How many threads have we all seen asking how to make pellets? Someone finally appears to have tapped the small generator market.
http://www.pelletpros.com/
Thanks Brad,kool site
Man, if they could just drop a zero off that price...
Two wouldn't hurt. Still if you figure it over the lifetime of the machine ,it ain't "so" bad.We alreadt got the sawdust ,make pellets once a week,free fuel,plus sell the extra--------------free machine.
'Course that don't help none at the start does it?
Ya gotta wonder how long the dies last as the replacements are right there front and center to buy.
Even the large commercial mills wear out dies, a fellow was saying they start them on grains so the dies last longer. Something to do with heat.
i,de wanta see it work thur the whole process before i bought one.
you might find out a pellet mill was just a start to what you really need.
the northern logger magazine had a good article on a plant there planning on building south of me in central ny.it showed a plant and told how they made wood pellets
the sawdust had to be ground into a fine dust and it had to be heated to i believe 140 degree.then,it was feed into the press to make pellets.the heat is what helps the dust stick together it releases a glue thats in wood.
the plant burned part of the incoming sawdust to make hot air which was blown into a 64 foot long tube that had sawdust running thur it to dry the sawdust down to 4%.
that site is intresting tho.
delbert
Im gonna give them a call today . Just so i can get more info on the process. The start up cost for the mill i can handle, but what else do you need.
Dale
There was a question in the Q&A section that caught my attention and raised a yellow flag.
QuoteQ: If I purchase a pellet mill, will you show me how to make pellets?
A: We are like many of you, wanting to make our own pellets for heating. Now that we have a mill to make pellets, we are experimenting and testing and will be happy to pass on what we learn, good or bad. We will have a page posted later on for tips on making pellets, as we have info to share from our own testing.
It sounds like they don't have the process perfected yet. ???
Just got an email response back. Sawdust has to be dried down to 25% moisture or lower to be pelletized. Pellets then have to be dried down to 10% moisture to burn properly in a pellet stove. Kinda like owning a sawmill. The mill is only part of the equation...
Its had my thinker turning for the last few weeks since I saw the first ads. I was thinking a solar dryer for the sawdust then batch dry the pellets in a kiln. I've been wanting to build a kiln anyways so load it with pellets when it would be idle.
A question I would be interested in knowing the answer to is whether planer shavings can be used right from the dust collector or whether they need to go through the hammermill and become powderized? I would think that if you mix planer output from dried lumber with raw sawdust, you should come pretty close to the 25% value needed. ???
well after reading that post . The mill isnt even a 1/3 of the system. The production of the pellets seams to be pretty easy. the after facts my be hard to achieve.
Something just came to mind Based on their backgrounds. I would have to believe that this equipment is all based out of the AG world. For making pellets for livestock feeds.
The machine itself is going to need a way to load material into it. as well as needing a way to handle unfinished product. Besides that how do you handle pellets to dry and keep from making a more fines than a pellet stove can handle. Can you make a bin dryer like they use for grain on the small scale?
Brad a would say the mix might work. but everything that goes into the pellet mill must be granular.
BRAD:the way i understand it the sawdust must be like flour before it,s pressed into pellets.in that northern logger article they said the sawdust came from woodwiorking shops mostly.they fed it into the pellet plants and it was screened according to how fine it was.only the finest sawdust was ran right into the process.the other sawdust was seprated out and ran thur a grinder to make it fine enough.from,that i would think shaving would have to be ground up into dust first.
delbert
I called those guys as well. They are only about 45 minutes from here. Nice guys, very easy to talk to. They say the material must be run through a 1/4" screen in a hammer mill if is bigger than that. They are just getting there business started. They have been selling corn furnaces and now the alky business is driving the cost of corn up. They needed a cheaper fuel again. It is there idea that any bio material; sawdust, planer chips, corn stalks, leaves,etc..... will be able to be used. They have there first machine arriving any day now by the brown guys, a container is on the way. These machines have been used in Europe for the past couple of years. New to the U.S.A. They are also able to get dies that will make a 1/2" diameter pellet. That is what they intend to use in their furnaces with a 2 1/2" auger. I don't think loading the hopper will be that tough. Should be able to get some cheap augers from a used ag machine dealer. A junk combine unloading auger would be my first choice. Just wish I didn't have to buy a pellet stove as well to make this all work.
i did a search on ebay last night for pellet plants and hammer mills.there was two pellets mills.lets just say the pellet press is a small part of the whole picture.
that being siad,if i had the time and money i,de buy a press from theses guys and try making pellets.
delbert
PS:moving the sawdust around and into the press is no big deal,but,i think drying the sawdust and pellets would be.the one mill on ebay had a 23 foot long dryer to run the sawdust thur.
twobears...The pellet mills on e-bay arer for making 100,000 bags or more a year. Talked a nice guy about a small plant and then dropped the idea.
Thanks Alot Mr Mom
I have been doing pellet research for my own situation plus also for a commercial venture relating to a Community Forest. There is a huge difference in the two realities. The commercial venture needs millions of dollars of capital. The dryer alone is almost a million bucks USD. Then, the pelleters and other infrastructure. Then, you have to market tons and tons of pellets every day - year round.
