Wood heating with pellets
A correspondence, Henry Swayze – Jim Weurtele
- Household heating is app 1/3 of a Vermont household’s fossil fuel usage.
- Wood heat does not add to climate change as the CO2 produced is being taken up by the replacement growth.
- Cord wood stoves even those with catalytic converters burn dirtier than oil or gas furnaces. Pellet burners are clean (and more efficient than wood stoves). They are also automatic. Vermont is on the cusp of being declared in violation of EPA’s standards. Even though most of this polluted air blows I from the west we must try to not exceed the clean air standard. So considering pellet burners makes sense.
- The pellets are more expensive than cord wood but come kiln dried. Pellets should stay 20-50% cheaper than gas and oil although lack of supply is a current issue and requires prebuying to be assured reasonable prices.
See correspondence thread below for some of the gory details: (Read bottom up)
HI Henry,
The price looks good for premium wood. Bear in mind that there are about 0.8 million pellet stoves and only about 1.5 million tons made per year (2005 numbers), resulting in short supply to many at the end of every season. Bulk orders have the quality of covering this problem nicely. A ton is about 5 feet high on a pallet.
Several pellet stove manufacturers are going out of business (2006 was a bad year for stove sales), so be careful who sells the stoves and later supports them. I recommend Harmon P60, PC45, Bixby 115, and both Country Flame models since these will burn grass pellets as well as corn and wood pellets. The Country Flame is the best all around for the least cost too, I think. I am not sure about their business health, so buyer beware. I cannot yet recommend a furnace suitable for an inside installation in a home.
No, I do not mind you quoting me, as long as you know I have no personal stake in sales, etc. I do sell experimental grass pellets for my cost ($9.85 per 40# bag and, if you do not pick them up, a $20 handling fee plus delivery costs by FedEx).
Put me in touch with anyone who wants to experiment using grass pellets, or any other related issue.
Jim
James W. Wuertele Vermont Agrifuels Institute 198 Church Street St. Johnsbury, VT 05819, USA 802-748-8813 802-274-3063 cell jww.vai@verizon.net
http://vtagrifuels.com/Thanks Jim for such a complete overview. If I do not push local production of wood or grass pellets what do you think we can expect for pellet prices going forwared? http://www.pelletsales.com/request-pellets/show-quote-matrix.aspx is quoting 22 ton loads delivered now for $4,695- premium wood ($213/T). This is perhaps 40% cheaper than oil but requires a lot of logistics to get it spread around. Should I promote these figures or wait for lower prices? Any thoughts?
Can I share our correspondence with other VT Peak oilers?
Thanks again,
Henry
Original Message -----
From: Jim Wuertele
To: Henry Swayze
Sent: Sunday, May 27, 2007 2:24 PM
Subject: Re: Pelet avalability and furnace conversions
Hi Henry, Yes, I am trying to keep close to the grass pellet possibilities. Wood pellet market is still over sold by a large factor.
Canada is still the only source of experimental grass pellets for people who want to check out a stove or furnace for purchase that could handle grass or other high ash fuels from farm waste streams in addition to the wood pellets now of limited availability. The price is probably double the wood price (I paid $450 a ton in winter of '05), since the 40# bags require special handling through a particular mill and border shipment. To make matters worse for experimenters, the quantity would have to sum to 20 tons. This means coordination with the few bulk customers, like certain universities, etc.
Jock Gill and his business partner, Averill Cook, are experimenting with (wood + grass) blends in a large (fixed) Vermont mill, but are not encouraging new customers for now. They want to moderate the high ash of the pure grass, but some farm waste streams can be 20% ash. This is a worthwhile investigation, I am not saying that small farms do this. I have a small stove and 2 tons of switchgrass pellets to experiment in a greenhouse near St. J. Also, I have 1.2 ton of the same pellets I can sell for no profit on a 40# bag basis to experimenters. Also, I can send a baggie of pellets for free to anyone to hold and think.
Transportable pelletizer from Michel Viau of Canada is not as forthcoming as I was lead to believe last year. You of course could hasten it along by partnering with him(!) His 3 ton per hour system would cost about $750,000. He also has a 100# per hour system that costs about $30,000. Of course the payback would be driven by the difference in the cost of BTU from grass fuel and oil, which is about $1.50 per gallon of oil now if the grass is costed out at the farm. (1 ton of grass pellets--50 bags--is equivalent to 100 gallons of oil, the farm cost of producing grass bales is estimated at $40 per ton, and pelletizing on the transportable pelletizer would be about $60 per ton.) For such a difference, the smaller system needs to run about 4000 hours before payback. But at 10 tons per customer, you could satisfy 20 customers in that half year of running with such a system.
