Biomass boilers (more coming)

[Ironwood]

After reading several other threads, including "whole tree harvesting" I decided to start a thread about the iimpact of biomass boilers.

 Locally, the tree services in the city (Pittsburgh) seem to really move alot of material to these operations. There is supposed to be another "going online" soon.

 As a guy who wants and searches for Urban logs and sources of material, this seems to my biggest threat to my supply line. Most small tree ops cant justify the capital to make this work for their operations, but certainly the bigger ones can/ do. I need to research this a bit more, and go out and talk to the operations supplying the "tonnage" to the boilers. My "modus operandi" would be to train the owners, foreman to what I want and then get my wallet out to make it worth their while.

 Anyone else seeing this? Just a thought, and I think worth discussing. 

A link to a company w/ their ear to the ground

http://www.risiinfo.com/risi-store/do/product/detail/wood-biomass-projects-database.html?gclid=CO6Bi7Huz54CFVw55QodUi_Nrw


            Ironwood

[Gary_C]

You have just seen the tip of the iceberg so far. Just wait till the government gets done opening their (your) wallet on the biomass program. There are already some large loggers buying up potential biomass jobs to get paid twice for that biomass.

You are really going to have to open up your wallet to compete with your own tax dollars. 

Biomass Crop Assistance Program for FSA

I doubt it will be on the same scale as the "black liquor" handout as they have a limited amount of money allocated, but it sure will distort the markets for a while. 

[Kansas]

I was in a meeting last week where we heard from a guy explaining their biomass operation in western kansas. Originally, they were going to use farm biomass to make pellets; that didn't work. Then they switched to pallet recycling waste. They don't have enough of that so they are importing blue stain pine from Colorado and Wyoming. The government matches dollar for dollar the cost of the material, so basically the government is paying for the trucking into their location. I know they are struggling to get this off the ground, but how in the world do you justify taxpayer dollars to truck material at least 300 miles. It does sound like that program might end before too long.

I don't mind some seed money from the government to help get these things started, but eventually they have to stand on their own. The one question I wonder, and have not been able to find out, is what is the economics of taking green logs, landfill trees, etc, and turning it into BTU's. That is, what can be realistically paid for green wood. It worries me that clear cutting could be a possibility, expecially if the government matches dollar for dollar the cost of the raw material.

[Hilltop366]

It does makes you wonder how many btu's and non renewable fuels are used up getting the biomass cut hauled processed compared to what you get out of the biomass?

[Ironwood]

Yup, that WILL distort the market for awhile. Thanks for the link.

 Ironwood

[SwampDonkey]

Why does the hauling have to be 300 miles, 500 miles? Is it because the state supplying the wood has tighter regulations? Why bother setting up shop if you have to haul so far? Seems like a business plan is lacking. If there is a subsidy it should go into a plan to determine the feasibility, then equipment. If your in an area that harvesting is very limited it's time to move your operations to a more active market. Something like that should also be targeted in areas with a lot of low grade or under utilized species, but on above average growing sites. I see it using wood from well managed woods to improve quality. Chances are it will encourage clearcuts because that's where the quick dollars come from and far fewer entries. However, improvement cuts would reach far more forest stands and larger acreages if there are a lot of participants, instead of just mowing trees down on smaller acreages. Is it going to be competitive? So far it seems so up here. Boralex in Fort Fairfield had it's contract renewed by the State of Maine. Most chips to that plant are imported from NB. Boralex is a Quebec company.

[red oaks lumber]

the talk around here is clearcut the properties, chip it all for the mills.(electric,pellet,paper) the reasoning more dollars per acre. boy if this method takes ahold hell, i'll be able to "see russia from my house"

[Ironwood]

Boy howdy, that sure seems it would encourage clearcutting. Big capital, BIG cutting.

 Ironwood

[SwampDonkey]

Clearcutting is nothing new. I can say that most of the Boralex biomass is from clearcuts. But, most areas there are size limits, adjacency to uncut stands, and "establishment to free growing" condition, followed up by spacing. Clearcutting and standing back and doing nothing decreases future stem size at the end of the rotation, grows weak stemmed trees, does not allow selection of more desired and better quality trees for future crop trees. If you don't reinvest in the forest after a clearcut than "law of diminishing returns". Sometimes a clearcut is the best alternative if you've got a lot of low grade wood.

[WDH]

The hope is that these consumers of biomass will create a market for the low grade and the cull left over from years of select cutting and poor forest management. 

The price will be low, generally expected to be about the same price as pulpwood or less, so the focus on growing quality sawtimber will still be there.