For my personal situation, I generate about a ton or two a week of kiln dry sawdust (6-9% moisture content) and shavings when I was last working. The shavings/sawdust I was putting into my outdoor boiler two years ago - shovelling them in - a hassle. So, my new plan is to "shake" the shavings out of the mix and bale that for the animal folks - because the animal folks don't want sawdust/wood dust. The sawdust, now I am looking at one of this company's pellet machines. A ton or two of pellets a week, make a part time job for a worker, sell the pellets local, get rid of a waste problem, looks good to my customers as I'm using all my fibre, no mess around the yard. Guess what I am trying to say is that the small pelletters make excellent sense in some circumstances. I do not want to set up a "pellet factory". I just want to make pretty boards and mouldings and deal with my waste in a responsible manner. This gets rid of my waste and generates income. Works for me in my personal situation. My dealings with the PelletPro's folks so far has been good. I'll keep you posted. The head accountant (the wife) even thinks I'm making sense. Now that's scary.
MR MOM:i know theres a diffrence between the mills on ebay and theses.but,the way i see it nomatter how many pounds or tons of pellets you wanta make you still need the right materal and equipment to do it.your not going to buy a mill and start making good pellets.
i am very intrested in the whole small scale process.i plan on running my sawmill alot in the future and using my waste in a good way has been on my mind alot.if i could make one of thoes pellet mills and a outdoor stove work right i,de love it..but!!
delbert
About 10 years ago I had the big idea of collecting old pallets and scrap from some of the furniture factories and turning them into pellets. But it did not take a lot of figuring to see that transportation cost would be about the same as the market price for pellets. And once I saw the capital required for equipment I dropped it completely.
The small scale only makes sense in my calcs if you have equipment already, a source of material already and time to run it. I can't make it work small scale spending money on drying or trucking whole logs.
My friend is trying to set up a larger mill, 5 tons an hour I believe and the $ involved is unreal. He was looking to hire me but I don't know how they will get the money together.
My other idea is from the haying we do, we generally have junk hay that sells for very cheap at the end of hte year. If it doesn't sell we compost it for 0$. I would love to pelletize it. Probably could sell as gerbil feed too hehe.
So, how hard is it to dry sawdust on a small scale? I saw 2 operations that were drying shavings and it didn't take too long. The one used heat lamps over a conveyor belt. It didn't move that fast, and he had wire that would turn the shavings. He then baled it for bedding. The drying was so it wouldn't mold, more than anything else. But, he could get it skin dry in a relatively short amount of time.
Another guy had a salamander that he used for heat. He used a drum to put the shavings in, and had the salamander putting heat right in the middle of it. He had a small electric motor to turn the drum. The design was similar to a clothes dryer, which is what he used before he made the drum. 5-10 minutes was all that was needed.
We're only talking about taking out some moisture. Sawdust has a lot of surface area. When put in suspension and heat added, it shouldn't take that long.
As for the dies, the FAQ says about 100-160 hrs/set.
RON:thats what i was looking for..how to dry sawdust..i wasn,t saying it wasn,t worth it or anything other then it had to be done and i was looking for how it could be done on this scale?? i wonder if a guy could use the hot water heat from the outdoor stove to dry it.maybe,a rotating drum deal with a radiator type deal blowing hot air into it as the sawdust works it way thur the drum.kinda like a cement mixer..but open on both ends.the finished pellets could be on a slow moving convoyer going thur another drum with heat blown into it.
delbert
Slowzuki, If you cant sell the junk hay, burn it in an outdoor wood furnace.
Two bales last about 12 hours.
Interesting, does it stink the same as regular burning hay?
Quote from: Dana on February 23, 2007, 06:32:37 AM
Slowzuki, If you cant sell the junk hay, burn it in an outdoor wood furnace.
Two bales last about 12 hours.
slozuki, has your friend looked to ACOA? I believe some private investors out in the Stanley area are putting together plans and $$ for a pellet operation.
Our forum member Ken has a hand in it. He doesn't live too far from you, out the Royal Road toward Cardigan.
i was out sawing this morning and thinking about two things.the first how i wanted to build/place my new solar kiln.i also got to wondering if a guy could build some sort of sawdust dryer into his kiln.i wonder if a guy could say build a drum type dryer inside the kiln.say up high next to the roof infront of the fans.you could build it so sawdust got feed into one end from the outside,run thur the drum and was dumped outside the kiln into some sort of storage bin.
delbert
Slowzuki, The hay smells like something funny is burning. If the furnace is calling for heat, it smokes pretty good until the bale sort of chars or flames over. After that the smoke isn't too bad.
I have built several solar heaters by making a box, then putting tin on the inside and putting old storm windows on top. I've put thermometers in them and have pegged them at over 155°.
So, now I'm wondering if you can't make something like this and let the sawdust or pellets flow over it to dry them out. Black tin gets mighty hot and it shouldn't take too much to get the moisture content down to an acceptable range.
