HVGE Mobile Grass Pelleting Mill - Movie - Just Released

[Jock Gill]

The YouTube version of this is at:

HVGE Mobile Grass Pelleting Mill - Movie

This is a very exciting development.

Libby Murphy writes:

"Now we are trying to keep a bag of grass pellets in the range of $175-200. In the future when quality standards have been worked out then could sell for closer to $225-250 or more depending on wood pellet and oil prices. We want to undercut prices of other heating fuels but at the same time many people are willing to a pay a premium for local fuel that supports local producers.

The components of this mill costs around $150K but that does not include the many hours of staff and volunteer time. We estimate that a future 4 ton/hr mill might be around $350K."

[Fred Rotax]

Hello Jock,

I was intrigued by your pellet mill.

But am not interested in paying that price for grass pellet. Why does everyone in this world have to make so much money. Whatever happened to reasonable profit? The machine is awesome. But I do not trust the business plan.

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[Mark Carlisle]

Good morning,

 

I think Fred brings up an interesting comment. I take a bit of an issue with: "We want to undercut prices of other heating fuels but at the same time many people are willing to a pay a premium for local fuel that supports local producers."  I can buy local: cord wood, wood pellets, wood chips and expect to pay a competitive price and in turn support local producers and most the time not pay a premium price for these fuels.  Maybe I am naive in thinking that grass pellets, slugs, etc. has the potential to stand on its own merits and dictate a responsible price/profit which in turn will help the farmers and the folks that have trouble paying their heating bills.

 

Mark H. Carlisle 

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Mark H. Carlisle

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[David McManus]

I applaud this new technology and the entrepreneurs who developed it. To stay in business for the long haul, I expect that the fuel market will determine what they'll be able to charge. I also believe that a lot of what new sustainable energy tech is about is undercutting what fossil fuels cost to our pocketbooks and the planet. The more that we can support the innovators to gain traction and success, the more others will come in to create better faster etc while also keeping prices down 

---- On Thu, 21 Jul 2011 10:46:25 -0400 Mark Carlisle<mcar...@biomassenergyworks.com> wrote ----

[royn...@verizon.net]

Just once, I'd like to see a real cost benefit analysis that shows the actual cost
with everything included of making these pellets.  If one is creating a business model, perhaps volunteer time and any grant money should be treated as expenses, as they would have to be int he real world, not as free stuff.

Roy Nilson

[Jonathan Reeves]

Do we have a domestic pellet stove that will cope with the variable and high ash /chlorine content of 'any old' hay pellets?  Is this fuel limited to semi-industrial burners?
 
What happened to Michel Viau (Vifam Pro Services) who was apparently doing the same thing about 6 or 7 years ago in Montreal?  Did he do the real cost benefit analysis?
 
Jonathan
 

 

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Date: Thu, 21 Jul 2011 11:08:32 -0400
From: royn...@verizon.net
To: grass-...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: HVGE Mobile Grass Pelleting Mill - Movie - Just Released

[Roy Nilson]

this is from woodpelletstoves for what it is worth

Grass Pellet Stove Manufacturers

...the technology hasn’t sped up to the whole grass pellet theory. Currently there are no manufacturers who specifically design and create stoves capable of handling grass pellets. There are a few stoves however that have proven to work efficiently enough to make this process go smoother. Bixby Energy’s Maxfire corn stove, Harman’s corn stove and CountryFlames’ corn stove have all been used in tests to burn grass successfully. The problem with the grass pellets is the ash content left behind. Wood pellet stoves are not capable of handling these pellets. The parts get clogged and it just proves to be more work keeping them clean and useable. Corn stoves on the other hand were originally designed to handle high contents of ash, so they’ve become a natural choice during testing.

"Now we are trying to keep a bag of grass pellets in the range of $175-200. In the future when quality standards have been worked out then could sell for closer to $225-250 or more depending on wood pellet and oil prices.. We want to undercut prices of other heating fuels but at the same time many people are willing to a pay a premium for local fuel that supports local producers.

The components of this mill costs around $150K but that does not include the many hours of staff and volunteer time. We estimate that a future 4 ton/hr mill might be around $350K."

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[Jim Wuertele]

All,

My Apology:

   Not being a scientist with experimental data over decades of heavily harvested grass fields, I can only refer to at least one Vermont-based grass farmer (Jack Lazor) publishing that he has seen a lightening of deep soils (6-10 down) used for grass feed production and suspecting that carbon is not replaced even by surface application of compost or other amendments.

My Speculation:

   In spite of planned methods to build economical crop densities (2-3 tons/A annually) for harvesting grass fuel, the carbon at the root depths of the perennial varieties is not replaced, making grass fuel harvest densities not "sustainable" beyond a few decades.

