Competition with Schools

Here's the kicker ... "Athens gets its pellets from a mill in Massachusetts for $220 a ton, including delivery. The school burned 46 tons of pellets in the winter of 2013-14 "

Natural gas is within a few hundred feet of that school now. It will be interesting to see if they convert.

If they don't convert, they are ripping off the taxpayers as most school boards do on a regular basis.

Lake Girl said:

Here's the kicker ... "Athens gets its pellets from a mill in Massachusetts for $220 a ton, including delivery. The school burned 46 tons of pellets in the winter of 2013-14 "

Click to expand...

Only 46 tons? Judging from some people's use of 9 tons (and mine at 5-6 tons), that is a really low number. Of course that is with a pellet boiler instead of just a space heater, I just would have imagined them using more than that.

Lake Girl said:

Here's the kicker ... "Athens gets its pellets from a mill in Massachusetts for $220 a ton, including delivery. The school burned 46 tons of pellets in the winter of 2013-14 "

Click to expand...

Pellets that were bound for export???
Animal bedding ???
IIRC Mass. is heading for zero waste like a few other states. Construction debris pellets????
Those boilers can burn any pellet out there. Likely not a pellet stove pellet.

JustWood said:

Pellets that were bound for export???
Animal bedding ???
IIRC Mass. is heading for zero waste like a few other states. Construction debris pellets????
Those boilers can burn any pellet out there. Likely not a pellet stove pellet.

Click to expand...

Ours does, not just pellets, wood chips as well. Depends entirely on the flighting spacing and diameter as well as the horsepower of the drive. With ours, you input relative moisture content and approximate fuel weight per given volume (usually how much fits in a 5 gallon pail levelled off) into the boiler computer and then the computer develops the correct alogrithm for burning that fuel efficiently at variuos steam demand levels, plus it stores in memory, that alogrithm so you can return to it without having to 'learn' the parameters again.

Ours burns just about anything combustible that will traverse the auger without jamming. We run a clairifier/seperator upstream in the fuel feed that insures the fuel fragment size is commensurate with flighting spacing plus magnetic seperation to remove all metal contamination (we use mostly wood chips from municipal tree trimming operations). Thats not to say that non ferrous trash don't get by but that mostly liquifies at firebox temperatures (1200-1600 f) and gets cleaned out with the ash/clinkers and disposed of in a landfill.

I think residental units are a bit more particular in fuel demands. But then ours wasn't a couple grand install cost either. More like a million 5.

I was looking at the price but volume purchases would drive down the cost. I've never seen that price here I think that a "biomass" burner would be a better option long term - like the one Sidecar refers to. Municipal chipping waste makes a whole lot of sense rather than relying on pellet production, delivery and storage. Guess the price tag reflects the ability to handle generic materials.

Sidecar, do they have a drying unit that will bring down moisture content as part of the process?

The article says the Saranac Town Hall (one of the places featured in the article) is close to Currans - maybe that is why their pellet quality went downhill this year (for me anyway) - they are serving the government boiler users close to their plant.

Lake Girl said:

Sidecar, do they have a drying unit that will bring down moisture content as part of the process?

Click to expand...

No. Unless the fuel is way up in RM (like over 25%) as in real green, just cut and chipped willow), it's a non-issue. The bioler senses the RM of the fuel flow with resistance shoes placed in the fuel stream and adjusts the firing alogrithm to compensate for the RM through feed rate, overfire and underfire air delivery and actual firebox temperature as obtained from firebox thermo sensors.

Nothing between the fuel floor (where dump trucks dump their chips) and the firebox except clairification.

We do have a large Clearspan building open on each end (for ventilation) that we store chips in and a wheel loader to move them around because if we are running extremely green wood, the stack emissions climb to unacceptable levels (remember, as a commercial wood fueled boiler we get monitored by the EPA and state regulatory agencies vis a compoter link directly tied into the boiler control computer) so we will mix in drier material to balance the wet and dry feedstock.