I'm not sure if he's gone to ACOA, he doesn't like the gov interfering in private business much and ACOA operations tend to be steered hard by gov. Too fast of expansion in a push for job creation. Last I heard he had about half the funding secured. I think he knows about the stanley mill, a group of them met with european buyers and there is a good business case if the cost of drying the wood and transporting it remains at todays levels.
Myself I'm not sold on the whole log operation. The engineer in me just hates to see so much energy go into rapid drying. I know they dry partly by chipping and moving piles around but still.
Quote from: SwampDonkey on February 23, 2007, 09:43:40 AM
slozuki, has your friend looked to ACOA? I believe some private investors out in the Stanley area are putting together plans and $$ for a pellet operation.
Our forum member Ken has a hand in it. He doesn't live too far from you, out the Royal Road toward Cardigan.
An employee of mine is into the BioMass wood gasifier. He has investor interest. He's suppose to be in meetings on Thursday to see if it's a go. Andy Savoie is doing a feasibility study.
Roaches in Grand Falls is going to be producing ethanol from grain and taters. They are using canola in Waterville for biodiesel.
Quote from: Brad_S. on February 21, 2007, 10:12:33 AM
A question I would be interested in knowing the answer to is whether planer shavings can be used right from the dust collector or whether they need to go through the hammermill and become powderized? I would think that if you mix planer output from dried lumber with raw sawdust, you should come pretty close to the 25% value needed. ???
I just read the FAQ section on the pellet maker site, and it sounds like it worked with planer shavings. If anything one may need to add a little moisture back in to KD shavings. ???
Another good idea to follow :D
max
Just a quick bump to see if anyone has done any additional work with Pellet Pro's equipment in the last two months ? Or, Is everyone now waiting for the Bio-Mizer ?
Warren
Wood Pellets.A recent supply of wood stove pellets manufactured at the Vulcan Pellet Mill in Michigan's U.P.
(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/10002/wood_pellets_vulcan_mill.JPG) [img]
According to a report in Atlantic Forestry review, there is a lot of interest in starting a pellet industry here, even a major forestry company. There is a big market in Europe, but I can't see them being shipped from here with much of a profit margin. I saw some pellets at a hardware store, I'll have to check to see where they are coming from.
I see they have been adding to their site. The video of making pellets from oak shavings shows them spitting out pretty good, but it would take a lot of hand feeding to keep you warm all winter. :D
There are a lot of pellet mill operations forming in NB. I can't specify where until it is announced but one producing 3 truck loads (60 tons) a day is about to be built.
I would love to get involved in a small scale but it is a big investment.
I hear that there are now 5 plants here in Michigan. They tell me that the main problem is getting the raw material, clean, dry sawdust.
Marwood LTD makes them still I believe. Comfy cosy was the brand name. They were made out of softwood. http://www.marwood.ca/ look under products.
Bringing this back to the top... has anyone tried one of these Pellet Pro machines themselves?
We generate a few truckloads a day of sawdust... mostly kiln-dried aspen... dust from our band resaw and wide belt sanders (abrasive planers)... it's fine, dry fluffy stuff. Currently, we give it all to a soils place nearby and they mix it with other stuff and compost it all into topsoil... but I've got the feeling it would make great pellets, and it would be cool to make a little money on it if we could.
Does anyone know if pellets for retail sale have to be "approved" or made by an approved manufacturer or anything like that?
Thanks,
-N.
There is probably an industry standard, but I doubt it's regulated other than by industry. Kind of like the CSA here, don't matter if the product ain't worth a pinch of snot as long as CSA is stamped on it. And yup, that's been proven. Just ask the city of Toronto and their CSA stamped and approved flushes. ;D :D
Wow, they said the south (CSA) was going to rise again, but who would ever have thunk it would be in Canada. :D
Darn toot'n. 8) Just long enough to here a big woooosh!! :D :D
At the current price of fertilize, the compost thing might be a good way to go. Got any more info on this, I have looked on the net and it seems that it is a huge undertaking or so small that it is not viable.
Norm: You might check with Bliss Industries in Ponca City OK. It won't be pocket change but Bill can fix you up. It sounds like you have a good starting point. Stan
Brad I have one of there mill's it work's great using sawdust straight from our pile we have a wood-mizer and the dust is perfect for the mill. Making pellet's is as hard as putting the dust in five gallon bucket's taking it to the shop starting the press up and pouring it in. Four bucket's of dust will make enough pellet's for about one and a half day's. You will need to make a cooling table for this use 1/4 inch wire screen about $10.00 that's about hi-tec as it get's
Now, that's down right interesting. How about telling us a little more about your little operation! We sure could use some pictures about what you're doing.
I'm running a circle mill, and I would invest in one of those little gizmos if I knew I could make pellets for a stove.
Squack,
Which model of their pellet mill do you have? I'm interested, too... we have a band resaw and abrasive planers at work, but I also have a small circle mill (Mobile Dimension) at home... like Ron, I'm wondering if the chips from the circle mill would be small enough to make pellets?
-N.
I have a Pellet Pro exactly as in the photo shown. We simply cannot get it to work. The pellets dont stick together until they are dry and a goat could produce more faster. To add insult to injury I paid Air Freight to get it to the Amazon. Now we are going to try another company that is much more expensive but maybe it will work.