[Cedarman]

Someone logged the tree in western Kansas a few years ago and now there are no more.

[Ironwood]

Yeah, there are a bunch in Eastern Kansas, I was stationed at Ft. Riley for a while. 

     Ironwood

[Kansas]

Cedarman, I did ask the guy why they weren't utilizing the eastern red cedar or the salt cedar out there. His reply was that in order to make pellets, everything has to be debarked. Something about ash content and getting it through the pelleter.
I don't imagine trying to debark a bunch of pasture cedar would pan out too well.

And we have some nice timber out in western Kansas. We hide them in the mountains out there.

[Ironwood]

Actually Eastern Kansas, the trees are hidden in the valleys out of the wind. And,..... a,.... are there mountains in western Kansas? I musta missed that part of the drive. 

 Ironwood

[stonebroke]

Actually Eastern Kansas, the trees are hidden in the valleys out of the wind. And,..... a,.... are there mountains in western Kansas? I musta missed that part of the drive. 

 Ironwood

The mountains of western kansas must be all of what 20 or30 feet high. It all in your perspective when everything else is pooltable flat a little hill seems like a mountain.

Stonebroke

[Ironwood]

I was actually stationed at Ft. Riley for a spell. I had alot of time recreating in that area (and driving to Colorado to climb).

     Ironwood

[Kansas]

We don't tell people about our mountains so we can keep them to ourselves, keep the tourists from showing up. And we sure do a good job of that. Trying to find a tourist in Kansas is like trying to find a sympathetic IRS agent.

[Ironwood]

I actually found the sweeping views and vastness of Kansas quite beautiful. I especially like the bluffs and pairie views off I-70. I duck and goose hunted ALOT on the Corps many damns/ resevoirs. Also, almost sunk a pontoon boat on on one of them  Dont ask, lets just say the wind BLOWS fast and 20 HP aint enough to outrun whitecaps 

   Ironwood

[Cedarman]

The chalk cliffs south of Oakley are really neat.  The Fick museum with the sod house and other homesteader things is neat too.

Bliss tried ERC in his pellet machines and it worked fine except it burned too hot.  They mixed it with oak and it worked perfect.  Bark content of cedar is not that large.  Trees that are dead 2 years usually lose a lot of bark in the mulching process.  Also cedar trees that dry with their limbs on dry down to a low moisture content .  You can haul more dry matter per truck load and drying costs are much reduced.  I think it is only a matter of time before more ERC is used in pellet making.

[SwampDonkey]

Yeah, ERC has a lot less moisture than other species when even green. The information on moisture content of different species just has to be taken advantage of. The average moister content green and @ 12 % has been published for years. Doug. Fir is another one, which is almost as dry as your gonna get right off the stump. Might loose a couple pounds per cubic foot, that's it.

[Kansas]

It seems to me the best way to use ERC and wood waste from municipal dumps, cull logs, pallet recyclers, etc. would be to have smaller biofuel generating facilities that would use the wood source from a smaller radius, say 40 miles or so. An operation that wouldn't require the wood to be pelleted, just ground. The Frito-Lay potato chip plant in Kansas is planning on doing that.They are already starting to stockpile wood waste from the city of Topeka. As mentioned earlier, the downside is that those logs won't be available for cutting into lumber. I recently received a call from a guy that cuts lumber from logs he gets there, and he is worried about log supply.
 I keep getting calls from engineering firms out of Kansas City doing feasibility studies on putting in biofuel plants for companies around there, looking for fuel sources. I'm about 90 miles from KC. That seems like its just too far to make work.

The company I referred to actually ships some of their pellets to Europe. I guess those people are already doing the carbon credit thing and they don't have wind or other sources to use as offsetting carbon credits.  I can't quite see the enviromental advantage of making pellets in western Kansas and shipping them to Europe to burn for fuel. Math must have changed since I was in school. They also are putting in equipment that will make a product that can be burned in lieu of coal at power plants.

[Cedarman]

If you can get your material on a barge or in a shipping container on a ship, then shipping costs are relativley small.  A lot of pellets made in the US is heading east.

I agree, Kansas,  why pelletize if ground or chipped wood will work as fuel.

[TwinCut]

I think you guys are right on the mark on this one. Moving this "Fuel" all over the country, never mind the world is crazy! It might make some weird sense now, but what happens when fuel prices go up again. The real trick to all of this is small and local. I think the 40 mile rule is about right. That means the power or heat generating plant needs to be small. What's wrong with that? When the day come that there is no more fuel for a small operation in a local area, move it. Try doing that with a $50 million outfit.

