So what's going to happen to the firewood market?

[arboriculturist]

14 minutes ago, drinksloe said:

Planted quite a bit of willow round me mibee 10+?ish years ago, only 2 fields left now in the whole area. All ripped up and reploughed, it actually ploughs out better than i thought it would, thought u'd get far more regen coming back

Money just not in it.

For years there was a field right next to the boimass power station so close the harvester could of fired the end riggs strainght into the station grounds from its spout, but all that chip was taken 70 miles away to be stored for a year before being hualed back. Just bonkers.

When that  plant was built was meant to be powered entirely by locally grown willow and waste wood of harvesting sites, no willow left locally and soon realised brash and stumps are just a waste of time in SW scotland the costs of extrcating/hualing them plus washing before chipping was massive.

The carbon/desiel footprint would be massive

 

The whole boimass industry (like most other green energies) is a sham and a complete white elephant. Subsidies are keeping it going and generally governments/civil servants make a complete arse of them.

With the commercial RHI tarriffs u have folk buring every scrap of wood to heat empty sheds so using up all these trees that have been lying for years,

Is there not a big boimass plant down south that imports al its chip from canada/usa?

Coupled with all this imported fiirewood, from an sustainable environmental perspective its just crazy really

www.biofuelwatch.org.uk !!! ?

[SbTVF]

About 8 years back we bought land with 10 acres of SRC willow original planted for Semco at Wilton (middlesbrough so about 10 miles away) but they weren’t taking it any longer so ended up managing to send it to iggesund opposite end of the a66 at Workington. The fee we were paid after transport only just covered the harvesting done by metcalfe farms modified forager and left a bit to pay for it to be mulched out so we could grass it for the sheep.

Metcalfes have that machine running 6 months of the year just doing willow for iggesund as far as I’m aware and it spends a good portion of that time in the borders and Scotland.

Our field was done so badly it would’ve had to be replanted anyway so it wasn’t such a ballache for the harvester. Was entirely a grant chasing exercise by the previous owners.

If managed correctly it does create a good yield and can be grown on marginal land which otherwise might only be otherwise useful for grass.

The whole biomass thing for power stations is pretty ridiculous. Especially If they’re going to use decent wood to chip just because that’s all they can get hold of!
Fair enough use SRC willow, miscanthus, arb arisings, brash, forest residue, knackered pallets and wood packing material but saw logs? Insane.

Why aren’t we incinerating all our household waste to create energy instead of landfilling it?

Quite frankly why aren’t we building more than one new nuclear power station??? I’d rather they subsidising that and getting rid of the waste than totally raping our forests of decent wood when there is barely enough of it anyway!

[Squaredy]

7 minutes ago, SbTVF said:

Why aren’t we incinerating all our household waste to create energy instead of landfilling it?


That is exactly what happens in Cardiff, but sadly it also has its problems.  The air pollution caused in Cardiff has been a huge local concern, and now they are sending all the waste ash from incineration to England (2500 lorry loads per year) as it was causing so much dust and distress in the Cardiff landfill site that was taking it. 

 

Incinerating waste is not the simple neat solution it at first appears.  

[SbTVF]

That is exactly what happens in Cardiff, but sadly it also has its problems.  The air pollution caused in Cardiff has been a huge local concern, and now they are sending all the waste ash from incineration to England (2500 lorry loads per year) as it was causing so much dust and distress in the Cardiff landfill site that was taking it. 
 
Incinerating waste is not the simple neat solution it at first appears.  

Can’t ash be spread on fields as soil conditioner for farmers? Why the hell are they land filling it?

[Woodworks]

26 minutes ago, SbTVF said:

Can’t ash be spread on fields as soil conditioner for farmers? Why the hell are they land filling it?

Ash from incinerating plastic must be full of all sorts of nasties. 

[Squaredy]

28 minutes ago, SbTVF said:

Can’t ash be spread on fields as soil conditioner for farmers? Why the hell are they land filling it?

Yes ash from waste incinerators is  apparently very nasty indeed. Even pure wood ash is not good in the long run as it is highly alkali.

 

[arboriculturist]

On 04/09/2018 at 21:09, Alycidon said:

Its around £70 a ton road side for good hardwood cord in the East Midlands.     

 

A

If you are a producer who buys a lot you can still get it for around 45. I wouldn't think your margins would make retailing Firewood at those prices worth the effort.

[SbTVF]

Yes ash from waste incinerators is  apparently very nasty indeed. Even pure wood ash is not good in the long run as it is highly alkali.
 

Ah that’s a shame.
Every farm I’ve been on that’s had a burn pile on stubble always gets a huge flush of yield in the patch for years after!

[Woodworks]

Just now, SbTVF said:

 

Ah that’s a shame.
Every farm I’ve been on that’s had a burn pile on stubble always gets a huge flush of yield in the patch for years after!

 

"burn pile" what are we talking about here plastics or wood?

[SbTVF]

"burn pile" what are we talking about here plastics or wood?

Hedgerow clearings, pallets, silage wrap you name it [emoji23]