Jim, could you use a little parrafin wax to make the material stick?
I like the goat idea. Been thinking of it myself, except the wife says, "No Goats".
I'll bet a bunch of goats could eat a big pile of sawdust a day. :D :D
Tom, I just have to wonder if the goat would eat enough parrafin to make the pellets slide out faster. smiley_headscratch Oh, now after thinking about it, I think you ment to mix the parrafin with the material to make the machine work better. ::)
Yeah, I did, Pigman.
But you might have a good idea there. Remember the wax lips? They were sweet and appetizing. I'll bet a fellow could make a sweet wax tin can that would help the goat to pass more sawdust. You could even fill the tin can with sawdust. Hmmmmmm we might have something here. ;D
I think people up here have been over looking the moose pellet. Just about the same size and more oval than a bagged pellet, but all cellulose from trees, shrubs and herbs. ;D :D :D
If Moose pellets become viable. I'm in the money. :D
(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/13635/moosedung.jpg)
Oh, I forgot soy beans. They love soy beans. Anyone need a value added market for soy beans? :D :D
Quote from: Mooseherder on October 20, 2008, 06:36:36 AM
If Moose pellets become viable. I'm in the money. :D
(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/13635/moosedung.jpg)
Did you just empty your pockets ??
:D :D :D
Goat pellets (http://gasifiers.bioenergylists.org/natmicropellet)
People say there is a shortage here on pellets right now. A number of people installed the pellet stoves this year and were probably under the impression that they were in production. Haven't heard from forester Ken in a while. I know they have their hands full with the sawmill their marketing board bought. Maybe priorities shifted. Hope they get those pellet mills going soon. I'll continue in the forseable future on stovewood, gotta work with what I have here. But, if I had a small place on one level and a forced air pellet furnace, it would be worth looking into. Right now, I have windows open in the house. Can't imagine it getting much hotter. ::)
You said it was 32f today!?!?
Somethings wrong with your metabolism, Boy!
You need to get some heat in that house, close the windows, build a bonfire, eat some chile, get a sweet young thing to chase around the house.
Whassa matta you? :D
I bought a hammer mill and pellet mill from the pellet pro boys and I'm determined to make it work. I typically am out of work from Jan. to May so I figured making pellets would give me something to do. I may be working for peanuts judging from the way the hammer mill processes the chips I've accumulated. I'm trying to concentrate on the issue of biofuel going along with the farming industry and not creating competition. I know that sawdust is no longer a "waste" product and difficult to get rid of. Obviously the price has gone up for the farmers who depend on it to bed their animals. I'm hoping to incorporate good forestry practice and reclaim some of the old farm fields we have around that are choked with weed trees. Eventually I'd like to have a delivery system and make pellets as easy as oil. Small scale and local. Here's my blog about it if you are interested. blog.sleepersriveralternative.com
I've been to your blog. You raise a question about pellets in buckets not being stackable. With lids, they become very stackable, and very recyclable. I think you have a very good angle on the problem.
I wouldn't put in a pellet burner, because if I can't make the fuel, I won't burn the fuel. That seems to be the temperament of the board. That doesn't mean that we're right. You may have a market edge.
But, we keep on coming back to the same place. Hows that pellet pro working out? Of all the guys that have one, no one has come forward and given us anything we can sink our teeth into. What's your input, and what's your output? Give us some input!
Thanks for the reply. I worry that three tons of pellets delivered in forty pound buckets is 150 buckets you' ve got to find room for. I worry about their stackability compared to bags. A stack of buckets five high is pretty dangerous especially if there are small children about. I'd hate to smush a little one. Then again, if I provide a local supply that I can guarentee perhaps folks wouldn't be so inclined to get them all at once. And you could stack them outside if you had a good lid. Of course the future will be in easy bulk delivery with some type of blower and bin system I would really like to figure out. Did you see the Kernel Express? That looks pretty sweet.
I still haven't run the pellet mill and I have had it for a week or more. I don't know what is holding me back. There is a certain amount of trepidation. Like, it's not going to work and I've just gone and spent a lot of money and aren't I plain old foolish. Also, I need to get some carbide bits to smooth out the die apparently before I can get good pellets out of it. I got the diesel model that they say will produce 600 lbs in an hour. I hope they are close. I will keep you posted.
There is a forum for pelleters (if that is a word) at http://www.makeyourownpellets.com/forum/topic.php?id=4&page=2
these guys seem to know what is going on.
I was just reading comments yesterday on a local news site with regards to my last post. Seems that most pellet mills that have been set up and currently running are exporting to Europe. From the comments that were posted the folks nearby one particular pellet plant are not happy about sending their heating source off shore and leaving local supply low with folks on a waiting list. ::) It's the same old business model all over again, only thinking of export. Which signifies that government has money into it dictating all the terms.
We sure could use more plants and use material from thinnings instead of using clearcuts in 90% of wood harvesting. A fellow would have to sit down and crunch the numbers real good while devising the logistics and choosing the machinery to get the job done in a way to make a living. If you were to do it on a small scale even, you have to have a source of fiber, so much land available to set up shop and store material (raw and processed).