[SwampDonkey]

You guys forget that Europe is paying a lot more for fuel than in the US and more than Canada does to. I still can't figure the pricing out when we are shipping it out as fast as it can be refined. $US dollar be darned, should be a break in price if your net is to export what your producing. Supply and demand I thought was suppose to work. I know it's global market, but it sure ain't a fair trade.

[Gary_C]

The transportation issues will certainly be factored in to the availability, but in the words of one marketing expert, there are a lot of facilities being planned right now with "unrealistic expectations" of what they will have to pay for biomass. Some of the earliest ones were getting free stuff but that has already ended. Now some around here are planning for $25 per ton delivered and that is just not going to work. That price leaves little or nothing for the landowner and barely enough for the processing and trucking. In fact most large loggers that have chippers have already refused to supply chips at that price but it is top secret what they have negotiated.

Would you like to buy a $100,000 chipper that drinks 40 gallons of fuel an hour to supply biomass at $25 per ton?

Perhaps you would if the FSA was kicking in $45 per ton but how long will that taxpayer funded marketing disruption last?

This is one reason that low grade timber sales are bringing so much right now. The big guys with chippers are stocking up for the government (taxpayer) gifts of up to $45 per ton additional over and above the pay price they have negotiated.

[Stan snider]

SD the world price of oil is still in dollars and the price of energy in Europe is near the same as ours but the energy delivery system is being used as a conduit for tax collections. It's government hijacking. Europeans like big government so much that  they are becoming Europeons. . . .  Oooops I just remembered the election of '08.  Stan

[SwampDonkey]

You guys have roads, infrastructure and a lot of military investment to pay for, social security, pensions, unemployment insurance, health care to some degree, subsidized agriculture. Taxation has to pay for those to. But, you do have a lot larger debt per man, woman and child. That costs to, and it keeps adding up.

[240b]

Will the purchasers of chips, etc.  just lower their price per ton delivered and let the feds pick up the slack?  Right now bole wood for schools and state buildings is fetching the same price as processor quailty firewood on my landing. It's amazing what you can sell when somebody needs it. Sold 98 tons of limb wood (size of you arm) the other day, and the guy was greatful to get it. Biomass markets in this area have allowed for better managment of resources. 

[beenthere]

240b
"....in this area..."

Where are you located (nothing in the bio) and what type wood are you talking about?

[240b]

central VT   northern hardwood (mostly sugar maple)

[tughill]

So what size is your arm?  I mean what size wood are they buying, and how much are they paying? By the cord, by the ton, by triaxle load, by tractor trailer load, inquiring minds want to know?  The price of firewood seems to vary a lot, although I imagine up in VT that translates to good $$.  Here in upstate NY I think firewood is probably cheaper.

There is a biomass plant/electric powerplant up the road from me, that used to be the power plant for the local paper mill (now defunct).  I'm not sure what they pay, but I'm told it isn't much, and I don't think they even buy round wood, just chips.  I'll try to get some more concrete info.  The local wood pellet plant doesn't buy round wood, at least as of my last inquiry a couple months ago, but they but sawdust and shavings from other wood manufacturing plants, which are getting scarce, so maybe they will start buying round wood soon.

So around here biomass has kept the price of low grade wood above zero, but not much above zero.  No clear cuts seen so far, don't expect any either.

Trains and ships can carry a lot of biomass fuel, for a small per unit $$, although electric power lines carry the output of that fuel cheaper.  Power plants operate on economy of scale though, much cheaper to put in 1000 megawatt plant then 100 megawatt, and cheaper to put in 100 megawatt than 10 megawatt, on a per unit cost.  Also larger power plants are more efficient in many ways.

In any case, I'd rather buy electricity from a biomass plant than fossil fuel.

I understand Ironwoods concerns, but personally I think it's great that the vast majority of tree service residue will go to reducing our dependance on fossil fuel instead of into filling a landfill somewhere.

[240b]

By limb wood I  mean stuff 5-6" in dia w/ brush taken off 16-20' long, fits on a triaxle truck it is bought by the ton.  Many of the schools around have wood chip fired boilers for heat, along with some state office buildings.   Chips for these systems have to be pretty uniform, so they are made from round wood (no brush).  Chips for the power plants (electric power) are made from the "whole tree" and are uniform but contain needles, leaves and long snipes. I think the handling systems are the achilles heel of the various systems the way I understand it.  So, the whole tree chips are the cheapest for me, followed be bole wood (school wood), then uniform processor wood  and finally sawlogs. The whole trees chips can be any hardwood or softwood. School wood is maple, birch, ash for the guy I sell to. I understand one producer has started to screen them for an even better product.  More and more loggers are begining to have there own chippers so things are becoming more competive.  For me I've choosen to sub out any mechanical work when I have it and keep the better jobs for myself. Better to make a few dollars per ton/cord and let somebody else have the big headaches. When to state of Vt licensed the two power producing plants part of the agreement was to have a staff of foresters to approve the silvicultural treatments and make sure the water quailty standards are being met. Plus the state has a heavy cut law no cutting below the c-line without a permit. So we have a good markets for low grade products and the hills are not denuded. 

