Building a grass-based bio-energy industry will require advances on three fronts: (1) creating demand through price competitiveness and heating appliance compatibility, (2) developing reliable, cost-effective densified fuel production and (3) making it worthwhile for grassland owners to produce sustainable bio-energy crops. These can be thought of as three legs of a stool, all of which must be present for the stool to stand. This brief essay focuses on the second item: developing reliable, cost-effective densified fuel production.
Although there are special systems such as those manufactured by Reka that can burn undensified fuel, densification into pellets and/or briquettes is going to be necessary for widespread adoption. Densification facilities, whether they be mobile or stationary, have to be designed for optimum production and minimum cost. People who know how to do this well can be found in the dairy and livestock feed mills that serve New York and the Northeast.
An opportunity may exist to work with one or more of these mills to test grass pellet production under real-world conditions and establish the economics. Such a research effort could be a model of public-private partnership. The ideal candidate for such a project would be a mill that has some amount of surplus pelletizing capacity. Depending on their configuration, some mills produce both pelletized feed and bulk mixtures. If the demand for bulk mixtures increases relative to pelletized feed, such a surplus capacity can occur.
The research may cause feed mills to add grass fuel pellets to their product lines or it may open the door for new entrepreneurs. In the future, densified grass fuel could be delivered in bulk to on-site storage at the points of use with the same delivery vehicles that are currently used for feed deliveries. Another approach could be the interchangeable container method, as described by Tony Nekut in the February 13 posting.
If no feed mill can be identified that would agree to participate in a funded research project as described above, another alternative would be to fund a dedicated test-bed facility. It would be economical, however, to use existing equipment located in a feed mill if possible.
I am hopeful that this is one of several issues that participants will discuss at the HeatNE Conference in Manchester, NH on April 14-15. Grass energy will have a higher visibility at this year’s conference than in the past. I encourage you to attend.
This is an interesting idea, Jon. I agree with you about the need for grass pellet production to tap that market. Have you approached any feed mills, and what kind of reception have you gotten? I wonder also whether it would be worthwhile to approach wood pellet manufacturers (like Curran in your neck of the woods) to explore that avenue as well. Maybe as a hybrid wood/grass pellet. Grass prices will have to be competitive with wood, especially considering that the hybrid pellets will have to sell for less than premium wood pellets.
I have burned a good part of a ton of Tom Lee’s BHS Slugger briquettes this winter in my home boiler with good results. Aside from the high ash content that adds to maintenence time, the only other “problem” was getting them out of the bulk bag. I ended up shovelling them into a bucket for transfer to the boiler.
Re: Jon Montan’s post, FEED MILLS AND GRASS ENERGY.
Enviro Energy of Unadilla, N.Y., Otsego County has been working on propping up Jon Montan’s “3 legged stool” for 3 years. We have been manufacturing grass pellets since 2008.
During this 3 years we have done a lot of experimenting with different raw materials and equipment adjustments.
We have been open to having visitors from several colleges taking pictures, videos and notes! We have given presentations at numerous meetings, supplied pellets for testing from California to Holland, as well as the Catskill Grass Energy Project.
We are now making grass pellets with pretty much the same physical density, moisture content and BTU as most wood pellets. Chlorine content in some tests have been lower than wood.
Our energy input to energy output is now 1 to 8.5 and we are working on a change we think will get us between 1 to 12 or 1 to 14.
Bulk delivery will be no problem. The beauty of pellets is all that is needed is a feed truck and a feed bin for storage, not exactly high tech or untested!
We are expecting a new biomass boiler, manufactured in USA, to be demonstrated here in April.
We are open to discussing the possibility of our facility being used for testing and education and/or a model for others.
Our business has been financed all on private funds and loans. It seems all grants are given for “studying” instead of “doing”
I am a small farmer with a previous career in high tech data networks offered through telecoms in the USA and Canada. Standardized performance was the lifeblood of my company’s success but seems (standardization)to be an ingrained fault in the emerging grass pellet market.
I want to standardize the crop, the processing and the performance of stoves & boilers that appears to be the major problem with the current performance results. In spite of all the government, university and associations trying to get grass pellets/biomass out of the study mode, to which you referred, it comes across as both a rush to government inefficiencies and a tinkerers heaven.
My interest is creating a complete supply line cycle that makes burning grass pellets no different from existing carbon based fuels. This can be done and then the benefits for farmers, customers, the community and the environment are stupendous.
Can you refer me to a resource that has the technical background in biomass and combustion to contribute to my planning?
Thank you
I find this idea easier to propose than do. I know of no modern feed mill that could handle grass without considerable modification. Modern mills have the ability to make quality pellets but thy are not set up either grind the dry hay or handle a product that does not flow. Enviro Energy found this out early on in the development of their mill. They had to build a special bin with mechanism to stir the ground hay defeating it’s tendency to “bridge”.
The feed mills have the ability to extrude pellets from grass but they have no way to get the product to the pellet mill.