To get the stuff out to a landing I was thinking about a small maneuverable forwarder. But, your talking about some serious dough for any I've seen, starting $80,000 at least. Might as well forget about used, unless it's a "real good" deal and the machine isn't worn out. If for your own needs maybe you have a horse, 4-wheeler or tractor. Then it needs to be chipped and dried before being pelletized. I wouldn't be interested in spending $50,000 in handling (skid steer, pallet jack), drying and pellet equipment for personal use. That's just not practical. Some time, for exercise sake, I might do a little research on everything to track the money flow. Somebody running a farm would likely have most of the cost in capital already, except the pellet mill and housing for the pellet making process and product storage.
Just some light thinking. ;D
Here I am making fun of you for your 32 degree weather and Gael tells me it's supposed to dip into the low30's here by wednesday. For crying out loud, we're supposed to be in the south !!
50 F here this morning before sun up. Nothing wrong with that. ;D
I was reading an article the other day where a guy was taking the glycerin by product from biodiesel production and mixing it with sawdust
and wrapping the whole mess into newspaper making kind of a duraflame
log...gets rid of the sawdust and the glycerin from the diesel you made to run the mill..<G>
I wonder how well that mixture sets up and if it could be run through a simple extruder to make a useable fuel...
I've got a little glycerin left feom where I made a gallon or so of diesel.
I'll try it and see what happens...
Zopi, the biggest concern I have with using glycerin and sawdust to make a compressed log and then burning the log is that glycerin burned at low temps creates a gas called acrolein. Acrolein is considered to have highly acute toxicity, meaning just a small amount can have severely harmful effects. Google acrolein.
I would be hesitant to burn this in an indoor stove. I thought about making some logs to use in my outdoor boiler but decided against it. I use the glycerin by-product to make a weak potassium fertilizer and some soap. Much safer.
Gotcha! Good info there...
Compost is looking better, eh?
Quote from: zopi on October 27, 2008, 11:02:36 AM
Gotcha! Good info there...
Compost is looking better, eh?
Better if you use potassium hydroxide, not sodium hydroxide.
-N.
Quote from: Karl_N. on October 25, 2008, 06:48:50 PM
I bought a hammer mill and pellet mill from the pellet pro boys and I'm determined to make it work. I typically am out of work from Jan. to May so I figured making pellets would give me something to do. I may be working for peanuts judging from the way the hammer mill processes the chips I've accumulated. I'm trying to concentrate on the issue of biofuel going along with the farming industry and not creating competition. I know that sawdust is no longer a "waste" product and difficult to get rid of. Obviously the price has gone up for the farmers who depend on it to bed their animals. I'm hoping to incorporate good forestry practice and reclaim some of the old farm fields we have around that are choked with weed trees. Eventually I'd like to have a delivery system and make pellets as easy as oil. Small scale and local. Here's my blog about it if you are interested. blog.sleepersriveralternative.com
Hi Karl,
I'm really interested in your progress... please keep us updated! We generate three pickup truck loads of dry aspen sawdust per day here at our factory... currently, we compost all the sawdust... it would be nice to generate some energy with them. I read your blog... very interesting stuff. I've got a few PV panels and a Trace SW5548 at my place... hoping to sell it soon and upgrade to an Outback.
Have you given any thought to using super sacks for delivery? At least in the meantime, until you get a blower? If you haven't used them, Super Sacks are big, heavy-duty polypropylene bags... about 4'x4'x4' is the standard size. Most are rated to hold 2,000 lbs. Some have a loop on each corner, some have a big loop on either side. Some also have spouts on both the bottom and top... the ones I've got have a loop on each corner AND two big loops, plus they've got spouts.
http://www.ssangleong.com/sbsssack.html
I've been using them to collect my sawdust. You can lift them with anything... forklift forks, boom truck, I even use my excavator to pick the full ones up and move them around. Someone wants some sawdust? Instead of shoveling, I just pick up a sack and put it in the back of their pickup.
I'm thinking if folks had a cellar window you could open, you could pull up outside with a truck... even a pickup or flatbed with a little manual boom on it... pick up a sack full of pellets so you can get at the bottom, and untie the spout to release the pellets... have a little hopper that they go into, and a nice big hose that they gravity feed down, into an empty sack or bin in the basement... sorta like the way the guys used to deliver coal.
Barring this, make it easier on yourself and just drop off full super sacks, into people's garages or whatever. Boom it off the truck and right into their garage, or maybe boom it onto a pallet and pallet truck it to where it needs to go. Could get more complicated once snow & ice are around.
-N.
I remember back in the old days when my grandpa used to get rice coal. They would just back up to the window with a dump truck, and put out a metal chute. They would just dump the coal and it slid down the chute and into the coal bin. My grandpa had an auger that he would fill with coal once a week, and that would last all week for hot water and heat in a house with 3 apartments.
My dad decided to cut costs by picking up his own coal at the colliery and we would unload it by hand. He bought a small corn conveyor to move the coal into the coal bin. We would do that for several loads a year.
