Wood pellets instead of road salt

[eggsarascal]

10 minutes ago, openspaceman said:

I cannot see that with wood, there's not enough volatile solids to take up oxygen that quick, also the Nitrogen:carbon ratio is too low. A load of greenstuff then yes it would.

 

Milk is one of the worst things fror depleting oxygen because the fat globules have such a high surface area for reaction.

 

We ran a liquid composting plant where the rules were get it to 70C for an hour and then it could be spread, the BOD of that was far too high and coupled with the warmth meant the fields sprouted a grey green velvet fuzz.

mrs eggs says:

" it is likely that wood pellets would be crushed to a pulp in wet conditions, they would pass to surface drains in rain or thaw, if they don't block gullies, and cause costly increased gully maintenance and increased localised flooding if not kept on top of. If it made it to drains it would then degrade as a high carbon content solid, into a high bod content liquid and begin to provide food for bacteria, in doing so they would strip oxygen. The best analogy would be pulp from a paper factory, and its high strength in the same environment wood is basically complicated starch. 

 

In my opinion I cannot see how wood pellets would be best used for road treatment as it is not anti slip and does not prevent ice formation or promote ice destruction in the same way grit salt does. 

 

The beauty with grit is it does not float in water, which pellets would, washing them to drain, and the grit bit is inert. I personally hate salt in the environment, but it's a necessary evil.

 

Some authorities did use a mollasses  byproduct / additive to aid "sticking" of grit to roads thinking to reduce the salt need, but I don't think it took off for polluting reasons either.

 

mrs eggs CSci, MIWater.

 

 

[silky fox]

Mrs Egg is always right.....right Mr Egg?[emoji6][emoji16]

[eggsarascal]

1 minute ago, silky fox said:

Mrs Egg is always right.....right Mr Egg?

I've never known her to be wrong

[openspaceman]

2 hours ago, eggsarascal said:

mrs eggs says:

" it is likely that wood pellets would be crushed to a pulp in wet conditions, they would pass to surface drains in rain or thaw, if they don't block gullies, and cause costly increased gully maintenance and increased localised flooding if not kept on top of. If it made it to drains it would then degrade as a high carbon content solid, into a high bod content liquid and begin to provide food for bacteria, in doing so they would strip oxygen.

 

 

Well not willing to argue with your well qualified wife  but if you read what I said I said they would not strip oxygen *quickly* and the amount of wood put on the road would  be insignificant compared with the effects of leaf and needle fall and other plant derived debris . Also why should the road drain into a high BOD environment like a foul sewer?

 

I agree if you add it to any nitrogenous waste then it will allow microbes to attack it and they will deplete oxygen

2 hours ago, eggsarascal said:

 

The best analogy would be pulp from a paper factory, and its high strength in the same environment wood is basically complicated starch. 

Again the whole business of a pulpmill is to separate the components of wood, the undesirable component is lignin which is dissolved by adding alkali and heat and the resultant liquor is high BOD, the long chain cellulosic fibres  which are retained for the paper making. Agreed some will escape and they will be of very high surface area so more easily attacked and degraded by aerobic  microbes which will need oxygen.

 

 The waste from a paper plant I was familiar with had to be massively diluted by water purchased from british rail in order to meet the discharge standards for the estuary.

2 hours ago, eggsarascal said:

 

In my opinion I cannot see how wood pellets would be best used for road treatment as it is not anti slip and does not prevent ice formation or promote ice destruction in the same way grit salt does. 

 

The beauty with grit is it does not float in water, which pellets would, washing them to drain, and the grit bit is inert. I personally hate salt in the environment, but it's a necessary evil.

 

I agree with that bit entirely. There have been problems with fine grit (particularly from building sites) damaging the gills of smoults.

 

Again if you follow the original link the wood chip (I referred to wood in the article not pellets made from densifying and compressing sawdust) is also coated with a chloride (magnesium??) so it may have been intended to better retain the chemical on it's surface and increase the longevity of the product.

 

[eggsarascal]

So paper mills have high BOD waste, dilution needed, and estuarine river needs permits can be lighter than inland river needs permits (we live inland and all my catchments are abstracted for irrigation and potable water) I deal with many industrial process effluents including run off from sites with biowaste recycling both transfer and compost and all have high strength waste, BOD wise, which concerns me. Therein lies my comparison.

