New Wood Pellet Plant

[Ken]

Nashwaak Valley Wood Energy Inc, a community based cooperative owned primarily by woodlot owners and contractors has recently begun producing wood pellets for the residential market.  The company was formed over 3 years ago when local pulp mills began to close.  The plan was to provide a local market for low grade softwood pulpwood from local woodlot owners.  I have tried to attach some photos but will try again if they do not show up. 

Cheers
Ken



                                                                                             

[customdave]

Nice pics , neat lookin setup, I bet it can pound out the pellets per hour..


                                   Dave

[SwampDonkey]

I'm sure Ken will provide some more info to the thread as time goes on. It's my understanding that many of the components in the pellet plant are fabricated locally. Ken can correct me there.


I know for sure that last year there was nowhere near enough pellets in the region. With the low grade wood we have on woodlots I'm sure more operations will spring up. You don't have to go far for the wood to feed these operations either. If I wasn't already on a reliable wood heating system and was in the market for a furnace style pellet stove, with good sized hopper, I'd be on it in a minute. I wouldn't even need an oil furnace with a good sized hopper on the pellet furnace. No reason why the government can't allocate some volume of public forest as a back up. The only thing in the way is the politics with the likes of Jim Irving.

[thecfarm]

Looks like a new building.Had one open about about 45 minutes from me in Strong,ME,in an old wood turning mill.It's good for jobs.

[Rocky_Ranger]

This is way cool, got any more pics and/or information?

[Ken]

The plant is designed to produce 2 tonnes/hour.  We are producing close to half of that at this time and are running 24/7.  We have over 125 individual shareholders who have purchased anywhere from 1 to 300 shares.  We used that share capital to leverage additional funds from traditional lenders.  A board of 8 directors have donated thousands of hours to help get this project off the ground.  As mentioned in my previous post the vast majority of the shareholders are woodlot owners or forest contractors who believed that this venture was a good idea.  We have had tremendous support for this community owned cooperative.  Shares are still available for sale for anybody who may be interested. 

The building is 150' x 50' and was purposely built for this application.  Most of the equipment was designed and manufactured locally.  The exception to that is the furnace,rotary drum dryer and associated equipment that was sourced from a company in Kansas.   Our pelletizer is a new double die design that was specifically designed to produce wood pellets. 

Now all we need is some really cold weather.  As a logging contractor cold weather was never really my friend except for freezing down roads and swamps but with a stock pile of wood pellets I am hoping for some frigid weather.  I will try to post some more pictures over the coming days.  We are all very pleased to finally be producing some product after working at this for over 3 years. 

[Rocky_Ranger]

What sort of processor are you using to take the logs to dust?  I can't read the bags, but are you doing softwoods only or a mix?  Paying on weight coming in, how many folks does it take to run the place?  It looks like a fantastic setup, I wish you all the best!  I'd like to see these things become common in our forest related industries.........  I used to have a pellet stove, wish I had one now.  We burned a little over two tons/year in Leadville Colorado, we had three weather forecasts; just quit snowing, snowing, or just about to snow.

[Magicman]

Our Pellet Plant uses paper mill quality wood chips.....96% pure.  The chips go through a hammer mill and then through an extruder to form the pellets.  Moisture content is critical in forming the pellets.

[Rocky_Ranger]

How can you justify your costs for the chips or do you guys not have much competiton for paper-quality chips?   Is yours all softwoods too or do you use hardwoods?  Chips from the sawmills or chipping operation in the woods?

[SwampDonkey]

The competition right now is much reduced since 5 years ago I would say. One of the reasons for the venture. Also, pulp price isn't all that great, might be starting to pickup recently. There isn't much wood being cut for mills in my area right now. One farmer cut 1 load of pulp the last few weeks around here. Just saw the truck go by yesterday. And it was a straight truck. Might have hired him to haul it as firewood is my guess.

[Ken]

Rocky Ranger,

To date we have only been buying softwood species.  Our plans are to use some soft hardwoods in time to mix with our softwood.   We do buy our wood by weight and although we have received a fair bit of spruce and fir a lot of our wood inventory is hemlock and white/red pine.  We had anticipated trouble sourcing wood at the rates we are paying however to date that has not been an issue.  We actually had to shut off deliveries throughout this month as we had too much inventory in the yard. 

