250,000 tons per year - European biomass boiler to by from Northwest

  • Active since 1995, Hearth.com is THE place on the internet for free information and advice about wood stoves, pellet stoves and other energy saving equipment.

    We strive to provide opinions, articles, discussions and history related to Hearth Products and in a more general sense, energy issues.

    We promote the EFFICIENT, RESPONSIBLE, CLEAN and SAFE use of all fuels, whether renewable or fossil.
Status
Not open for further replies.

peakbagger

Minister of Fire
Jul 11, 2008
8,776
Northern NH
I noticed a short article in Power Magazine that a new 150 MW biomass power boiler in Europe had signed a deal to source 250,000 tons per year of wood pellets from a plant in the Northwest US. These would be industrial grade pellets, but if they are willing to pay to ship all the way from Washington state to Europe, most likely it signals that pellets are not going to be going down in price over the long term.

There is also a big new plant proposed in Baldwin Me which is going after European sales.

Edited to add proposed
 
peakbagger said:
I noticed a short article in Power Magazine that a new 150 MW biomass power boiler in Europe had signed a deal to source 250,000 tons per year of wood pellets from a plant in the Northwest US. These would be industrial grade pellets, but if they are willing to pay to ship all the way from Washington state to Europe, most likely it signals that pellets are not going to be going down in price over the long term.

There is also a big new plant in Baldwin Me which is going after European sales.

There ain't no pellet plant in Bladwin, Maine yet and if that turns out like the one that was going to be up Hoss's way, let's not count our pellet plants before they have been built.
 
I edited the post to say proposed plant in Baldwin.

The industrial market is different than the residential market with lots of demand for indutrial pellets. FB Wood in Baldwin does have a large saw mill operation that would be a good fit for an industrial pellet plant and reasonable access to a port to ship them from.
 
I have no knowledge of the buisiness but it seems to me that Russia has HUGE amounts of forested land and it would be cheaper to build a pellet plant in that country....

There must be more to the story... how long can ONE pellet plant produce that much fuel? 10 years?
 
Millsk said:
I have no knowledge of the buisiness but it seems to me that Russia has HUGE amounts of forested land and it would be cheaper to build a pellet plant in that country....

There must be more to the story... how long can ONE pellet plant produce that much fuel? 10 years?

Through my work, I have decent exposure to the export wood fiber market and the Europeans pay more for fuel pellets than we do for home heating. Silly, but true. Electricity is SO expensive in Europe and they are so committed to renewable energy, they are willing to pay upwards of $165 USD per ton, delivered. The weakness of the dollar helps offset some of those costs. Shipping is in the neighborhood of 40 bucks per ton, so that leaves the producer 125 bucks per done, before logistics to produce store large enough quantities to fill a ship. 250k tons per year is "nothing". There is over 1.25 million tons of pellets headed to Europe from the SE portion of the States alone.

Fortunately or unfortunately, our fiber is like Chinese labor = cheap and abundant. Fortunately our Forest Industry is so good, they can outpace demand allowing for sustainable practices without much overall impact. Some would argue that, but that seems to be the consensus after all the meetings and conferences I've attended. Last thing we want is over management, slow growth, bugs and fires.

Also, remember, it takes well over 500k tons to produce 250k tons of pellets (moisture, slash, wood energy to dry, etc).

News you can use if you choose. :)
 
I attended the Biomass Conference in Toronto a few weeks ago. The training was primarily on regulations, exports high level stuff but what I got out of this Asia (Korea in particular) Northern Europe who are trying to unshackle themselves from Russian oil are heavily investing into Biomass (including pellets, chips) for the future. The projections are huge!

Therefore a lot of US & Canadian companies will benefit from exporting such fuel around to world for a long time to come.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.