   Trees, on the other hand, extract much of their carbon from the air over the 20 years taken to produce economical fuel (40-60 tons/A annually), eliminating the need for carbon densities in the deep soil for healthy fuel grass varieties.

   I offer as proof in Western US mountain forests, the soil can be almost "white" of carbon in the root area of the trees, and or in Brazil, many burned-off equatorial jungles are found to have poor soils (outside of swampy areas).

My worry:

   That there is not yet enough testing to confirm that grass harvesting could support a sustainable fuel program because such doubt is inconvenient in the flush of new ideas and the passion to support our energy appetites. Doubt is not commercially viable, but is know to work well in the university environment—if funded. What entity would fund a study taking 50 years to prove sustainability of a fuel?

Related (old) story:

   The short-term thinking of the Mayor of Hamelin in 1326, when he refused to pay the piper after the rats were drowned, penalized all in the town with the loss of everyone's children. He said later he was surprised that the magic in the pipe was not limited to rats.

   Presently, many of us are looking for a sustainable fuel because we have promised our families that everything will be fine if we do. If we end up having to break that promise, how will the piper react?

Jim

James W. Wuertele

Vermont Agrifuels Institute

198 Church Street

St. Johnsbury, VT

05819, USA

802-748-8813

jww...@myfairpoint.net

[Benjamin Pyles]

Hi Jim-

Ben Pyles here, former Vermonter: now at UC Davis- Looking to return
to the NE region in the near future.

You make an interesting point-

I would be interested in the mechanism of carbon depletion ,
especially at depth, of a permaculture system- Is the idea that
grasses do a root uptake of carbon and redeposit it in the foliage,
which is then removed- Thus, even with surface application of the
carbon containing fertilizers, the carbon is on a upper soil horizon?
Am I getting the gist of this?

I have been planting the sterile hybrid Miscanthus giganteus for test
material for densification projects. Partially the reason I am
interested in it is the information from long term European plots;
plots that show additional carbon is sequestered in a range of soil
horizons, and that soil carbon is improved year upon year.
(This is based on fields that allow for nutrient redistribution in the
fall, and a winter/ early spring harvest of the standing stalks. This
harvest plan results in a relatively low ash, dry material in an off
season harvest time- I do not have data on green harvest of the
plant).

A friend Near Bristol is growing test plots to verify the
winter-hardiness of some cultivars. A former UVM animal nutritionist
ran cattle feeding trials of giant Miscanthus several years ago, and
the data looked good for the nutrient profile and palatability. I
believe his patch is still growing ~20 years later-

Cheers- Ben

[Benjamin Pyles]

Hi all-
I saw this a bit ago- not sure if it is up to dealing with the salts,
but they seem confident- would be intersteded to follow up w/ them
sometime.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oWVffbqlZi4

I ran some general grass pellets through my American Heritage
Multi-fuel stove that had pretty high ash (~5.2-7%) and it handled it
pretty well- I have a short run to a masonry flue through stainless
pipe (340 stainless IIRC)- and some more fly ash noticed, but no
pitting after a couple tons.

Cheers- Ben Pyles

[Henry Swayze]

Further thoughts on sustainability of grass production.  I spent 20 years studding grassland farming in the US Canada, the British isles and New Zealand.  The proof is in the testing but here are a few thoughts: New Zealendar's live on very poor soils with low cat ion exchange.  They avoid taking back to back hay cuttings from any particular field.  The grain farmers in England working on better soils will crop for two or perhaps three seasons and then pay, if necessary, to have a livestock farmer redevelop the sod with his animals.  To Jack Lazor's comment about depth of carbon:  When a green sward is grazed or removed (and grazing is actually better) the plant has lost much of its solar collector and needs to put up more greenery.  It does this by mobilizing root reserves and putting those reserves into growth.  This process sheds root structure which leaves organic matter in the soil.  Each grazing cycle leaves a new dollop behind.  So where does this organic matter go?  Some into new plant tops and root growth, some into the air as CO2.  Each soil has a natural balance point for organic mater.  In our cool climate soils tend to have a much higher natural point than those in the tropical climates.  Why is Jacks dark zone getting shallower?  Because he is intensively managing his land and the sward is never growing high like it used to when cropped only twice a year.  Plants tend to set roots to a depth commensurate with their height above ground so a 3' hay crop has deeper roots than a 4-10" dense pasture.  Another problem with growing grass for fuel is we like to let the grass get fully mature and I suspect that less root is deposited back into the soil under that management.  With animals you build organic matter the fastest by doing the most grazings per year... as many as 6.  Biochar might open up a path to potentially do multiple year intense production with type C grasses.  If we could take just one crop of native hay a year and have the system pay for its self that would probably not require much soil enhancement to operate long term.

Henry Swayze

Tunbridge VT

[Pete Kelley]

$175-$200 per BAG, or per TON?

Sent from my iPhone

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