Although we are still learning, early results show that the species does not make a great deal of difference in pellet quality as long as we have a consistent moisture content coming out of the dryer.  We use a Schutte Buffalo hammermill with a 5/16" screen to reduce the dry chips to the desired particle size.  During the day when we are debarking and chipping our plant has 4 and sometimes 5 employees and at night the plant is operated by 2 people. 

Cheers
Ken

[Magicman]

How can you justify your costs for the chips or do you guys not have much competiton for paper-quality chips? 

Pellet mills simply give the chip mills another outlet to sell chips to.  When the papermills cut production, as they have now, or go on a maintenance outage, the chip mill/suppliers would hurt worse without this buyer.

[Rocky_Ranger]

Ken

We're on a major N-S highway here but not an interstate, my guess is 50 - 60 loads of logs/day heading south to the paper mill about two hours on down the road.  Some could be turning towards the OSB plant too, but I think it is down right now.  Hardwood and softwood loads, some of the hardwood loads look like brush piles on wheels heading down the road.  I guess 2 tons/ hour for a chip operation is just two loads per day, but seems paper quality chips would be too expensive.  We've got a small (1 ton/hour) pellet mill just starting up, he takes sawdust and says he has all he can use right now.  I hope this stuff really takes off, I was just wondering how the logs are being taken to the 5/16" size all at once?  Must be a heck of a hammer mill.........

[Ken]

RR,

We actually reduce the logs with a 4 knife chipper after putting them through the debarker.  We target a chip size of 3/8".  The chips reach the hammermill only after being dried to around 13-14% MC in the dryer.  In order for us to reach 2 mt/hr of finished product for a 24 hour period we will need somewhere around 120 mt of raw material.  Around 3 trailerloads.

[jason.weir]

In order for us to reach 2 mt/hr of finished product for a 24 hour period we will need somewhere around 120 mt of raw material.

So to produce 48mt it takes 120mt? That's 40% product -  I assume the other 60% goes out as moisture and fuel for the plant.  How much of the plant is wood fired?

Thanks,
Jason

[Ken]

Jason,

Although testing is still underway we suspect that we are using approximately 12-15% of our dried sawdust to fire the burner which creates the heat for the dryer.  The remaining volume goes out the stack as steam.  As our production and efficiencies increase we suspect the proportion of dried material required to create the nominal dryer temperatures will decrease.  The remaining energy required in the plant, with the exception of blood, sweat and tears comes from the power company.  It's too bad that those in charge of power plants and their operation are  not looking more closely at renewable energy sources that we can sustainably grow right here at home. 

Cheers
Ken

[Quebecnewf]

Ken

Very interestin posts. I have a few questions.

In this region over the next couple of years a large hydro electric project will start up. This will as usual mean flooding a certain area and of course this area is covered in spruce and fir. Would a pellet plant be one option that you could put in place along with pulp and saw logs to handle these (to be flooded ) trees. This product  would of course be all "green" or wet.

Would it be feasible (money wise) to set up this type of operation based on so called (free) wood. They have to remove, or should I say can be forced to remove all the trees that are to be flooded and this would be one more thing that could force the issue.

They will try to say if past experence is any indication that the trees are not worth cutting so therefore we can let them be flooded.

Could you set this type of operation be set up for say a period of 10 years before the flooding starts and then be shutdown after all the trees are cut and still turn a profit or even break even.??

Quebecnewf

[Ken]

Quebecnewf,

I guess your question cannot be answered without knowing how much potential product may be flooded and if the significant capital costs for plant construction could be repayed over a certain period.   It is kind of ironic that you ask this question as there was another company who recently shipped us a trailerload of wood from Goose Bay Labrador to test in our plant.  It took a local trucker with 2 drivers over 4 days to land the wood in our yard.  They are facing the same issue.  A very large hydroelectric dam is planned for their area and they want to use the soon to be flooded wood for renewable energy.  The testing done on the wood from Labrador produced very good pellets but the raw material was practically log quality. 