 

Forgive me for not reading the whole thread(pellets/chip) but both will face serious chomping by traffic and it's of little concern what state it is laid in its about how it behaves after traffic, and rain. Again it's all just complicated starch.

 

Hey we're all for new ideas, but not all of them work, but let's not stop trying them. If some one can find a ph neutral low BOD replacement for salt they will please every one but the Cod.

 

mrs eggs.

[kevinjohnsonmbe]

You’re more engaging than Mr Eggs Mrs Eggs!

 

Ill leave the technical detail to you boffins, but just to add a curved ball....

 

Whilst we focus on the down side of possible alternatives, we should have a baseline of “badness” from which each can be judged. 

 

What about if all of the apparent disadvantages of wood pellets adds to less bad than the current unintended consequences of salt? Not just the effect on watercourse, but road side vegetation, trees etc?

 

for OSM- there was mention of a patented magnesium coating in the video if I recall correctly....

 

PS - PM sent Mrs Egg

Edited January 29, 2018 by kevinjohnsonmbe

[kcstevens]

I hope they don't start using chip in Cornwall. Every time salt has been spread this winter it's been followed by rain. Anything that has been put on the road has just made it's way off it just as quick. It's been too warm and wet down penwith (imo) to bother wasting any product/money. As for chip, it'll make its way to the side of the road and just turn to sloppy mud and because it wouldn't then be clean up regularly would cause accidents

 

 

[openspaceman]

3 hours ago, kcstevens said:

I hope they don't start using chip in Cornwall. Every time salt has been spread this winter it's been followed by rain. Anything that has been put on the road has just made it's way off it just as quick. It's been too warm and wet down penwith (imo) to bother wasting any product/money. As for chip, it'll make its way to the side of the road and just turn to sloppy mud and because it wouldn't then be clean up regularly would cause accidents

 

 

The decision making for salting must be quite difficult and we all have heard  how the salting budget gets used for extraneous jobs, like replacing kerb stones in March for fear on having it reduced for the following year if the stockpile doesn't get used.

 

We have a similar problem with organic slush outside my house in mast years, the acorns from the property opposite  get ground up  but as they end up in the gutter it's less of a safety problem. I sweep them up before they get crushed to stop the mess being carried into the house. others don't but here in January there's no sign of any residue so much must have got into the gullies.

[kevinjohnsonmbe]

5 hours ago, kcstevens said:

I hope they don't start using chip in Cornwall. Every time salt has been spread this winter it's been followed by rain. Anything that has been put on the road has just made it's way off it just as quick. It's been too warm and wet down penwith (imo) to bother wasting any product/money. As for chip, it'll make its way to the side of the road and just turn to sloppy mud and because it wouldn't then be clean up regularly would cause accidents

 

 

I'm struggling a bit with your logic KC!

 

Every time salt has been spread this winter it's been followed by rain. Anything that has been put on the road has just made it's way off it just as quick. - so it is wholly ineffective as well as environmentally damaging (pointless & bad.)  I've got some small piles of disintegrated pellets in the yard that have been there since Nov.  Granted, not heavy traffic but they are still there, not washed away, not dissolved, not even moved!

 

As for chip, it'll make its way to the side of the road and just turn to sloppy mud and because it wouldn't then be clean up regularly would cause accidents  - you mean like all the leaves, debris, farm vehicle mud, hedge cuttings etc that already constitute road side detritus that isn't cleaned up, but oddly doesn't seem to lead to accidents?  I know that's a tricky point to try and advance and I'm not suggesting that adding to an existing problem is necessarily a sound proposal, rather that I don't really see the counter argument that it might cause an increase in accidents as being a particularly sound one.

 

The whole focus seems to be on the potential negatives associated with the proposal rather than a balance of the "bad" that currently exists with salt, measured against the potential reduction in efficiency (of pellet as compared to salt) most of which could be ameliorated if the will existed.  Example, the roads could be swept after the application of pellets (when warm weather comes.)

 

Of course its not a 100% solution for all roads for the reasons of surface drainage BOD that Mr & Mrs Eggs & Marcus have illustrated, but maybe some roads, some of the time?  Aprroach it like some of the other "bad" things we do (drinking, smoking, fatty foods, sugar, speeding, too much time on AT etc etc....) cutting them out all together is probably not achievable - but reduction is good.... 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[kcstevens]

You say you don't understand my logic yet have fully understood it and quoted yourself that mud and leaves in the gullies are a problem already... therefore I can not add to that point