I wonder if having some sort of pellet bin at a homeowner's property where you could deliver in bulk wouldn't be more cost effective. The homeowner can then carry the pellets indoors in buckets or something else. It sure would have a lot fewer bags down at the local landfill to contend with. A bin could hold quite a bit of pellets. It would have to be built to keep pellets dry and it would have to be locked.
My neighbors, with a big old farm house like most on this road, always had a sawdust bin and a shoot outside that they unloaded the sawdust into from a bulk truck. Just like unloading grain. No reason why that wouldn't work for some folks that don't have a finished basement.
a dried moose pellet should burn just like any buffalo chip , which is just dried grass.I dont have BTU numbers but it will burn and make heat . Their are zoos looking into burning poop from elephants.
I will certainly keep you informed of my progress or lack thereof. I have always been impressed by the wealth of knowledge and experience the people who make up this forum possess. So I'll try to let you in on what little I know in trade for helping me figure out what I don't.
I ran some chips through the hammermill the other day and was immediately struck by how slow the process was. Turns out the holes in my screen are way too small. I'm not sure what is an ideal size but I understand most people take the screens out and either get the 6mm size or ream out the holes with a 1/4" bit. That's what I'm going to do. Hopefully that will speed things up. I also ran the pellet mill for just a little bit. I put in some of that sawdust I had made and sure enough some pellets came out. So I dumped some more in and nothing came out. I got overly exited, actually I was trying to get over my whole horrible hesitation about the whole thing, and I didn't condition the die properly. Some say you should run a mixture of flour, sand and oil through a bunch of times others say you should take a carbide reamer to it and smooth out the die holes. I've been having trouble finding a reamer just the right size so I'm going to see if I can smooth it out with a file and that mixture I just mentioned. First I have to drill out all the sawdust. I wonder how often I'll be doing that.
I would definitely like to corner the delivery market and would like to blow in pellets to people's inside or outside bin. This is the way they are doing it in Europe. I'm going to start with a 250 gallon plastic bulk tank the kind we see alot of during the sugar season for hauling sap with a long hose and some type of blower. The bins would need some type of attatchment to catch all the fines. Have you seen the Kernel Express?http://www.kernelexpress.com/ That looks awesome. How do I get that rig? Besides work hard, dream and hope for the best? Pneumatic, there must be some type of compressor?
StorminN, I like the idea of those sacks though they may get cumbersome. Are they watertight? I'm thinking about those bulk tanks for storage or regular grain silos like Swampdonkey mentioned. There are three of the 250 gallon bulk tanks for sale in our local trader for $100. Doe s anyone know if that is a good deal. I'm off to drill out the die.
blog.sleepersriveralternative
StorminN, I would be interested in hearing more about the composting of that large of a volume. Any info?
Karl,
Sorry to hear the die got plugged up. While you've got it apart, could you take some pictures and post them? I'd love to see some pictures of the dies, give me an idea of how exactly they work. I've seen pictures of the bigger machines, both the American-made ones (CPM?) and the German made ones, but I've never seen one of these small (Chinese?) ones.
Not sure what type of 250 gallon bulk tank you're talking about. I have some 275 gallon totes, they look like this:
(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/15714/275_gal_tote.jpg)
Mine only have a 2" pipe fitting on the bottom... so I don't think they would work for pellets, I've got a feeling if the pellets would bridge (jam) as they tried to exit the tote. Around here, about five years ago we used to be able to get these totes for $25 each, then with biodiesel and everything else going on, the price has gone up and now they're about $150 each at the local farm store, sometimes less at auction. $100 each is a good price, $100 for three is a great price.
Yeah, I'm not sure how that Kernel Express rig works... perhaps pneumatic. All the pictures are from too far away and on the wrong side. You can see in their photo gallery that they are using the Super Sacks, too. The sacks I have are NOT watertight... they might be considered water resistant, but they are not tight. The pellets would have to be stored somewhere dry.
WH_Conley,
We have a soils / bark place around the corner from our factory... we dump the sawdust there and they mix it with manure and soil, maybe some chopped up bark?, and compost it in big piles that steam in the wintertime. They sell it as nice black topsoil. I'm not sure of the ratios that they mix it at, but I can ask. Our sawdust is all kiln-dried stuff to begin with. I'll get some pics...
-N.
I will take some pictures when I get the die back from the machine shop. I took it there to have it reamed out. Apparently you can achieve that store bought shiny smooth look of a quality pellet with perfectly smooth (bores?) holes. I would need to order a carbide reamer and borrow someone's drill press to do this so I figured at least this time I would let the pros do it. I pulled the screen out of my hammer mill after a bunch of cussing and knuckle bleeding. That thing was in there wicked tight. I'm drilling bigger holes in it, probably too big. My die is 6mm and I'm drilling the holes of the hammer mill out at about 1/4" I'm not sure if it will just make it harder to pelletize the bigger stuff but the original holes are like pin pricks. The sawdust that finally came out was super fine and of course took forever to process. If it doesn't work for this size particle I will just ask for the screens that probably should have come with the mill in the first place. I would think it would come with at least two different sizes. We'll see, if not they can't be too expensive. ::)
Well Florida has gone big in the pellet making industry. Apparently, there is a new 500,000 metric tonne/year pellet making facility in Florida. It's the worlds largest. It has beat the former champion Pinnacle Pellets in BC. The European market, primarily industrial power plants who seeing the increased supply chain, have been very successful in bidding one supplier against the other to keep the prices down.
