fierwood shortage

[cousin jack]

There was an all singing and dancing biomass plant supposed to start up near us, the bulk of it was paid for, as far as I know, by public money, it's gone bust, it was supposed to burn miscanthus but i'm told they struggled to get it to burn properley, I don't know if that was due to moisture levels or what, they had to buy in chip. One local farmer near me put 1000 acres, just about his whole farm,down to miscanthus, talk about putting all your eggs in one basket, he is in a pretty perilous financial situation now, and I bet he wishe's he never heard of biomass, they tell me he's trying to turn the miscanthus into "bricquets" to sell as an alternative to firewood. Can't help wishing it goes pear shaped as well.

[MattyF]

Just been off the phone tomy parents who told me the power station local to them is buying in chipwood (conifer) at £50 a ton! the commision is only now only selling them parcels of timber in 100 tonne lots so they can not just buy in a artic load as required!!

 

Best of all they are importing timber to burn from the states and norway,all that fuel getting it here makes it a carbon nutral farce imo!

Isnt it great how the commision sees it far more important to build nature and mountain bike trails for the general public and sell off as much land as possible to finance it whilst completly forgetting there purpose of keeping productive forest for keeping us self sufficient in timber....its all gone mad!

 

chatting to another forester and he told me his interesting story of how he got his big mill and why there is hardly any left in the uk, was because all the big saw mills where given massive grants to switch production to eastern europe.....

[Mark Bolam]

Matty, where's that line from at the bottom of your posts?

 

Or is it just generally describing tree work in your area?!

[MattyF]

Friend of mine who i setting up a large mill,i think he braught his from chantler about 10 years ago??? cant remember he is based in beds this thing is massive and probably capable of handling any size of tree i have ever seen! but he is convinced that the timber in the promised lands of eastern europe is nearly touching or will touch what it costs here especially with rising fuel costs so will bring a big boom in those capable of larger production milling of hard woods...thats his opinion i have no real idea for the market though!

[Arran Woodfuels]

I bet there is few businesses that invest 50% of their turnover in raw material 9 months before they have a hope of seeing any money.

 

You don't know many livestock farmers with suckler herds then?

[renewablejohn]

we have just supplied drax with 200+ big square bales of miscanthus, what will happen to this years supply of miscanthus i dont know!!

 

Have a word with CO2sense (formerly Future Energy Yorkshire) and ask them why they would not support a biomass power station in Hull just because we are based in Lancashire. Talk about war of the roses. We were looking to source 20,000 tonnes of local Biomass including miscanthus and SRC.

[renewablejohn]

There was an all singing and dancing biomass plant supposed to start up near us, the bulk of it was paid for, as far as I know, by public money, it's gone bust, it was supposed to burn miscanthus but i'm told they struggled to get it to burn properley, I don't know if that was due to moisture levels or what, they had to buy in chip. One local farmer near me put 1000 acres, just about his whole farm,down to miscanthus, talk about putting all your eggs in one basket, he is in a pretty perilous financial situation now, and I bet he wishe's he never heard of biomass, they tell me he's trying to turn the miscanthus into "bricquets" to sell as an alternative to firewood. Can't help wishing it goes pear shaped as well.

 

It really annoys me when this happens. I have struggled to get finance for an Austrian Biomass technology which has an excellent track record going back twenty years which gets rejected by the government grant people because it is to sophisticated (yes it works) who then recommend that I use the technology manufactured in the UK that does not work.

 

With regards miscanthus I would not like to briquette it unless you have a free source of drying the miscanthus.

[renewablejohn]

 

Just for the sake of clarity, it's biomass (from trees) they are burning. Biofuel is made from plants and is usually a liquid fuel used in vehicles, and the like.

 

 

You can also make Biofuel from trees just to confuse the situation

[Treesandbees]

I have to say, I couldn't agree more with you. The ungrateful think you walk up to a tree, tap it with a chainsaw and a neat pile of seasoned split logs simply appear. There is a huge demand for firewood out there, it's just that the consumers seem to think it should be provided free on the basis of "But you got paid to take the tree down!" Oh how little they know........ Keep smiling.

[geoff]

I have to say, I couldn't agree more with you. The ungrateful think you walk up to a tree, tap it with a chainsaw and a neat pile of seasoned split logs simply appear. There is a huge demand for firewood out there, it's just that the consumers seem to think it should be provided free on the basis of "But you got paid to take the tree down!" Oh how little they know........ Keep smiling.

 

What you moaning for,you get 90% of your wood nicking it off my jobs!