Biomass Magazine (Wood pellets a hot commodity across U.S.)

Wish the producers that aren't up to capacity would ramp it up!

Lake Girl said:

Wish the producers that aren't up to capacity would ramp it up!

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I may have to look to them if things start to run out here.

http://www.northernontariobusiness..../2013/08/New-Liskeard-pellets-Euro-bound.aspx

More popular than .22LR shells.

Eric

kinsmanstoves said:

More popular than .22LR shells.

Eric

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They are when it's this cold was -31 C

Boomhour, does KD sell locally or only ship overseas? Cheer up warmer weather coming - temps are up to 0C compared to -37C (over night low) a couple of nights ago.

Did you see on page 10 (of the paper copy at least) the chart for projected biomass usage? I was surprised to see a projected DECLINE in the residential sector for wood biomass products. I was also a little surprised how big the residential sector was for biomass... almost double of the Electric Power Sector, half of the Industrial sector, and about 5x higher than the Commercial sector. Of course this is Biomass total, not just pellets.

There used to be a lot more biomass plants in Maine in the 80's/90's, but several got shut down over politics I'm told. I think there might have been other factors at hand as well though.

Is the residential sector for biomass topping out? However, wood stocks will be fought over as more electric generation and industrial projects come on-line... (couldn't find the info on-line)

The Maine bio-mass decline - due to diminished government support or the way forestry wood allotment is handled?

Lake Girl said:

Is the residential sector for biomass topping out? However, wood stocks will be fought over as more electric generation and industrial projects come on-line... (couldn't find the info on-line)

The Maine bio-mass decline - due to diminished government support or the way forestry wood allotment is handled?

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Doubtful residential is topped out. Pellet boilers/furnaces are just catching on. IMO I don't think electric generation from wood biomass will grow much. It's efficiency is too dependent regionally. Other faster growing crops maybe .

Lake Girl said:

Is the residential sector for biomass topping out? However, wood stocks will be fought over as more electric generation and industrial projects come on-line... (couldn't find the info on-line)

The Maine bio-mass decline - due to diminished government support or the way forestry wood allotment is handled?

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I was too young to professionally know about it at the time so it's all hearsay to me. I have several guys in my plant that used to work for shut down biomass plants power plants... the general consensus seems to be something about deregulation of power companies and all the little 1-10MW biomass plants getting bought up since they were cheap competition to pick off.

One was an apparently a smooth running plant that just got sold and the plug pulled in the mid 90's. Another (recently) worked at twin plants that were built in the 80s but have had some issues recently... he bailed ship as one of the facilities was apparently going under.

I rode my my motorcycle out to the old Deblois peet moss plant last summer and struck up a conversation with one of the fellows harvesting peet. I asked if there was hope of starting the facility back up and he said the new owner blew some one-time chance with permitting so it will never happen apparently. The plant was made to burn peet moss since there was an apparent 30 year supply right there to burn off of. My boss applied for a job there once and told me things were dodgy... the peet wasn't burning as expected. The co fired on wood chips for several years but it all got shut down. Now they make fertilizer for Scotts with the peet.

Even our facility used to have a wood chip boiler in the 80's. They cheaped out on several systems that made the unit very problematic in auto and required doubling up engineers on all shifts... even though it was apparently a very nice machine. The excuse of a baghouse fire that required a relatively minor fix gave them the opportunity to move back to oil boilers and trash the biomass project (and cut the watch standing engineers in half again). Oil in the late 80's was VERY cheap compared to the early 80's when the plant was built... perhaps that is related to some of the problem as well across the rest of the region?

BrotherBart said:

No kidding. My electric co-op just spent a bazillion dollars of member's capital investment in the place to build a slash plant in Virginia.

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Prolly work , you guys have that longleaf and loblolly pine that makes a ton of chitwood on jobs. Was an hour or so west of Norflok a year ago and the land they were clearing for farming was incredible. Burn the slash in piles or in a cogen plant whatever trips their trigger. Hopefully they have CHP (combined heat and power) in mind and a future retrofit to burn trash.

Lake Girl said:

Boomhour, does KD sell locally or only ship overseas? Cheer up warmer weather coming - temps are up to 0C compared to -37C (over night low) a couple of nights ago.

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Lake Girl, from what I understand they will sell locally but you have to bag them yourself. The pellets are also 8 mil vs. 6 mil and may be a problem for some stoves. All though I did hear a rumour that the will be making domestic pellets, still trying to get my hands on some. It was a beauty day here, went all the way up to -4 C with lots of sun for a change.

BrotherBart said:

For the $178 million the thing cost, including putting us on the hook for a $90 mil loan, it better do more than I can possible ever imagine it doing.

https://www.novec.com/About_NOVEC/SBE.cfm

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Sheesh that's right where I was. Theres a big landfill close to Franklin. They may have waste to energy in mind for a future fuel source.