I'd like to take pictures of the operation but I cannot. Like most industrial installations, outrcompany prohibits picture documrntation of process related machinery. You can't even get it to look at it if you aren't an employee.

It is pretty neat though and the residual heat keeps the big warehouse (where it's located) warm in the winter (and unbearable in the summer).

We use the boiler in conjuction with out NG supply allotment to temper the fuel (NG) usage and of course price. The solid fuel is free (minus the cost of using it in electricity and man hours).

bogieb said:

The article says the Saranac Town Hall (one of the places featured in the article) is close to Currans - maybe that is why their pellet quality went downhill this year (for me anyway) - they are serving the government boiler users close to their plant.

Click to expand...

Issues with feedstock procurement due to higher volumes?

SidecarFlip said:

No. Unless the fuel is way up in RM (like over 25%) as in real green, just cut and chipped willow), it's a non-issue. The bioler senses the RM of the fuel flow with resistance shoes placed in the fuel stream and adjusts the firing alogrithm to compensate for the RM through feed rate, overfire and underfire air delivery and actual firebox temperature as obtained from firebox thermo sensors.

Nothing between the fuel floor (where dump trucks dump their chips) and the firebox except clairification.

We do have a large Clearspan building open on each end (for ventilation) that we store chips in and a wheel loader to move them around because if we are running extremely green wood, the stack emissions climb to unacceptable levels (remember, as a commercial wood fueled boiler we get monitored by the EPA and state regulatory agencies vis a compoter link directly tied into the boiler control computer) so we will mix in drier material to balance the wet and dry feedstock.

I'd like to take pictures of the operation but I cannot. Like most industrial installations, outrcompany prohibits picture documrntation of process related machinery. You can't even get it to look at it if you aren't an employee.

It is pretty neat though and the residual heat keeps the big warehouse (where it's located) warm in the winter (and unbearable in the summer).

We use the boiler in conjuction with out NG supply allotment to temper the fuel (NG) usage and of course price. The solid fuel is free (minus the cost of using it in electricity and man hours).

Click to expand...

What is the purpose of the installation? Power generation? CHP (combined heat and power) ?

JustWood said:

What is the purpose of the installation? Power generation? CHP (combined heat and power) ?

Click to expand...

Stationary high pressure steam production for process equipment via steam to process fluid HX and localized space heating via residual condensed steam HX in warehouse spaces and production offices.

We typically run below 100 psi wet steam but thats still considered high pressure for licensing parameters.

We have a Cleaver-Brooks NG boiler as the primary with the biomass as the secondary.

Certainly a better alternative than a landfill. The unit we own is in my avitar btw. (representative picture).

Thats an interesting facet... Feedstock procurement. When we are running off peak or in shut down mode and fuel deliveries are frequent, once the fuel floor is loaded (we have a huge moving fuel floor the migrates the previously dumped fuel toward the rear of the dump building to a conveyor system that takes raw material to the classifier), all materials get dumped the in Clearspan and they sit there (stirred by the wheel loader) until needed so feedstock delivery isn't at all dependent on boiler usage.

In fact, I've seen so much feedstock come in that it's piled completely outside, in the weather, it gets wet and begins composting.... steamy piles with no snow in the wintertime....

We never run low because, other than us, no one around takes chips for free. Every other dump operation charges a tipping fee. We don't.

SidecarFlip said:

Thats an interesting facet... Feedstock procurement. When we are running off peak or in shut down mode and fuel deliveries are frequent, once the fuel floor is loaded (we have a huge moving fuel floor the migrates the previously dumped fuel toward the rear of the dump building to a conveyor system that takes raw material to the classifier), all materials get dumped the in Clearspan and they sit there (stirred by the wheel loader) until needed so feedstock delivery isn't at all dependent on boiler usage.

In fact, I've seen so much feedstock come in that it's piled completely outside, in the weather, it gets wet and begins composting.... steamy piles with no snow in the wintertime....

We never run low because, other than us, no one around takes chips for free. Every other dump operation charges a tipping fee. We don't.

