Fuel of the future?

[Texas Ranger]

http://www.economist.com/news/business/21575771-environmental-lunacy-europe-fuel-future

[mesquite buckeye]

The smarter we get, the stupider we get.

[muddstopper]

I think that article sums up what I have been saying for a long while now. This whole premise that wood for fuel is a substainable resource is about as untrue as pigs flying. Europe readily admits it cant produce enough wood fuel to meet their own power needs and is looking to import wood from other countries in order to do so. So where does that leave us, well we're the greedy B@$$%# looking to cash in on this whole wood for fuel thing.

[r.man]

Europe doesn't produce for present levels, not can't produce for future levels if a reasonable price drove usage down and brought tree farming of fast growing species into the profitable range.

[Texas Ranger]

A German company has come in Tyler County, Texas, and will produce pellets to be exported to Germany, they only want grade material to make pellets, so should be interesting to see what we end up with. 

[muddstopper]

Europe doesn't produce for present levels, not can't produce for future levels if a reasonable price drove usage down and brought tree farming of fast growing species into the profitable range.

Did you miss the part where it takes 100 years for a forest to storeup as much carbon as it releases as it burns. If, or when, the world starts using wood as an alternative fuel source, I think we would prerrty much use up all of our forest in less than 100years. Trees simply dont grow as fast as they can be consumed. While I use wood to heat my house and some of my hot water, I think if everybody around me did the same, and compounded this by using even more wood to generate electricity and fuel their automobiles, it would only be a matter of a few short years before the forest around here would be as barren as the Sahara Dessert.

[mesquite buckeye]

A German company has come in Tyler County, Texas, and will produce pellets to be exported to Germany, they only want grade material to make pellets, so should be interesting to see what we end up with.

Brilliant!!!!!

A German company built 300 acres under glass near Wilcox, AZ over the past 15 years or so to grow tomatoes. Didn't bother to notice that winter heating costs are as high there as the midwest. Also didn't notice that just a few hundred miles to the south it is tropical and tomatoes can be grown outdoors year round and with cheap labor. They have gone bankrupt 3 times at last count.

Another German company was going to build a coal gasification plant on my dad's Missouri farm in the 1980's. They got the RR right of way for water to process, had the coal lined up, prices looked good. Gas pipeline people refused to let them hook up to the pipeline that runs right through the property. Didn't want competition with coal.....   Whole deal fell through after the expenditure of many $$$ and lots of effort.

The Germans are smart people, don't get me wrong, but trying to use European thinking and ideas in the US often translates poorly. Maybe some of our politicians and those of us who think government can fix anything and everything should take notice.

[Richard PM]

The smarter we get, the stupider we get.

[Richard PM]

I think some of you may not understand the big picture #1 you will never ever get all the people to burn wood in any form but if you can persuade even 10 percent to use an alternative fuel such as wood then you can keep all of the value here in the US locally and the landowner has final say on where it goes. #2 Zero added carbon, A tree is the worlds filter and only gives off what it consumes, if you burn hot enough and clean enough you will actually reduce our pollution footprint. #3 I live in Maine and we have more woodlands than we did 300 years ago,maybe you have never seen it? #4  I certainly prefer to use what we grow here naturally and not what you pay good hard earned american dollars for to be imported into the US by those same people who use our money to buy weapons that kill our citizens. any alternative to foriegn fuel in my opinion (as long as it is privatly funded) is a great improvement

[mesquite buckeye]

Welcome to the forum, Richard.

[mesquite buckeye]

A German company has come in Tyler County, Texas, and will produce pellets to be exported to Germany, they only want grade material to make pellets, so should be interesting to see what we end up with.

Seems to me that if the plant worked by running on tops, defective logs, and thinnings too small to make lumber, this could be a good deal for forest land owners, increasing the value of their products. The money gained could be turned back into upgrading the timber resource for the future, as well as current income.

For all of my memory, at least, timber stand improvement in hardwoods has been a marginal economic activity at best, with the possible exception of release thinning and pruning of walnut and cherry. Increasing the value of our forest resources could really give the US economy a shot in the arm over time. There is a lot of timberland out there. Very little is producing either the quantity or quality that is possible.

[elk42]

That would be great that not case all plants. The one in Waycross, Ga. is tree length logs. 750,000 ton yr

[beenthere]

that if the plant worked by running on tops, defective logs, and thinnings too small to make lumber,

This could be good, but how/who will move tops, defective logs, and thinnings out of the woods? 

Only way I see it happening is with more stimulus funds (or taxpayers money).

Otherwise if there is enough value in those tops, etc to pay for their removal, then the result may just be that one can make better return feeding larger logs (easier to bring in more volume) into the fuel market.
That upsets the applecart.
In short, I don't see a good solution here, but the idea of utilizing trash left on the forest floor is a good one, or at least an interesting one that many think is viable solution as fuel wood.

