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New Wood Pellet Plant

Started by Ken, December 20, 2009, 09:32:58 PM

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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



                                                                                             






Lots of toys for working in the bush

customdave

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


                                   Dave
Love the smell of sawdust

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.
"No amount of belief makes something a fact." James Randi

1 Thessalonians 5:21

2020 Polaris Ranger 570 to forward firewood, Husqvarna 555 XT Pro, Stihl FS560 clearing saw and continuously thinning my ground, on the side. Grow them trees. (((o)))

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.
Model 6020-20hp Manual Thomas bandsaw,TC40A 4wd 40 hp New Holland tractor, 450 Norse Winch, Heatmor 400 OWB,YCC 1978-79

Rocky_Ranger

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

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. 

Lots of toys for working in the bush

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.
RETIRED!

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.
Knothole Sawmill, LLC     '98 Wood-Mizer LT40SuperHydraulic   WM Million BF Club Member   WM Pro Sawyer Network

It's Weird being the Same Age as Old People

Never allow your "need" to make money to exceed your "desire" to provide quality service.....The Magicman

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?
RETIRED!

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.
"No amount of belief makes something a fact." James Randi

1 Thessalonians 5:21

2020 Polaris Ranger 570 to forward firewood, Husqvarna 555 XT Pro, Stihl FS560 clearing saw and continuously thinning my ground, on the side. Grow them trees. (((o)))

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
Lots of toys for working in the bush

Magicman

Quote from: Rocky_Ranger on December 22, 2009, 11:48:54 AM
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.
Knothole Sawmill, LLC     '98 Wood-Mizer LT40SuperHydraulic   WM Million BF Club Member   WM Pro Sawyer Network

It's Weird being the Same Age as Old People

Never allow your "need" to make money to exceed your "desire" to provide quality service.....The Magicman

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.........
RETIRED!

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.

Lots of toys for working in the bush

jason.weir

Quote from: Ken on December 22, 2009, 01:24:27 PM
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
Lots of toys for working in the bush

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. 
Lots of toys for working in the bush

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>
RETIRED!

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.
"No amount of belief makes something a fact." James Randi

1 Thessalonians 5:21

2020 Polaris Ranger 570 to forward firewood, Husqvarna 555 XT Pro, Stihl FS560 clearing saw and continuously thinning my ground, on the side. Grow them trees. (((o)))

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.
Never take life seriously. Nobody gets out alive anyway.

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!
RETIRED!

Gary_C

Those Wisconsin loggers really know how to put on a show. Great music.  8)
Never take life seriously. Nobody gets out alive anyway.

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.
"No amount of belief makes something a fact." James Randi

1 Thessalonians 5:21

2020 Polaris Ranger 570 to forward firewood, Husqvarna 555 XT Pro, Stihl FS560 clearing saw and continuously thinning my ground, on the side. Grow them trees. (((o)))

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??

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