[Bioconversion] Re: Grass pellets

[Tom Miles]

Neal,

Not so high. See the Vermont Fuel Price Report, February 2006
http://publicservice.vermont.gov/pub/fuel-price-report/06feb.pdf

Fuel oil, $2.46/gal, $22.27/MMBtu
Electricity $0.13/kWh, $37.51/MMTbu
Wood, green cords $170/cord, $12.88/MMBtu
Wood Pellets $210/ton, $16.01/MMBtu

Grass pellets at $10.20/MMBtu would sell for $153/ton (15 MMBtu/ton). That
must be a bulk price, not bagged. 

A wood pellet user in New Hampshire buys bulk pellets at $165/ton (in 10 ton
lots)or $10.06/MMBtu (16.4 MMBtu/ton) instead of bagged retail pellets at
$230/ton or $14.02/MMBtu, or cordwood at $240/cord $10.90/MMBtu (22
MMBtu/cord). Since his pellet boiler is more efficient than his cordwood
boiler he gains by using wood pellets in bulk.

At even money would you prefer to burn wood pellets or grass pellets? 

If you don't have wood available then it's a different story.

Tom     

  

-----Original Message-----
From: bioconversion-bounces at listserv.repp.org
[mailto:bioconversion-bounces at listserv.repp.org] On Behalf Of CAVM at aol.com
Sent: Thursday, February 09, 2006 5:23 AM
To: bioconversion at listserv.repp.org
Subject: [Bioconversion] Re: Grass pellets

The figures for cost per  million BTU seem extraordinarily high. 
 
Neal Van  Milligen
--------------------------------
Landmark Vermont Farm Tries  Grass Pellet Heat

February 06, 2006 - By David Gram, Associated Press 

SHELBURN, Vermont - It cost Shelburne Farms about  $1,000 a year to mow
grass that doesn't end up as hay for the animals and simply  goes to waste.
Now staff at the historic farm have come up with a use for it:  turn it to
pellets and burn them to heat the massive main barn. 

A boiler  room is a strange place for a party, but the only things missing
Friday were  cocktails and canapes as staff from the farm, a historic
landmark and  environmental education center, joined representatives of the
Grass Energy  Collaborative and others to watch grass pellets get loaded
into the barn's furnace. 

Grass as fuel is not new. Burning it got Great Plains pioneers  through many
a tough winter in the 19th century. What is relatively new is the  idea that
grass pellets could be manufactured for maximum heating efficiency and  sold
commercially. 

"This is a small step toward a much bigger future,"  Jock Gill, president of
the non-profit collaborative, said of Friday's test  burn. 

The hope at Shelburne Farms is to gather grass from the farm, as  well as
neighboring farms, use a special machine to turn the grass into pellets  and
burn it much the way wood pellets are burned in boilers now. 

The  advantages, said Marshall Webb, special projects coordinator at
Shelburne Farms,  include projections that grass pellets will cost about
half what wood pellets  do. The grass is dried by the sun, rather than with
energy-intensive processes  used for wood pellets, he added. Perhaps most
important, the grass pellets can  come right from the farm, Webb said. 

Robert Bender, president of South  Burlington-based Chiptec Wood Energy
Systems, said pellets can be used well as  fuel for combined heat and power
systems that provide space heating as well as  that needed to run a small
electrical turbine. 

Webb said that would  dovetail well with Shelburne Farms' vision. 

"The ultimate goal by 2020  is to be powered completely by renewable
energy," 
he said. 

The Gas  Energy Collaborative, which includes people who have been involved
with other  biomass fuels and a Cornell University professor who has been
experimenting with  grass pellets, issued a white paper detailing what it
believes are some of the  promised benefits of grass pellets. 

One is cost. A ton of grass pellets  produces 14 million British thermal
units of heat, versus 16 million for a ton  of wood pellets, the paper said.
But it added that wood pellets cost about $200  a ton, where grass pellets
will be able to be sold for $100 a ton. 

Put  another way, the cost per million Btu for fuel oil is $23.47; for
electricity,  $39.73; for wood pellets $17.86 and for grass pellets provided
by a producers'  co-op to farmers who grow the grass, at $10.20. 

Source: Associated  Press
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