The plant in Florida processes 120 truckloads of pine logs a day. The pellets leave the plant on railcars... 20 railcars every day. The pellets travel 60 miles to the Port of Panama City, on the Gulf Coast, where they are loaded onto ships and sent to Europe. Green Circle Bio Energy – which owns this plant – is a Swedish company. The European power plants crush the pellets up, mix them with coal dust, and turn them into electricity. Apparently, the power stations can burn up to 10% wood in their coal plants without making any modifications to the equipment.
This year the British government announced the largest bio-energy power plant in the world. It will generate 350 megawatts of power. The plant will run on American wood chips.
Two more giant pellet plants are under construction in Alabama and Georgia right now.
[sources: Atlantic Forestry Review, Steve Sjuggerud's Daily Wealth]
Quote from: SwampDonkey on November 10, 2008, 05:41:05 PMThe European power plants crush the pellets up, mix them with coal dust, and turn them into electricity. Apparently, the power stations can burn up to 10% wood in their coal plants without making any modifications to the equipment.
Seems like a waste to expend a bunch of energy making pellets, and then
crush them up again... couldn't they just ship baled or compressed, Super Sacked sawdust?
-Norm.
Seems like you use more energy than you get when you add the cost of the fuel and energy in transportation and processing. I guess its supposed to make it up in less carbon emissions.
Apparently, that's the drive Ron, to meet their 2020 emissions goal under Kyoto. You guys probably all see what I do. It's just passing the emissions onto someone else that doesn't follow Kyoto using their resources to do it. Although if it's good forestry behind it and helps the industry it can't all be negative, admittedly a half truth that isn't being told though. :/
I read a casual mention that even Russia with it's vast forest land is tightening down exports of raw forest products to Europe and other Asian countries because of pubic opinion over there. Also, those South American plantations are being converted to agriculture acreage. This will no doubt tighten global wood supply and increase demand from NA. This comes from a report written by investment bankers.
I finally got some pictures uploaded onto the blog. Sorry it took so long. I have been consumed by my need for a kiln as I'm finding the chips are just too wet. I have a pretty good plan going in my head as to how to dry them. It seems lots of folks are thinking of how to dry biomass inexpensively these day. Ever think kiln dried sawdust would be such a hot commodity? http://blog.sleepersriveralternative.com/?p=197
Karl_N
How is the project shaping up?
Found some material that will work in the pelletizer machine?
Are you trying to get over the hurdle of high moisture content of the material, or continuing to look into trying to dry it someway?
Hope some of it is working out for you.
I am building a dryer for the chips. Moisture is the big hurdle for sure. If I can control the moisture I might have it licked.
One of our forum members is the plant manager for a pellet plant that his local woodlot owners have invested into. Right now with wood markets depressed in the area there is a shortage of poor wood because harvesting is kind of bottomed out. So they are approaching DNR for a small crown allocation as a back up source. The plant will employ 10 people. No government funding gone into the operation. It appears that most of the product will be sold locally, although at first they planned to export. That has shifted since local demand is high and most suppliers now can't meet the demand.
Wouldn't it be easier to dry the chips after the hammermill? Smaller pieces are easier to dry.
Wet chips do not run through the hammer mill very well. The wet sawdust coats the screen at the bottom and clogs it up making production fall way off. I'm thinking too that chips don't clump quite like sawdust which perhaps gives the mass more surface area. Just a guess though.
What about doing a partial dry on the chips. Just enough to hammermill them, then dry the rest before processing. My thinking is that it would be less energy intensive than trying to get a big chip down to the right MC for pressing.
I remember a guy that used to dry planer shavings from green wood. At first he just used a clothes dryer. The electric got to be too expensive. He then used a tumble dryer that used a salamander to blow in hot air. It worked pretty good because the material was always being agitated and kept it from just drying from just one side.
I think Ron has a good idea there, and instead of using propane, just run a blower off a wood furnace into it. That's how softwood cones are dried only I think they are using duct work from an oil furnace. But if you have wood all round ya, use wood. I think this was discussed before on the forum by another operation. Maybe it's De Ja Vue. ;D
Hmm, that sounds good. I'm off the grid, so I don't have a whole lot of power especially these days. Eventually some solar fans will be in order but for right now I am trying to do this as cheaply as possible. The chips coming out of the chipper are pretty small to begin with so I think they have a good amount of surface area compared to their volume. The thing is half way built sort of so I'm going to give it a go. I'll keep you posted.
PELLET FUELS
New England Pellet Sued For Millions Of Dollars By CT Officials,
The suit, accuses New England Pellet and its two owners of preselling
between 10,000 and 15,000 tons of pellets used to heat special
wood-burning pellet stoves to customers in Connecticut and Massachusetts
http://www.timberbuysell.com/Community/DisplayNews.asp?id=3916
Smartwood News
So the dryer is coming along.