[Rocky_Ranger]

Ken, do you presort or sort at the plant or do you just mainly take material suitable for chips instead of lumber quality?  Also, do you take any dust from the local mills?  How is you demand, seems if ya'll are running 24/7, must be a pretty good show right now.   Having the investors and board is a smart move, did you get any Gvmt $ or is it all personal/investment capital?  This is a cool story, I really enjoy this type of risk and biomass efficiencies ('course, I don't have any $ on the line), but I did when I owned the shavings mill - I know what it takes to make a go of it............<WORK>

[SwampDonkey]

I would think if one compares to last year's demand, no one will have time to sleep to fill the need. There are a number of businesses selling pellet stoves. I know one guy that was stocking up on pellets before fall came.

I don't think government invested much if anything, except some volume off crown land, if that went through. I remember the fabricators up in Nackawick had a few words for the government. At the time they (gov) were handing out money to pulp mills like it was Christmas. There's been lots of gossip and rumours about.

[Gary_C]

There is a fairly new wood pellet plant in Hayward, WI that was built by three large loggers that were frustrated by the local pulp mill's ups and downs. The other reason for building was the available supply of red oak pulpwood and no good markets for anything other than Aspen, Maple, Birch, Basswood or Pine.

Here is their web site:

Great Lakes Renewable Energy, Inc

They also have a lot of information on their site.

[Rocky_Ranger]

Holy Smokes!  Click on this link (Gary_C's, above) and play their movie, turn up your sound and listen to Patsy Cline and Willie Nelson sing............. "Life Is Like A Mountain Railroad"   Outstanding!

[Gary_C]

Those Wisconsin loggers really know how to put on a show. Great music. 

[SwampDonkey]

Ken, you say your using some red pine. Some fellas have figured out red pine is as heavy as red maple when green. It looses 20 lb/ft³ when dried to 12%, balsam fir does to. I'm sure someone has worked out the numbers for the pricing, just thought I'd "toss it into the soup". Elm and black ash are others to loose a lot  of water.

[Quebecnewf]

Ken

The area to be flooded is quite large . I will check on the info I have gathered up and see just how many Sq Klm it is. Almost all of it is covered in trees mostly fir and spruce with some stand of birch and larch.

The thing here is that if we can force HQ to harvest the trees rather than flood over them we all gain. It creates more work for one thing but as far as I am cncerned the main driving point should be that this is a resource and we should use it in the best manner possible. Hydo power is seen as green energy per say but I question how green it is if under the new lake you just created lies thousands and thousands of trees just going to waste and filling the lake with murcery.

This type of project done in Norway would not allow one crumb of the wood resource to go to waste and we must start doing the same in North America.

Its never too early to do the right thing

Quebecnewf

What type of wood did they bring in from Goose??

[thecfarm]

Quebecnewf,good idea there.I would hate to see all that wood go to waste too.How many acres will be flooded?BUT,it will take some planning to get rid of all of the wood.The way the mills are,their yards gets full and they don't want no more.

[tughill]

This is a great success story for all parties involved!

Ken, would you mind telling us roughly how much $ investment is involved here?  I'm assuming millions or maybe tens of millions to build this plant?  Also what is the payoff assumed to be, in years?  Two tons an hours doesn't seem like all that much, but every bit of oil that we don't import from the middle east is a good thing as far as I'm concerned.

Did the designers look into the possibility of generating electrical power from the woodchips to power the plant?  It's probably not economical on this relatively small scale, but it would be a great complimentary business-wood fired power generation plants having some facility located next door that can use waste steam heat that is...plus if both plants use the same fuel/raw material, there would be greater economy of scale, potential cost sharing of material handling equipment.  What is the normal electrical load of such a facility?

Are you able to market the bark for mulch or some other product?

Great job, keep the photos and info coming, this is great stuff!

[Ken]

Tughill,

We haven't looked at this as a success story yet but we are working hard to make it happen.  Our entire investment prior to start-up is pushing $3 million.  Our payoff is expected to be in the neighborhood of 10 years based on our financial projections.  You are right by saying that 2 tonnes/hr is a small plant relative to most but raising enough capital for this size of project was enough of a challenge.  We did look briefly at other options like CHP but our small scale and scarce financial resources limited opportunities to do other things.  We can sell (give away) our bark for hog-fuel but we plan to look at other options after we learn how to make pellets efficiently. 