The problem with biomass power production was the price of the power. Without a really good contract, you can't get enough money for the electricity to pay for the cost of production. Electricity prices have skyrocketed now so biomass is looking much better.
A lot of paper mills have produced their own power with biomass generators for years. Even when electricity used to be cheap, it was still a cost savings for them as they have some biomass by-products (they buy much of their biomass though) and by producing on-site they avoid the absurdly overpriced transmission and demand charges from the local utilities. Plus as an added bonus, they aren't affected by outages or grid overloads.

With this winter being so cold, humidity has dropped significantly. This likely had a part in the explosion at the local biomass boiler...
http://www.fftimes.com/node/267001

From what I have heard, the employee is hanging in there but was airlifted to Toronto.

Unfortunately, this pulp/paper mill is shutting down in the next month ... not sure of it's future. They were doing clean-up in prep for shut-down.The biomass boiler construction was just completed about 2009.

A successful business person should always have a solid plan. Most of these clowns don't have a clue. MWP hasn't shipped to my dealer in over a month . The cold is freezing the vent stacks so he can't run his mill. Most ridiculous thing I've ever heard. Bet you could design a heater to keep it clear, might even run on pellets. Laceretes are stuck in Toronto because the track switcher is frozen. Isn't winter always cold? With all the people out of work I think I could find some help,to run another shift.

While you are not alone in your frustration, How can you plan for weather events like this that haven't happened for 30 years? and are either the coldest or within the top 4 coldest winters ever recorded? To give you some idea of the extremes of temperature we've been having ... temps around New Years were very similar to the lowest temperature ever recorded in Connecticut (-37oF) in Norfolk, 1943 bottoming out at -43F on January 2. Yeah, we're used to cold but not this cold for this long. Toronto and those travelling LaCretes are in the same situation. First time Lake Erie has frozen all the way across since the 1970s.

Raw materials for pellets are still standing in the bush. Not much logging going on in the area - not worth the risk to people or equipment with those temperature extremes. Machine parts don't tolerate those temps without the risk of breakdown and who wants to try to fix equipment in the middle of nowhere in -30F? (not to mention additional cost - eats up whatever wages you may have made) Sometimes you just have to wait it out - it's been a longer wait this year. Just this last week the lows were between -18 and -36F when the historical average is 3 to 6 above.

As to the frozen stacks at MWP, ask his engineer. They use statistical norms and then factor in a margin of error. Have you seen what happens to boiling water in temperature extremes? Steam would be even worse... Dad volunteered to have a pot of boiling water thrown at him (-38F). He had two small droplets of ice land on his jacket.

It's the coldest winter in 20 years for us and I'm sure it's same for you all, but no shortage here at all. My dealer has 20 pallets on hand and can get 40 a week delivered if he wants it.

wwert said:

A successful business person should always have a solid plan. Most of these clowns don't have a clue. MWP hasn't shipped to my dealer in over a month . The cold is freezing the vent stacks so he can't run his mill. Most ridiculous thing I've ever heard. Bet you could design a heater to keep it clear, might even run on pellets. Laceretes are stuck in Toronto because the track switcher is frozen. Isn't winter always cold? With all the people out of work I think I could find some help,to run another shift.

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Most ridiculous thing I've heard too. Production is always higher in the summer but the mill is still running as much as possible. Drying frozen wood takes more energy and equipment seems to break down more during the winter. September and October averaged 302.4 tons per day. January and February averaged 271.6 tons per day. This is 24 hours per day, 7 days a week with a 1/2 day shutdown every 10 to 14 days for maintenance. Maine Woods Pellet has been at 100% capacity for over 4 years. Production was actually over 100% capacity in 2013. Pellet mills that are running at full capacity right now, in the northeast anyway, aren't doing it because they are making a lot of money. With the price of power as incredibly high as it is right now, and the energy required to dry pellets increased, there's not much money in making pellets right now. But, people need heat. And right now, demand exceeds capacity. The only decrease in production is due to cold weather making it more difficult and the fact that the 15,000 ton stockpile was gone by mid November so pellets can only be shipped as they are made.

Another thing about running at full capacity: I've seen a lot of stories recently about mills that weren't running at full capacity. I can tell you from experience that it's much more difficult to operate at 100% than at 80% capacity. I'm not saying the quality necessarily suffers, but it takes a lot more work and effort to reach and stay at 100% production. Not just 100% of what you can make but 100% of nameplate capacity, which sometimes seems to be a different value. It's one thing to peak out at 16 tons per hour for example, but another thing entirely to average 13.5 tons per hour for an entire year. Every one of the plants that are at full capacity are working very hard.

It sounds like there's some miscommunication between shipping and the end retailer. Unfortunately, in a situation like this, someone is going to get upset. It is much better for the mill to make sure that someone isn't its largest customers.

The article mentions "working capital" is required to ramp up production during the off season. That statement makes it sound like profit margins on pellets are small.

What's going to happen is this....like the power outages we suffered few years ago and you couldn't find a generator anywere, now there everywere including grocery stores, next year or later this spring we will be flooded with pellets, which will bring the price down, next winter could be the warmest ever...who knows!!

Don't know about the others, But I am stuffing as soon as I can find refills. I bet everyone else does too this season.

May take a while for things to settle down some??

No better teacher then experience. Wondering the dynamics of this shortage my self.