Branches, bark and other logging byproducts from Skagit County may be heating up dinner in homes in Germany.

Janicki Energy of Sedro-Woolley proposes to ship dense wood cubes made from biomass to offshore co generation facilities that create electricity while capturing the heat byproduct for heating systems.

Those cubes could go through the Port of Anacortes.

At their meeting May 1, port commissioners directed staff to negotiate and execute an option agreement that gives Janicki Energy one year to start exporting its green renewable energy wood products from Pier 2. The company plans to lease up to five acres at the pier for on-dock storage and a conveyor system to an existing ship loader.

The one-year option will give the company time to secure permits, negotiate a stevedore contract and develop an efficient ship loading system.

Janicki may pay the port $500 per acre per month during the option period. Once the year is up, it intends to negotiate a long-term lease with the port.

“The planned long-term land lease will provide a stable income for the marine terminal for at least 30 years,” staff said in information to the commission.

Janicki Energy is an offshoot of Janicki Logging & Construction and Janicki Industries, which employ approximately 550 people.

The company plans to make the cubes from biomass — the branches, bark, needles and other logging leftovers typically burned on site.

“It’s a waste,” said Janicki Energy President Jerry Shukis. “It’s energy being burned.”

Janicki Energy was started by Shukis’ son-in-law Robert Janicki, who serves as CEO, and his brother Mike Janicki.

The demand for renewable fuel is only going to grow, Shukis said. And eventually the U.S. will catch up with bioenergy wave that is now going on in Europe.

The Kyoto Protocol agreement requires the European Union to get 20 percent of its fuel from renewable energy resources by 2020. Shukis estimated that 20 percent to equal out to 70 million tons a year.

Janicki Energy’s wood cube product is considered renewable because the amount of carbon dioxide generated to produce it equals the amount absorbed by new growth from reforestation the company does for harvesting, Shukis said. Last year Janicki planted approximately 100,000 trees.

The process makes more sense than using such commodities as corn, which is used to make ethanol, he said.

“It does not make sense to convert food stock into energy,” Shukis said.

A lot of people are making pellets but few are making wood cubes, Shukis said. He knows of one company in Canada that’s doing it.

Cubing products has been around for a long time but was done from grass, hay and alfalfa for food products for beef, he said. As far as from wood for energy, the company is on the forefront.

The Janicki family has been investigating renewable energy ideas for more than three years, Shukis said. Originally it intended to build a wood pellet mill in Hamilton next to Janicki Industries facilities, but it delayed that to firm up its business plan.

The product was changed from pellets to cubes, which are less expensive to manufacture, use the entire residue from the wood and are easier to handle for an industry used to using coal, Shukis said.

The 1.5-by-1.5-by-2.5-inch cubes will be made through a grinding, drying and compressing process. One pound of the product will have the energy content of 8,100 British thermal units or Btu per pound and a low ash content.

Compacting the cubes makes them denser and more economical to transport, Shukis added.

Janicki Industries, which produces patterns and molds for aerospace, marine and transportation applications, will provide an engineering resource for the process. And because of the logging company’s 50 years of experience with wood and exporting, it has many of the logistics already figured out, Shukis said.

The company is in the process of selecting a manufacturing site and Shukis said for now the feedstock basket of biomass in Skagit County is enough for the company, which plans to eventually import biomass when production demands call for it.

The port comes into the equation because of its deep water port. Janicki Energy plans to start shipping its product offshore in a year. Shukis estimated it will do so for about five years after which he estimates this country will be importing biomass.

Therefore, it’ll be setting up its use of the port’s marine terminal for receiving as much as shipping, Shukis said.