QuebecNewf,

The wood from Goose Bay was balsam fir and spruce. 

SD,

Although we have not had a lot of red pine we do notice a distinct difference in the amount of heat required to drive off the moisture in pine species as well as hemlock.  Also, to date we have had issues trying to make good pellets by using just pine.  We have been mixing it with other species.

I hope everybody is having a great holiday break.

Cheers
Ken

[Ironwood]

Cool stuff, thanks for taking the time to post. (And my visiting MIL thought all this time spent o nthe 'puter was just entertainment )

   Merry Christmas all.

 Ironwood

[SwampDonkey]

Ken, try some white ash. White ash has the least amount of water of any NB hardwood tree. Very surprising I know but you only have to get rid of 6 lbs/ft³ of water to reach 12 % and it's around 48 lbs/ft³ green. So that's going to help in efficiency. The beech ,hard maple, and  y birch have to give up 12-14 lbs.  Ash being more porous I would think would dry even quicker. White cedar is another low water content tree. Only have to loose 4 lbs and it's real light to begin with. But be careful of the cedar, I think it's risky to handle because of spontaneous combustion. Maybe I'm just over cautious. White pine shouldn't be too bad for water,  around 7 lbs, but can also be risky stuff if there is any of that fine dust floating around.

When your standing on the outside looking in, I've got no idea what's been done with the species used and what approach has been tried. So just remember that.

[Ron Scott]

Those Wisconsin loggers really know how to put on a show. Great music.

 

Ditto! Well done.

[SwampDonkey]

Ken, Marc Blanchard says they at Crabbe lumber have started up a pellet plant. I assume it's on their site in Bristol. They had cleared off a site for a hardwood mill a few years back and I assume they put it in down there. $6 M he said.

[Quebecnewf]

Ken

The area to be flooded for this hydro project is 260 sq km . Thats a pretty big area in my books.

Not all of the area is wooded but the areas that are are all old growth. Some sections have small trees (black spruce) but there are some valleys running back from the river that will yeild some of the biggest and tallest spruce to be found anywhere in eastern Canada. Sure would be a shame to see these trees covered by water and left to rot. If you go to your lumber dealer and ask for a 10 x 10 x 40' spruce you had better be ready to fork over some big dough.

Quebecnewf

[SwampDonkey]

Newf, it's not uncommon to find 30" 100 foot red spruce in protected areas in these parts. Just down the road the neighbors cut a grove of 20-26" white spruce 80-90 feet tall some years back. The village of Perth had red spruce over 3 feet on the but in their protected watershed. I marked and cut some and I invited the  genetics folks from Forestry Canada to come and get some seed from the tops.  I collected a bunch to and had them extracted and preserved in the seed centre. Irving expressed great interest in the seed as well.



Wapske 100 foot red spruce. The one way back. The fir all died out and where just pecker poles.

[Quebecnewf]

When you say red spruce is the wood red or reddish in color. Our spruce is white wood. We have 3 spruce types. Black spruce small tree. Largest in this region will not be more than 8 to 10 " DBH.

We then have a (white spruce) local name not that many around you see them in the woods but they are very scattered. Bigger than black spruce but not as big as the regular spruce.

Then there is (spruce) our biggest tree tall and lean. They make up aboout 20 to 25 percent of the forest the rest is balsam fir.

This wood was always used for boat building in our region. Used for plank and most of the main parts of the boat. The local built boats had no hardwood in them as there was none to be had in this region other than birch which waas not suitable for boats. They did make most of the knees and framing parts out of larch when they could get it but in later years there was none around has they had cut and dug all of it.

Quebecnewf

[Rocky_Ranger]

Not wanting to interrupt yall's spruce discussion, but do we have any idea(r) of how many pellet plants we have or are going in?  I know of one established plant here in Arkansas in Pine Bluff, with a small one already starting operation in Mena, and one going in around Danville.  I've heard Domtar is looking at something similar in SW Arkansas.  One new plant in Kremmling CO - you guys out there probably know more in you neck of the woods. 