[elk42]

 In the Crossett, Ar. area they pull every thing to the landing to delimb when finished chipper comes in chips and blown in chip truck van and sent paper mill for fuel     

[mesquite buckeye]

It might take some additional inventing to chew up the tops, thinnings etc. in the woods. Seems like a totally doable thing, given the incredible forest machines we already have. I'm thinking of a mobile wood combine that could grab, eat and carry the hogged material to the landings for trucking.

[Ivan49]

I think a lot of Europe won't allow cutting of the forest on the scale we do over here. I was there 24 years after the war and most forest were small. Last year when I was there these forest are now grown up and many of the trees are in natural parks. I only saw one large area where some cutting had been going on and it only covered an area of maybe 10 acres or so. One other area a farmer was cutting out trees for firewood and I assume they were on his land. But to have enough wood to support the whole country I don't think it would happen. I notices many areas had large green houses as they like thing fresh. If you want to become a millionare raise chickens. The eggs are sold by the piece or in pairs and chicken in out of price in price. I picked up one pack of wings and they were like 30 euro for 8 or 10 pieces. Most of the houses in the area we were at burned wood but not as a main source of heat.   

[Randy88]

I'm not sure where some of you are from but around me 80-100 years ago everyone heated with wood, today only a few, and the notion of if everyone went back to heating wood and you'd deplete the forest's idea is seriously flawed thinking in my book.   For one, nobody is going to burn valuable tree's and logs, and second years ago all fencerows were clean, timbers were far cleaner of garbage tree's and worthless tree's than they ever are today, apparently some of you don't have boxelders  where you live, and lastly, right now all the unwanted garbage trees are shoved into piles and burned, I know I do hundred of thousands of tree's a year that 1 have no valve, and 2 nobody wants and you couldn't give away and 3 I'm not the only one doing this, there must be hundreds like me hired each year in my immediate area doing the same thing, so from my corner of the world, if everyone burned wood, processed chips or pellets, it would take 100 years to clean up all the worthless garbage nobody wants or can give away and maybe it would put some interest in forestry management again, rather than total neglect and mismanagement, like I see everyday.   Now if your area is different good for you, but its what I see around me daily.   

As for taking a 100 years to grow a timber of harvestable tree's, that would depend on your definition of the word trees, because if your looking at harvestable hardwoods, then yes, if your looking at harvestable woody material then cut that to about 10-15 years, if in doubt I'll send out a couple million boxelders to you and watch how fast they grow, just plant them in or around some valuable tree's, or in fencerows, ditches or along some creeks, or even in your backyard, I can even toss in a few hundred million elms that are about a foot in diameter all dead as well, you can have some smaller one's but they'll be dead when they reach that foot size, oh yea nobody wants those either, not even as firewood.   

[mesquite buckeye]

There are lots of problems to solve. That means there are lots of opportunities.

[Ivan49]

I'm not sure where some of you are from but around me 80-100 years ago everyone heated with wood, today only a few, and the notion of if everyone went back to heating wood and you'd deplete the forest's idea is seriously flawed thinking in my book.   For one, nobody is going to burn valuable tree's and logs, and second years ago all fencerows were clean, timbers were far cleaner of garbage tree's and worthless tree's than they ever are today, apparently some of you don't have boxelders  where you live, and lastly, right now all the unwanted garbage trees are shoved into piles and burned, I know I do hundred of thousands of tree's a year that 1 have no valve, and 2 nobody wants and you couldn't give away and 3 I'm not the only one doing this, there must be hundreds like me hired each year in my immediate area doing the same thing, so from my corner of the world, if everyone burned wood, processed chips or pellets, it would take 100 years to clean up all the worthless garbage nobody wants or can give away and maybe it would put some interest in forestry management again, rather than total neglect and mismanagement, like I see everyday.   Now if your area is different good for you, but its what I see around me daily.   

As for taking a 100 years to grow a timber of harvestable tree's, that would depend on your definition of the word trees, because if your looking at harvestable hardwoods, then yes, if your looking at harvestable woody material then cut that to about 10-15 years, if in doubt I'll send out a couple million boxelders to you and watch how fast they grow, just plant them in or around some valuable tree's, or in fencerows, ditches or along some creeks, or even in your backyard, I can even toss in a few hundred million elms that are about a foot in diameter all dead as well, you can have some smaller one's but they'll be dead when they reach that foot size, oh yea nobody wants those either, not even as firewood.   

I don't know if the forest could support everyone burning wood or not. I know a 100 years ago they burned wood, but there were a lot less people then than there is now. I also know that it doesn't take 50 years to grow a tree to be able to burn it.

