do they really export pellets

Abou

ad356 said:

i have heard from a couple suppliers that part of the reason prices are so high is that they export allot of the pellets in order to drive up the price. if that's true they also create an artificial shortage in the dead of winter further driving up price. man, im sick of the greed in the country

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They export far more overseas than what we use....

Dan

If your sick of greed maybe you should lead by example and tell your employer you'll work for free.

If you don't want to buy a product... Don't!

Most of the ones that are exported overseas are industrial so a bigger size pellet that is used for electrical generation. Pellets made in Thunder Bay and Atikokan are industrial pellets used by Ontario Hydro. These pellets reduce available feed stock for domestic pellet production. Then there is pellet use for spills in the oil patch operations. That is what happened with Heartland pellets out of North Dakota a couple of years back ... left me using Indeck pellets for the remainder of the year

The Grintch said:

If your sick of greed maybe you should lead by example and tell your employer you'll work for free.

If you don't want to buy a product... Don't!

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No one is asking for free pellets.

chrisasst said:

No one is asking for free pellets.

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I am ................

hossthehermit said:

I am ................

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Ok well if you have a job I guess you can have them not pay you. There are always exceptions. [emoji106]

ad356 said:

i have heard from a couple suppliers that part of the reason prices are so high is that they export allot of the pellets in order to drive up the price. if that's true they also create an artificial shortage in the dead of winter further driving up price. man, i'm sick of the greed in the country

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They don't export to drive up the price. Because there is a huge export market raw materials are becoming more valuable. That drives up the price.

There is no artificial shortage.
There is lack of storage, just as there is with gas, oil and heck even bananas.

YES

Europe Massive Municipal Boilers Burning Wood Pellets (Forbes)

chrisasst said:

Ok well if you have a job I guess you can have them not pay you. There are always exceptions. [emoji106]

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I don't have a job any more, that got exported as well .................

Its simple economics, domestic consumption is very small , European consumption is very high and clamoring for more. We have multiple fuel sources stateside within are borders which at any time can be considerably less cost to use than pellets- european countries do not. So if I can ship a freighter full of pellets over seas for a max price rather trying to compete with the current pricing of NG, coal & oil stateside what would you do as a business owner?
Pellets here are a convenience/ augumentary item for most users, not a primary heating system. ( same for cord wood burners, course minus the convenience, but there are the compressed blocks to fix that nit pic) members here are but a small fraction of the equation.

As Lake Girl pointed out, most of the exported pellets are for biomass power plants overseas and very likely governed by long-term delivery contracts that preceded the current run-up in domestic pellet prices. Pellet manufacturers invested then in the production facilities for those specific "pellets" and not into small residential pellets sold in bags. Even if they could now sell them for a higher price her in the US the required investment and changes in operating procedures could make that easily into a losing proposition.

This link is a little frightening in that some pellet manufacturers that are looking to export are using whole trees ...
http://www.nrdc.org/energy/forestsnotfuel/

The good, the bad, the ugly
http://switchboard.nrdc.org/blogs/slyutse/new_site_spotlights_good_bad_u.html

Lake Girl said:

This link is a little frightening in that some pellet manufacturers that are looking to export are using whole trees ...
http://www.nrdc.org/energy/forestsnotfuel/

The good, the bad, the ugly
http://switchboard.nrdc.org/blogs/slyutse/new_site_spotlights_good_bad_u.html

Click to expand...

Some biomass users will claim to be using only "waste" wood but one big change I've seen here is instead of houses being built one at a time with lots being cleared of trees one lot at a time a developer comes in and builds 10 or 20 houses with the lots being stripped bare 10-40 acres at a time. Now 20 years ago a logger would come in, usually with two log trailers, one for logs to the lumber company and one for what the lumber company wouldn't want which went to a pulp mill usually or to guys cutting log loads for firewood. Now someone with a tree grasper/cutter on a excavator comes in and spends a day or two cutting all the trees within a inch or two of the ground, takes that off, puts a grapple on, a tree chipper gets wheeled in and all those trees get ground up and blown into a tractor trailer as chips. 10-40 acres wiped clean in a week. Nothing got turned into building lumber, paper or firewood. 100% biomass, complete new double-speak definition of "waste wood".

Biomass, renewable energy and carbon neutral definitions are causing some issues too. Not taking sides on politics but an interesting and long-reaching debate is occurring that will effect multiple countries for years to come ...
http://switchboard.nrdc.org/blogs/slyutse/scientific_and_political_conse.html