I'm having trouble uploading pictures here and on the blog so I'll just have to describe what I'm thinking and hope that you all can envision it. Basically I have a heat chamber that is about 8x4x4 that will house a barrel stove. The pipe will run the length of it and come out the back wall. Above the heat chamber will be the drying chamber. The drying chamber is 8x4x4 as well. The floor of the drying chamber is made of a sheet of fairly stiff steel with diamond shaped 1/4" holes in it. Pretty heavy duty. It's being held up by 2x4 joists at about 21" o.c. These joists along with the rim joist basically set the chamber up into 4 separate bays. I'm setting studs on top of the rim joist and flat to- the opposite of how you would normally stud a wall. This is so I can run screening on both sides of the 2x4 and create a separation of these bays but still allow direct heat and air flow up through the structure. You with me so far? So now I have four bays segmented off with mesh screening for walls. I do have a 2x4 in the center as well for support and the ends have a space for airflow as well. I'm further separating these four bays with removable tabs that run across the structure. I have 3 different compartments in each bay. The tabs are made out of the same type of steel I have for the floor and run on rails nailed to my studs. The idea is that I will hoe out the dryed material in the bottom chambers where they will dry the fastest. When the compartment is empty, I'll pull out the first tab or removable platform-what have you, and the chips in that compartment will fall down into the next one. Reinsert the tab, spill the chips down from the next chamber- reload from the top. I'm hoping the tabs will redistribute the chips enough to dry everything evenly but that may be asking too much. We shall see. As soon as I can figure out the picture thing I'll post them. I should have the structure built tommorrow. I will have to have the steel cut. blog.sleepersriveralternative.com
Joined this forum because I burn wood but my professional interest is bio-energy. I attended a bio energy conference last week in northern Missouri where one of the presenters spoke about the cooperative he is in volved in that makes pellets from biomass. Everything from ragweed to forestry slash. One of the obstacles he mentioned was how to handle the grit (silica) that is attached to the plant material. It seems if you don't find a way to deal with it your dies will wear out very quickly. They invented a process to handle it (patented) The cooperative sells to a coal fired power plant, the plant adds the pellets to the coal conveyor (on top) and get carbon credits for using renewables. The cooperative is paying about $55.00 per ton for dry ~10% moisture biomass (hay, sawdust, urban wastes...). The presenter said that their is a huge interst at a federal level on their progress and process.
Just read an article about Used Coffee grounds. Make Biodiesel first, then make Pellets for stoves. Imagine the piles of grounds from truck stops alone ???
I talked to someone who tried to extract oil from used coffee grounds. In their experience there wasn't enough oil left in the grounds after they were boiled to make it worth while. No reason why you couldn't pelletize them though.
Tom
Part of the report.
"Spent coffee grounds are about 15 percent oil, which is only slightly less than many of the other biodiesel feedstocks. Since the world produces over 16 billion pounds of coffee per year, there is a constant and cheap supply of solid coffee waste. Kondamudi, Mohapatra, and Misra also predict that biodiesel from coffee grounds would be more stable than those from other sources because coffee contains antioxidants that would slow down degradation.
The researchers extracted oils from Starbuck's spent coffee grounds, and went on to perform a standard transesterification process to convert the oil to biodiesel using methanol (a type of alcohol) and potassium hydroxide (a base for catalyzing the reaction). They were able to convert 100 percent of the oil in the grounds into biodiesel; both the extracted oil and biodiesel were stable for more than a month, which is sufficient for industrial applications.
After the oil is extracted, the grounds can still be used for compost or fuel pellets. The authors estimated that, if spent grounds were converted into biodiesel and fuel pellets in the U.S., it's possible to make about $8 million in profit per year. On a worldwide scale, based on the amount of coffee that is used, 340 million gallons of biodiesel can be produced from spent grounds.".
Did it say their extraction method? The person I talked to was trying to extract using a screw press. Maybe a different method would work better.
Tom
Link to the article on coffee and biodiesel (http://http:http://arstechnica.com/journals/science.ars/2008/11/25/used-coffee-grounds-for-biodiesel)
So how much oil is new fresh coffee grounds(unused)?
Maybe we can drive the cost of coffee up too. ::) :D :D :D
Who's going to go around and pick up my monthly coffee grounds? Mine wouldn't make a can full. For how much oil, 5-10 ml? ::)
They could get a bunch around here. Me and my neighbors wouldn't be caught dead without a coffee cup in our hand.
Just think of the resturants, the armed forces, the whitehouse, even New Brunswick in the winter time. Lots of coffee grounds.
The trick wouldn't be to pick them up, it would be to offer you 3 cents a pound and let you deliver them once inwhile.
Quote from: Fla._Deadheader on December 14, 2008, 04:42:41 PM
Link to the article on coffee and biodiesel (http://http:http://arstechnica.com/journals/science.ars/2008/11/25/used-coffee-grounds-for-biodiesel)
Your link didn't quite work. Try this:
http://arstechnica.com/journals/science.ars/2008/11/25/used-coffee-grounds-for-biodiesel (http://arstechnica.com/journals/science.ars/2008/11/25/used-coffee-grounds-for-biodiesel).