[Randy88]

Ivan, your right, there are far more people today than the turn of the last century, but one needs to keep in mind quite a few factors at the same time, how  much more energy efficient are homes today over before, then furnaces have come a long way's too, many times more efficient, as well as options in heating systems, and feeding systems, to electrical control's to many hundreds of other factors and efficiencies I haven't even discussed.   Now speaking only of my area, there is more available land to grow woody material on than what was even around several decades ago and more coming all the time as livestock leave the farming equation and pasture land isn't or can't be row cropped.   I could discuss all the country right of ways in the thousands of miles of neglected road ditches and then I could start in on all the set aside acres along steams, creeks and all of those acres that go unmanaged and neglected.   Now the reason this all excess land is overgrown is two fold, again in my area, age of the owners and lack of the livestock and also budge cuts to take care of the problem, I'm also thinking it's not going to change anytime soon, only get much worse.   

So the notion of timber reduction and it needing to come from there, isn't what I was referring to at all, its all the other area's nobody counts, or even notices.     

But the point of not everyone can do and it won't sustain everyone is right, but if more did it, either as a sole heat source or as a supplement heat source would be a big help, now is everyone going to burn firewood, no, but there are other options, pellets, chips or something not yet invented or discovered, which is where the future of anything lies.    But right now its all going to waste, not being utilized at all.    I also don't know why more cities don't burn garbage or chips or something like that, whether its cost effective or not to do so, we're filling landfills with stuff that should be consumed somehow and not just dumped for someone else to deal with later on.   

Now I'm sure someone is far more computer savvy than I am and spit out statistics of why this is all impractical on a regular basis, but on most of those stats I've read, none of these acres or land have ever been included from what I've seen.  I'm also sure I'm wrong, so go ahead and tell me why.

[beenthere]

Randy
Don't need to tell you why as I think from what you've just written, you already have it figured out. ;)

[Ivan49]

Randy I agree with you. It is time that everyone starts becoming more efficient on everything they do. Around me they do a lot of clearcutting. One of the biggest waste that I have seen is appox a mile west of me. They cut 200 acres off last summer and finished it last fall. This company prides itself on being efficient. They drag all the trees to one area and delimb and cut them to length. Then they chip the tops and haul the logs to where ever. Now on this job they cut a foot or so off the tree tunck to get rid of the bell and then cut it to length. When they left there is a stack of cut offs probably 70 foot in dia and 30 foot high that was left which is what they do on every job, but on this one they left a pile of appox 4 foot long pieces from the top of the tree and this pile is about 200 or 300 feet long and about 30 foot high. It is left there to rot. This is all beech maple and birch. The owner does not live here but I plan on talking to him this summer to see about getting this wood. I don't usually haul wood as I have 80 acres of standing timber but I hate to see waste of this kind. I wonder how many years it would take to use all this wood to heat a house with

[mesquite buckeye]

Ivan, your right, there are far more people today than the turn of the last century, but one needs to keep in mind quite a few factors at the same time, how  much more energy efficient are homes today over before, then furnaces have come a long way's too, many times more efficient, as well as options in heating systems, and feeding systems, to electrical control's to many hundreds of other factors and efficiencies I haven't even discussed.   Now speaking only of my area, there is more available land to grow woody material on than what was even around several decades ago and more coming all the time as livestock leave the farming equation and pasture land isn't or can't be row cropped.   I could discuss all the country right of ways in the thousands of miles of neglected road ditches and then I could start in on all the set aside acres along steams, creeks and all of those acres that go unmanaged and neglected.   Now the reason this all excess land is overgrown is two fold, again in my area, age of the owners and lack of the livestock and also budge cuts to take care of the problem, I'm also thinking it's not going to change anytime soon, only get much worse.   

So the notion of timber reduction and it needing to come from there, isn't what I was referring to at all, its all the other area's nobody counts, or even notices.     

But the point of not everyone can do and it won't sustain everyone is right, but if more did it, either as a sole heat source or as a supplement heat source would be a big help, now is everyone going to burn firewood, no, but there are other options, pellets, chips or something not yet invented or discovered, which is where the future of anything lies.    But right now its all going to waste, not being utilized at all.    I also don't know why more cities don't burn garbage or chips or something like that, whether its cost effective or not to do so, we're filling landfills with stuff that should be consumed somehow and not just dumped for someone else to deal with later on.   

Now I'm sure someone is far more computer savvy than I am and spit out statistics of why this is all impractical on a regular basis, but on most of those stats I've read, none of these acres or land have ever been included from what I've seen.  I'm also sure I'm wrong, so go ahead and tell me why.

Sounds logical and reasonable. We will find out if it is economic.

[Paul_H]

This company is just down the road from our shop and will most likely heat our building in the near future.It heats the buildings on the other side of the road from us and there are plans to extend the line soon.
It is a gasification system and does consume wastewood. 

http://www.finkmachine.com/index.html

[mesquite buckeye]

If you want to go off the grid, you can use a high efficiency wood gasifier to heat your house, your hot water, and run a wood gas powered generator for your electricity. All you need is enough wood to make it go. 8) 8) 8)