Now,  we are entering into agreements for biomass under the NRCS Farm Bill for payments up to $45/ton per dry weight of biomass delivered to qualifying locations.  Is there a thread already underway on this?

It really looks to me like we are ramping up biomass opportunities - ya'll seeing this? 

[SwampDonkey]

There's black and white spruces up your way. White spruce is bigger of the two. Up on the McKenzie R. white spruce is the biggest it grows anywhere. Our red spruce is also a white wood. The tree grows mostly in with hardwoods, but some places here it hybridizes with black on moss covered soil. I thinned a pile of it this summer, thick as dog hair. Not even room for a bunchberry to grow.  In the hardwoods it grows big like white pine. Our white spruce grows mainly along creeks and gullies, recolonizes fields and grows 15-20 feet taller than balsam fir. Fir only gets about 65 feet tall here and ours in northern NB grow larger than in southern NB. About 18" at dbh is about the end of it at 80 years. Grows fast. I cut one a couple years ago 18" and 45 rings on the stump from pith to bark. It blew over in a wind, was growing on a piece of shale, but otherwise like garden soil.

[SwampDonkey]

Rocky it seems to me the Europeans have a couple plants around Georgia and Florida to use in their electric generation plants. Britain I believe just built the biggest power plant to use pellets for generation. The pellets are to be shipped from the USA for the most part. It's all to do with this being "Green" and carbon emissions.

[Rocky_Ranger]

You mean we are exporting pellets?  I hope somebody near one of these super plants comes on and gives some details; I remember one in the Northeast that burned - seemed to me it was a very large output plant but mainly for domestic use.  In fact, I was in Colorado at the time and pellets were in short supply; not only could you not get them but they almost doubled after the plant fire in New England.  They must be around $200/ton right now, I've bought them for $165 and up to $240 for 40# bags - picked up.

[SwampDonkey]

Rocky, that was the trouble around here. All those outfits were exporting them and no one could get enough supply for domestic use.

[tughill]

The company up here is called 'new england wood pellet'

http://www.pelletheat.com/

They have a plant in central NY (Schuyler) are buying a former fiberboard plant in Deposit NY, as well as their main plant in Jaffrey NH.

As far as I know, the plant in schuyler was not buying roundwood, when I talked to a rep about a year ago.  They were using sawdust/chips from other area manufacturing plants...which is hard for me to believe they get enough waste wood from the local sawmills or furniture manufacturing...especially with the economy, these sort of places are not doing well.

Their website says Jaffrey produces 75000 tons a year, and that Schuyler will procure 150000-200000 tons of raw material per year...pretty substantial as far as I can tell...

[Stephen Alford]

 Thanks ken ,very interesting. There is a new wood pellet plant under construction here on the Island. Another new plant making pellets out of straw appears to be shut down.  Stephen

[South Fork]

Any help out there with busines plans? Stuck in a rut and would like any in put. We are in Idaho great feed stock and no jobs and lots of summer fire as well as un used biomass.

[Ken]

Quebecnewf,
Although I have no idea of the forest conditions over the entire area, if my math is correct 260 sq/km would represent approximately 1.3mil m3 of timber if the average, probably conservative estimate, of 50 m3/ha (approx 10 cords/acre for our American friends) is representative of the area in question.  Somebody please correct this comment if I am off base. 

To me it is ludicrous that the powers that be on both sides of the Canadian/American border have not yet realized that we can't always rely on cheap foreign and dirty domestic fossil fuel supplies for our needs.  Although our operation is small in overall size relative to most other pellet plants, this amount of fibre would satisfy our requirements for nearly 40 years.  More than enough time for the payback even at todays interest rates for any loans related to the forest industry. 

Rocky Ranger,
There are megatons of pellets being exported across the Atlantic to countries who realize that renewable, sustainable fuel supplies are the future.  Wouldn't it be great to be using this resource right here at home and helping to revive the forest industry at the same time?  The price of domestic fuel pellets has increased largely because pellet producers have had to use a more expensive raw material for their feed stock, combined with the supply and demand issue from last year.  Beginning late last year the average retail price in the stores of Eastern Canada is $300/ton+. 


