Pellet Making?

[Lil Red]

I have been thinking of dipping my toes into pellet making but its like jumping into a dark abyss.

I get the general idea of what has to be done. What I want to know is your process or hypothetical one; where you get your sawdust if that is even what you are using, how are you keeping it dry or drying it? What pellet making machines would be ideal, and how much does one produce?

Anyone have experience in this?

 

[SPDRMNKY]

I've come to the conclusion (in my area) that pellets don't make sense as a commercial enterprise...maybe if I had disposable income, and lots of time I'd dabble with small amounts for personal use

welcome to AS

 

[nvrs]

[video=youtube_share;aX_46kilC3g]http://youtu.be/aX_46kilC3g[/video]

 

[KiwiBro]

for personal use

Have you looked into briquette making? Cheap, easy, and looks like fun. Stumbled upon it when looking at papercrete ideas. Just about any biomass can be used and almost anyone can make a basic briquette press themselves.

Edit: hurry up retirement. I've got all sorts of ideas I'd like to tinker with, from generating our own hydro 'lecky, pumping our water with a ram pump, way too many firewood ideas, that pizza oven won't build itself, the bio space heater and rocket mass heaters won't either. Got the go ahead for everything provided it doesn't make the place look like a 'hippy dump'. Frankly, I want it to look like it's so off-grid the bashers don't call for fear of entering our food chain.

 

[pdqdl]

I looked into this myself a while back. The machinery for making wood pellets is easy to buy, although somewhat expensive. There is an entire industry that supports their manufacture.

The most common way of making pellets is to take a cellulose product, grind it up real fine, then squeeze the water out of it, then pelletize it. The amount of mineral components influences the quality of the pellet, and anything with a lot of bark makes poorer pellets.

There really isn't that much demand for pellets, so the market is driven by companies that have a stupidly cheap product that they would have to pay someone to take the disposal if they didn't turn it into pellets. Stuff like sawdust from sawmills...

When pellet stoves become more popular, I imagine that pellet mills will become practical, and then all the tree services will get paid to haul in our wood chips and logs for starting materials. Until then, nobody wants our cellulose.

 

[leon]

I looked into this myself a while back. The machinery for making wood pellets is easy to buy, although somewhat expensive. There is an entire industry that supports their manufacture.

The most common way of making pellets is to take a cellulose product, grind it up real fine, then squeeze the water out of it, then pelletize it. The amount of mineral components influences the quality of the pellet, and anything with a lot of bark makes poorer pellets.

There really isn't that much demand for pellets, so the market is driven by companies that have a stupidly cheap product that they would have to pay someone to take the disposal if they didn't turn it into pellets. Stuff like sawdust from sawmills...

When pellet stoves become more popular, I imagine that pellet mills will become practical, and then all the tree services will get paid to haul in our wood chips and logs for starting materials. Until then, nobody wants our cellulose.

I hate to disagree with you but wood pellets are a hot commodity in the northeast
and you can spend over $200USD a short ton plus fuel tax for high BTU Low Ash
bagged pellets here in New York State. They are much more expensive in the
heating season and we had a bad weather year a couple of years ago when wood
pellets were almost $300 a ton

Wood pellets are also exported to europe from a North East Port-Boston I think anyway.

 

[pdqdl]

Sure, they are expensive after the final markup and delivery from the merchant that got them sold to the end consumer. How much markup? What did the manufacturer receive per ton out of that $200?

When demand goes up more, and pellet heat becomes more a commodity rather than a novelty, you will see pellet plants buying truckloads of chips from the tree services. Until demand goes up, the tree services will be paying for chip disposal, rather than getting paid for the chips.

I think there are energy burning power plants that buy wood product in some parts of the US, but nobody near me. Coal is king in the midwest.

 

[Lil Red]

Sure, they are expensive after the final markup and delivery from the merchant that got them sold to the end consumer. How much markup? What did the manufacturer receive per ton out of that $200?

When demand goes up more, and pellet heat becomes more a commodity rather than a novelty, you will see pellet plants buying truckloads of chips from the tree services. Until demand goes up, the tree services will be paying for chip disposal, rather than getting paid for the chips.

I think there are energy burning power plants that buy wood product in some parts of the US, but nobody near me. Coal is king in the midwest.

I think that may be your market...

It's the very opposite, our 3 big pellet making mills were running out at the of Dec. As was firewood. So the market is out there and there is profit to be made in it assuming the R & D process doesn't cost to much and take to long, again thats a whole 'nether market so it would take some time to iron things out but it would be way less labor intensive then firewood

 

[7sleeper]

Here in Austria, pellets are very popular. I know a few people who live in appartments and use pellets for their main heating source. They donot have the room for chainsaws, splitting equipement or firewood storage. The difference with pellets is that they are stored in plastic bags and the whole heating is a rather clean situation. The price is usually quite a bit lower compared to heating oil or natural gas so more and more people are including pellets in the house heating. The pellets are stored in the basement and everything else works fully automatic and most important environmently friendly!