[Ron Wenrich]

Biomass in PA has had to run into a lot of roadblocks to make things economical.  The biggest problem is that we have too many other forms of energy to compete with that make the economics impractical, at the present time.  We have coal, coal residue (a lot of them are being used), hydro, nuclear, and all that natural gas that they are starting to drill for.  Then you have the governor pushing wind energy.  We are a net producer of electricity.

Biomass as an energy source just can't compete, especially with coal.  You need to have a secondary user of steam to get the profits.  Electric companies keep the cost of production down to keep away all those other pesky independent producers.  Especially in western PA.

Biomass can work as a stand alone project if you are producing electric for a captive buyer.  An industrial park can make it work.  But, you better have a good source of material. 

If they really wanted an energy source, all they would have to do is burn all that garbage from NY and NJ that they haul into PA every day and dump in our landfills.  Talk about moving material hundreds of miles.  As long as they have roads, there will be truckers to haul it. 

A lot of these projects are talk.  They announce they are going to do it to promote their company and the project.  Then, when they try to make the economics work and bring it together, it falls apart.  I helped put one together a good number of years ago.  It takes about 5 years to get it going.  Getting long term contracts for input material is always a problem.  You're talking a stream of 10,000 tons per megawatt (if memory serves me) every year.  Any disruption in material will result in downtime and loss of income. 

[SwampDonkey]

We have nuclear, natural gas, petroleum out the ying yang and coal as well all within NB. The Minto area has been mining coal since 1635, it was closed up because they lost the local customer. That customer was NB Power, announced it was shutting down one of the most modern coal generating plants in the country and an older one in Dalhousie. The little city of Dalhousie is just about a ghost town, if it weren't for the few hanging onto the past. They aren't shipping coal out of Minto and they even have a rail service by the door step.

A lot has to do with not upsetting those old dinosaurs and the politicing.

[tughill]

240B- what the heck is the 'c line'?  I'm still curious about what the pay price per ton is on this wood, and how it compares to selling firewood logs.  I can buy log length firewood here for about 500$ a large triaxle load (delivered), although even in this area that's the low end and a lot of guys are up in the 8-900$ range.

I completely agree with Ron, the trash from everywhere should be burned for energy, especially large producers like NYC/NJ.  What a waste of fuel to truck this stuff all over, and spoil the good places that are left in the northeast with landfills.

Ultimately wood biomass power generation is manpower and fuel intensive, compared to something like coal, where you just get a giant dozer, knock the top off of a hill somewhere and find hundreds of thousands of tons of coal which can be turned into massive amounts of power with a few men and some giant machinery.  Also, quite a bit of the energy in wood biomass ultimately ends up being used, in one way or another to cook the moisture out of the wood fuel itself, which decreases overall efficiency.  Hydropower costs nearly nothing to run, once the initial capital costs (construction costs) are taken care of, wind turbines are the same.

I think it would be pretty interesting if someone could build a power plant that could burn trash and woody biomass, so if you had a shortage of wood at the time, just dump the old garbage truck in there.

[240b]

If you look at a stocking guide for various timber timber types the c-line is the minium basal area for a stand to produce tree of a certain quailty. I bet one of the foresters  here could explain it better. A tri axle load of wood is 900-1000+ delivered. The price I receive for chips is between me and my buyer.   There are trash burning power plants in this country which produce electric power.   We don't have coal here, hydo is limited, most people here want to shut down the nuke plant. Wind is a pretty hot button topic. Some of the bigger landfills here are burning the methane now.The two plants here are Burlington electric and ryegate power station. The small school plants are becoming very popular.  I believe there made by Messersimth (Sp?). I don't believe any one has ever run out of wood to burn.   State/School contracts have a back up supplier which will come though (@ a price).  I can't remember the amount of oil it takes to produce a ton of chips but its not as much as you'd think. You just can't be trucking them hundreds of miles. As always to boils down to politics.  I just feel lucky to be able have a market that appears stable, for low grade products.   Of course that could change tomorrow.

[Ironwood]

And my education continues, thanks guys.

 Ironwood