriculture. Every mineral a tree needs to grow is in that dust, ready to go back into the soil.
You must make green to be green
Richard put it plainly in the interview: "You must make green in order to be green." Sustainability has to make economic sense, not just environmental sense. That's why we design our system to turn a disposal cost into on-site energy and a useful byproduct.
What's next
We're still refining the process. Our next step is a component that reclaims the exhaust and steam, so even less goes to waste.
You can watch the full segment, "Turning Wood Waste into Renewable Energy," on This Week in Louisiana Agriculture's YouTube channel.
We are grateful to This Week in Louisiana Agriculture and Neil Melancon for visiting us and sharing our story.
From reclaimed wood to renewable power, and back to the soil.
BY ALISSA WOODS & JESSY ALFARO / NOV 6, 2026