Apr 13, 2000 11:48 AM ET

By Dale K. DuPont, dbusiness.com

HOUSTON, April 13 (dbusiness.com) --The next time you've got to clear some land, think twice before lobbing the logs into a burn pile. The pile could be the start of a stash of the kind of commodity available on a new Website, www.WoodFuel.com.

The Houston-based site was launched this week as a business-to-business link between buyers and suppliers of wood fuel products.

"We have harnessed the Internet to streamline a very fragmented market" for the renewable energy source, said Scott Mactier, one of eight private investors who put an undisclosed amount into the new venture.

A number of the investors have been in the wood fuel industry for years and determined there was a need for the type of centralized system the site intends to establish, he told dbusiness.com.

"We're truly in the initial stages. We haven't finished any deals at this point," he said. But he anticipates some soon.

The suppliers will range from municipalities and utilities to landscapers. Users will be sawmills, particleboard makers or anyone with a capacity for processing wood as fuel.

"Suppliers may not have a ready source to dispose of the fuel," Mactier said.

The site will help link them with customers and form alliances with transportation companies to deliver the commodity.

They'll also be buying the wood fuel product and selling it to users, so they'll make money on the spread. They're looking for material with high BTUs, low moisture content and low contaminant levels. The site will provide access to equipment financing and industry news, as well.

WoodFuel figures it can be a vital exchange as fossil fuel prices rise and federal legislation requires companies to use a larger percentage of renewable energy sources in production.

The Forest Product Journal notes that U.S. wood energy makes up about 3 percent of total energy consumption, Mactier said.

Mactier's group hopes to develop their site before there is too much competition.

A quick search of the Internet for "wood fuel" sites turned up The Recycler's World Website (www.recycle.net), which handles a variety of recycled materials including wood pellets, logs and chips.

One ad has ground hardwood logs whose likely buyers are paper companies for boiler fuel or landscapers for mulch. Users can post up to five free "wanted" or "available" listings, the site notes.