Click to expand...

There is a power plant 100 miles north of me that takes tree service chips. I've heard rumor that at times of low volume they pay $5/ton.
I'd like to see more CHP in the USA. It's common in Europe. These subdivisions that popped up like weeds in the late 90's around here would have been prime for something like CHP on a small scale.

For 46 tons I would have thought they would have gotten them a little cheaper. I guess it depends on what they burned.

Lake Girl said:

Issues with feedstock procurement due to higher volumes?

Click to expand...

"Co-owner Pat Curran said sister company Seaway Timber Harvesting cuts trees, predominantly hardwood, and chips them to supply the pellet plant. Bark and branches are shredded and sold to fuel a power plant at Fort Drum."

I think that there "predominantly hardwood" statement suggests to me that maybe their "blend" ain't as blended with softwood as it used to be. Could be wrong on that count though.

JustWood said:

There is a power plant 100 miles north of me that takes tree service chips. I've heard rumor that at times of low volume they pay $5/ton.
I'd like to see more CHP in the USA. It's common in Europe. These subdivisions that popped up like weeds in the late 90's around here would have been prime for something like CHP on a small scale.

Click to expand...

Far as I know, we have never paid for chips.

Don't see how we could in as much as while we have a drive on scale, it has been inoperative for at least 10 years.
When they first installed it, they were taking whole trees and trunks and scrap pallets. The rented a huge tub grinder with a mag seperator for nails but that got to be too much, I remember them getting in huge tree trunks 3-4 feet in diameter that had to be cut to tub size. That was a nightmare.

Few years back they eliminated the tree part and went to chips only. Much less grief. You still get things like rakes and axes and ocassional chainsaws in the chips. Most get pretty chewed up by the time thery get to the clairifier. I can't remember maximum tonnage per hour at rated capacity (250 horsepower) but I think it's around 2000 pounds per hour.

Interestingly, Detroit (of all places) has been burning biomass (compacted refuse) to fire their municipal steam plant that provides steam for heating in urban buildings. Kinda of a bright spot in an otherwise dim area.

I'm more for refuse high temperature inceneration for steam than wood chips / pellets. Reduce your landfill load and get some end value from garbage (other than methane production) which can be used to power IC engines to spin generators to feed the grid. Much more efficient to burn it to produce steam.

We (Americans) are huge garbage producers in as much as we live in a disposable society. Problem is, the toss it and forget it attitude is filling up available landfill space and you can only convert so many landfills into ski resorts......

Hmm, will operators from the schools eventually be joining this forum?

tiger said:

Hmm, will operators from the schools eventually be joining this forum?

Click to expand...

Probably not. Aren't those considered janitors?

They actually would have saved money this past year if they had burned oil. It is nice to see commercial places explore alternative heating methods. Id rather see large systems like this being geothermal such as portland maine airport.

My employers did it because of the NG scare and pending allotments that happened a decade ago. Thats a distant memory but we still use a lot of NG, enough that rven though it's inexpensive per million cubic feet, chips are still competitive factoring in the plant labor to run the system and the electricity to run the machinery.

Not a 24-7 operation as of late but run as a backup or during peak demand for steam. Some processes require more steam for the heat exchangers than other processes do.

SidecarFlip said:

Stationary high pressure steam production for process equipment via steam to process fluid HX and localized space heating via residual condensed steam HX in warehouse spaces and production offices.

We typically run below 100 psi wet steam but thats still considered high pressure for licensing parameters.

We have a Cleaver-Brooks NG boiler as the primary with the biomass as the secondary.

Certainly a better alternative than a landfill. The unit we own is in my avitar btw. (representative picture).

Click to expand...

That's a really neat, sophisticated setup! How'd you like to be in the engineroom of a destroyer with 1200 psi steam? You sure didn't want a leak at that pressure.

I'm too old for that stuff. I did work on the lakes boats when I was younger doing coal to oil refits and bow thrusters. Everything was cold however. You still need a high pressure license even though it's below 100 psi.