Ken

[Rocky_Ranger]

Are your tons and ours the same?  Seems to me maybe metric comes into play - anyway; I heard today $240/ton (2000#/ton).  Pre-season we bought for $175/ton, but that was a five ton minimum.  I say we, but ain't no "me" in it, it was some of my family.  I'm still burning about 10 rick of wood/winter and dealing with all those ashes and dust(s)......  I sure miss my Quadra-fire......

[Gary_C]

I have also heard that a lot of wood pellets are being shipped to the EU and particularly last winter, but in talking to the marketing people at one new pellet plant, they are questioning that assertion. They say that they do not know of any significant exports like everyone believes. Does anyone have any hard facts?

I too could have bought pellets this fall for $160 per ton direct although local price was at least $195 per ton. I think right now the plant is getting $175 out the door but I don't know what the dealers are at for pellets.

And apparently right now inventories are building though it may have been due to poor sales in November and early December. In fact some plants may be scaling back production so as to not get too far ahead.

[SwampDonkey]

There have been several conferences on biofuel, Gary. The folks involved in pellets said most product in this region was exported. There weren't a great many producers at the time, but the domestic market was pretty much being overlooked. So other then getting it from the horse's mouth, like this case, I would almost think there were some big speculators involved or a bunch or nay sayers that always appear on the scene. Many of these larger outfits that started up awhile back were funded by government loans and grants. Government generally thinks of the export market , that's what most of the forest industry is based on up here. I just did a Google search and ACOA (government grants) is handing out money to a commercial sawmill ($2M) to put in a pellet plant and Briquette plant. The provincial government is topping that up with another $5M. The project is $11M. That's without digging to deeply into it. New Brunswick has an allocation of $100M from the Feds from a $1B nation wide economic stimulus over a 2 year period. This plant addition will allow them to produce an estimated 50,000 tons of pellets and 8,000 tons of briquettes. Export sales are expected to reach more than $9 million.

[Gary_C]

Yes, but export sales for those producers may be to the US, not the EU as everyone thinks.

I know that last winter there were pellet shortages and the one new plant I know about in WI just came online in the middle of the winter and was pretty much sold out. That was probably because they were late getting started and had commitments in hand. And I've heard of many plants that started up last year, but I don't know of them specifically.

Here in the upper midwest, there has always been a market for pellet stoves and pellets and it has been served in small towns by local hardware stores. I know of any number of people that have homes in the country that burn pellets and buy their pellet supply in the early fall and the local hardware store would even deliver them in bags and stack them in the garage for them. And there may have been just a few pellet plants that have traditionally supplied that market. And pellets are an excellent product for those that do not want the mess and work of firewood.

Now because of this biomass thing and of course government grants and stimulus money, we may be entering a time when the supply of pellets may exceed the demand. I suspect pellets may have a good future, but the demand must catch up with burgeoning supplies. I know that some industrial accounts and some local school districts are converting to pellets, but a lot more of that needs to happen to keep up with the rapidly expanding production.

So what I am saying is before you jump into production or investment in pellet production, you better know for sure where the demand is located and not just some stories of huge exports to Europe that may or may not exist.

And then there is the supply of biomass. In this part of the country, there are far more people and companies that have ideas and uses for the supply of biomass than there is supply of wood. That may not be true in some areas like the west where there is all that bug killed pine, but here the existing users are already fighting over the biomass supply and the loggers are right now so desperate for business they are reluctantly filling that demand. And that is why one WI DNR marketing official has said there are people out there with unrealistic expectations for what they can obtain biomass for their expected production. I could see exactly what he was saying when there was and now is a large power plant converting to biomass and planning to pay around $25 per ton for wood biomass and that is just not going to happen.

And then there is coal for competition. I have no idea what coal costs these large plants and they keep it very quiet, but I suspect it is very competative at that $25 per ton price for biomass. But there are also stories that coal will be taking huge jumps in price as many 20 year old contracts are now expiring. And coal fired plants would be hit with huge carbon taxes or capital improvements if this cap and trade thing ever passes.

So it looks to me like this biomass thing including wood pellets is going to be a wild ride for some time.

[SwampDonkey]

It's the European market, there are two plants in the SE US for the European market to. They have said so themselves, not hearsay.

