Coal plant conversion to pellets.... Bad news for us or not?

[evil]

I was reading that some plants in Ontario are looking to convert from coal to wood pellets. I guess they don't know that the prices are still way over what they should be. Any thoughts?

 

[Bank]

May not be so bad, most of the large industrial pellet users tend to use the lower grade pellets..The cost would most likely be prohibitive for them. I HOPE..

 

[Dr_Drum]

Doesn't sound feasible to me. Coal has double the BTU's and cheaper. Maybe there's tax incentives for cleaner technologies that could offset the difference and make it more attractive?
Mike -

 

[Kenny1]

OPG (Ontario Power Generation) is looking at it. New mills will provide the pellets (see https://www.hearth.com/econtent/index.php/forums/viewthread/35437/ and other similar threads)

OPG will be using industrial grade pellets. These are not typically used in the residential market. They are made using whole trees, bark and all (higher ash).

 

[peakbagger]

There is a process called torrefication where wood is thermally processed then formed into dense pellets that have a much higher BTU content than conventional wood pellets. This is being proposed in many areas for replacing a portion of the coal in a power plant.

 

[ffspeed]

Do they really burn pellets. That seems like a lot of waste and work. They have a plant in upstate new york, and they burn wood chips. I have seen them clearing land for the trees, and later built houses. The trees are chipped into a tractor trailer, and trucked up north. They have crews bringing in wood chips from all over. They ever take scrap wood, that they grind up and burn.

 

[peakbagger]

I do biomass plants as part of my living. Generally a biomass plant is located where the trees are at as the chips are around 50% mositure content. Thats a lot of water to truck around, so the plants tend to be small so that they only need to draw wood from a 50 mile radius or less. Pellets are darn close to bone dry, with little mositure so they can be trucked farther making it attractive for big power plants. They also can be shipped across borders as the heat requred to process them kills all the potential for invasive species. Biomass is also very non uniform and a pain to move around and requires custom handling systems. As the BTU content per pound and per cubic foot is much lower for biomass, the custom handling equipment has to be a lot bigger than coal equipment. Pellets are a lot more uniform and tend to flow much easier and can be processed with coal equipment, therefore they are a easy way to paritally displace coal in a boiler for environmental purposes.

Woodburners talk about cords of wood, biomass plants and pellet fuled power plants talk about tons per day. One of the plants I worked on bought 40 to 50 tractor trailer loads of biomass a day. If carbon credits go mandatory, there is a distinct possibility that the price of low grade wood is going to go up substantially impacting firewood and pellet prices.

 

[timbo]

If carbon credits go mandatory, there is a distinct possibility that the price of low grade wood is going to go up substantially impacting firewood and pellet prices.

It seems we're damned if we do, damned if we don't anymore :-(