The oil furnace converted to solid fuel is not done that I know of, but it could be done using the Harmon flat burn plate rear-feed system that you see on the P60 (other stoves use it, so may not be patented).
The limiting dimension is a lack of a tinkerer with about $50,000 and a half year to build and install under Michel Viau's direction (he is limited in people power too). Then the small system could be built and indifferent grasses pelletized for fun and profit until nearby farms get the more optimum switchgrass and reed canarygrass growing for several years to build root depth, etc. That kind of commitment would encourage the Canadian to build the mother of all transportable pelletizers to service a cluster of farms in a 50 mile diameter range. Since I do not want to be that tinkerer, I have no way to ask for grants to proceed, but I could advise someone.
Jim
James W. Wuertele Vermont Agrifuels Institute 198 Church Street St. Johnsbury, VT 05819, USA 802-748-8813 802-274-3063 cell jww.vai@verizon.net
http://vtagrifuels.com/On May 25, 2007, at 1:10 PM, Henry Swayze wrote:
Hi Jim Hope you are doing well. I haven't seen you at any events that I made it to. Do you have any predictions about pellet availability as time goes forwared. I am thinking about a campaign to get our area moved on to pellets but do not want to chase people into a scarce commodity. How about the farm to farm grass pelletizer? Are there any good systems for converting an existing oil furnace into a pellet system? Wishing you well, Henry & Cornelia Swayze 47 Swayze Road Tunbridge Vermont 05077 802-889-5556 articles, calendars and your discussion
http://www.vtpeakoil.net/community/folder.php?id=2The First Branch Sustainability Project
Older thread:
Original Message -----
From: Jim Wuertele
To: Henry Swayze
Sent: Wednesday, August 02, 2006 10:21 AM
Subject: Re: Native grass
Hi Henry, I will answer your questions off the top of my head to save me some time getting references for you. If you need references on one or two points, specify and I will find them. 1. Do you have any thoughts on using native grass? Native grass should be used to lower risks and efforts. My information is that switchgrass is native to Northeast US and Canada. 2. Would it work in the same machinery as the switch grass? Yes. 3. How about the BTU content and the ash content? The same to first approximation. The preferred species (switchgrass and reed canarygrass) were selected by experts in experimental farms as part of McGill University and Cornell University for the total results (effort, cost, yield, ash). 4. Will current stoves or furnaces handle it? "Handle" is an inaccurate word. We are all experimenters now. Yes, all pellet stoves attended every hour will burn grass pellets. It goes downhill from there. A few stoves, that stir the fire with rotating paddles will run for many 40 pound bags before requiring emptying of ash. There is at least one furnace that does this. All grass burning appliances need more caution (inspection at least yearly for developing holes in even stainless) regarding ash effects on their hot surfaces and where the exhaust condenses moisture near the top of the stack since grasses produce about 10 times the Chlorides than does wood. None of these issues may be "stoppers" to those needing to start their experimentations. The Austrians claim to have a (secret) coating that prevents Chloride attacks on metal components. I plan to be doing experiments with standard galvanized pipe sections and various easily (for experimenters) applied coatings this fall using my own Bixby. Bixby claims to have a special solution for their own pipe, but then give great cautions to inspect, etc. 5. If native grass could be a GO do you have any further sense of the availability of a mobile pellitizer for use this fall? My latest information, obtained during my visit to the vendor in Montreal in June, was that he will be making two machines, one after the other, and will provide us with the rental in November if he doesn't sell it. Otherwise, the second machine will arrive in January '07.
On Aug 1, 2006, at 1:21 PM, Henry Swayze wrote:
James It was good to have visited with you at Carle's in Montpelier. The seeds of your beliefs are beginning to sprout in the field. Among our Tunbridge- First Branch group there is some interest in pellet stoves and making pellets locally to fuel them. Marian White was interested in Switch grass, I was interested in forestry thinnings and Rob Howe wants to stay away from introducing non native species (switch grass) but thinks there is way more grass growing than livestock to eat it and wants to know about harvesting native grass and pelletizing it. Do you have any thoughts on using native grass? Would it work in the same machinery as the switch grass? How about the BTU content and the ash content? Will current stoves or furnaces handle it? If native grass could be a GO do you have any further sense of the availability of a mobile pellitizer for use this fall? Thanks for you interest and help, Working to create a sustainable community, Henry Swayze 47 Swayze Road Tunbridge Vermont 05077 802-889-5556
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