[Ken]

Rocky Ranger,

Our tonnes (2200 lbs) are 10% larger than yours so it is a significant difference.


Gary C,

There is lots of talk of the burgeoning European pellet market and there are producers from North America who are shipping product there but the only producers able to do so are much larger than we are.  In order to justify the logistics of shipping product across the ocean the shipment has to be large.  If I am not mistaken the Shaw group here in northern NB do ship the vast majority of their production  from that plant out of the Port of Belledune to a power plant overseas.  I agree that the pellet market here in NA will be unstable for the foreseeable future as long as the "powers that be" do not begin to promote this as a viable, locally renewable fuel source.  Just think of the opportunities if we were to start using this resource to heat our hospitals, schools, office complexes as well as our homes.  Not to mention that we could be replacing some of the non-renewable fossil fuels that are being burned in our power plants.   I do agree that the biomass industry will be in for a wild ride for some time but the strong will survive and thrive over time.

I hope everybody had a great holiday season and that 2010 will mark the beginning of the forest industry recovery.


Cheers
Ken

[Black_Bear]

Tughill,

I visited the Jaffrey plant in May 2009 and they were chipping roundwood on site with a chain flail debarking chipper. They weren't actually chipping while we were there, but they were set up to do so and had been chipping in the days prior to our visit. As you know, times change fairly quickly in the northeast, usually season to season, and you were dead on about the waste/sawdust market. They couldn't procure enough waste material to satisfy their demands so they had to start buying chips.

The chief designing engineer was very knowledgable about the operations of the plant and stated that he had visited Europe numerous times to get ideas for the Jaffrey and Schulyer plants. He also stated that the EU was light years ahead of us in pellet production.

I'm surprised that there are interior pictures of the NB plant on the internet. We weren't allowed to take pictures in Jaffrey and they were reluctant to give us specific information about their processes.

Ed

[tughill]

Black bear, do you know if they are buying round wood down here in schuyler?  I'm wondering what they are paying and what the specs are for round wood, ie, are they buying pulp logs, tree length etc.

[stonebroke]

In Nothern Logger there was a story about a logger selling inwoods debarked chips to Schuyler but I don't think they take roundwood. Eventually they probably will have to with the decline in wood using and processing businesses in upstate NY.

Stonebroke

[Quebecnewf]

Very interesting posts guys.

The way I am looking at this HQ dam project is that all wood should be removed before it is flooded no exceptions. Even if it does not make money per say to harvest some of the smaller and less (easy to harvest) etc trees. The money that will be made selling the 1500 MW of electricity once the project is done will more than ofset any amounts that are spent cutting trees.

For those of you who are not aware Hydro Quebec is next to god in the provence of Quebec and to try to force them to do something they don't want to do is no small task. It will be very interesting to see how it all shakes out.


Quebecnewf

[Black_Bear]

No, I don't know what the Schuyler plant is buying.

[Samuel]

This plant looks impressive.  Where is is located exactly?  Its good to see Forestry in NB is still moving forward..there are days I miss being there.

[SwampDonkey]

I think it's on route 620 between Tay Mills and Stanley.

[Samuel]

Ok...after a quick Google I remember now where that is.  I should come home for a visit.  Its coming up on 15 years here this summer.

[SwampDonkey]

If your in Fredericton, you go out what we call the Royal Road, that turns into the 620 out past the basaltic rock bluff.

[Ken]

Swamp Donkey / Samuel

The plant is actually located approximately 35 km north of Fredericton on Route 8 in Nashwaak Bridge. 

On another note (to all), take a few minutes and back up your computer files. The harddrive on my 5 month old laptop crashed nearly a week ago and I just got it back from the retailer where I purchased it.  I suspect there are many other forumites who don't back up their computer as often as they should.  Not sure yet what all I lost but losing any sucks.

Cheers

[SwampDonkey]

Thanks Ken. They always say near Stanley. Why don't they just say Nashwaak Bridge?  Media, eh?

[Ed_K]

yes puter backup,i'm using a netbook tonight as the big one is not back from the fake windows security that totally killed it.

[steveforest]

The power plant pellets are different from residential wood stove pellets. Industrial pellets are larger and have different specs.