7

 

[unclemoustache]

Yes, pellet stoves are still going strong, and I suspect they will grow even stronger as the fuel market goes up and up. People are going to be hungry for alternative fuel sources.

Get on youtube and look at all the pellet making videos you can find, and then google for machines and info on it. I would think in your area there's good money in that.

Then get in your phonebook and look for woodworkers, mills, and other similar shops. They will be happy to give it to you for free. There's a guy here in St. Louis that does a great business making custom woodworking, and every couple weeks he gives his sawdust to a guy who uses it for his horses to walk on. It's a pretty big stinkin' truck from what I recall.

Go for it, and make sure you take lots of pics and post them here. I'd love to see how it all turns out for you.

Welcome to AS, and stick around!

 

[pdqdl]

The research that I did was for some very serious industrial equipment; also very serious money involved $$$ !

My conclusion was that it was not possible for me to compete with the current pellet producing competition because my plan was to process wood waste from tree service activities. Right now, I don't think that will be economically practical because the tree service chips and logs would produce a lower quality pellet.

By the time I paid shipping to some part of the world where pellet stoves are more popular, all the profit would be gone. I do believe that once the pellet stoves catch on better, grinding tree service waste into pellets will be more economically feasible on a large scale than attempting to turn it all into firewood.

There is a pretty big investment required to get an industrial scale pellet mill started. The teensy little mills shown on Youtube don't look practical. I'll bet it costs more to buy and maintain one of those things than it does to buy firewood.

 

[cantoo]

Quality seems to be the issue from people that I have talked to about pellets. Too much ash which means more work and hassle than wanted. Price is likely the issue too, sometimes you get what you pay for. Anyway the couple people that I know aren't using their stoves very often and definately not as primary heat. There is a local guy that makes some to sell but I haven't heard that he has had much success. I think he's using only softwood and is having quality issues too. Maybe it takes alot more than some of these companies that sell pellet presses/ screws are saying.

 

[stihly dan]

Pellets are on an off season, early sale around here for $250 a ton. There are more pellet stoves than wood stoves also. I know of a guy who bought a pellet maker from china for $350. He has chips dropped off at his place for free. He heats for free With about 2 days of work making pellets.
There are also a great many places, schools, factories and power plants heating with wood chip boilers. I haved watched and worked on one at a school. There boiler heats a high school and a middle school, plus there bus port. There is about 2, 5 gal buckets of ash at the end of the heat season. Wood chips are good.

 

[pdqdl]

From 2009:

According to the United States Department of Energy, the average cost of a cord of firewood or a ton of wood pellets is $190. But for a true comparison of the costs, you have to look at not just the price of the fuel but also the heating value of the fuel, also measured in BTU, and the efficiency of the heating appliance. Using averages for all three, the Energy Information Administration's Heating Fuel Comparison Calculator estimates it costs $15.15 to produce 1 million Btu using pellets and $9.09 using solid wood. Those figures are between the costs of coal ($9.06) and natural gas ($12.61) and are well below the costs of oil ($18.53), propane ($24.66), and electric furnaces, baseboards, and space heaters ($33.25).

So...pellets cost more than cordwood, coal, & natural gas; per unit of heat.

http://www.fpl.fs.fed.us/documnts/techline/fuel_value_calculator.pdf

I just don't see them catching on until the other forms of heat go up in expense to the end user, because the cost of making them sure isn't going to go down much.

 

[cantoo]

dan, how is that possible, only 2 - 5 gallon pails of ash for a whole heating season? I get that much every couple of weeks. I'd experimented a little and if I burn only heartwood,(no bark) there is little ash but if I burn all the barky wood there is lots. I would guess that there is more dirt in with the bark so more "ash". Do the wood chips not include bark?
pdqdl, that's what I think too.

 

[pdqdl]

About the very best pellets have .3% ash.

A ton of wood would make about 6lbs of ash. Lower quality pellets will make more ash.

 

[stihly dan]

dan, how is that possible, only 2 - 5 gallon pails of ash for a whole heating season? I get that much every couple of weeks. I'd experimented a little and if I burn only heartwood,(no bark) there is little ash but if I burn all the barky wood there is lots. I would guess that there is more dirt in with the bark so more "ash". Do the wood chips not include bark?
pdqdl, that's what I think too.

I was amazed as well. Keep in mind this is a large piece of equipment, about the size of a small house. I think the ash is burt complete do to the small pieces being fed into a hot fire with forced combustion air. There is a conveyer delivering the woodchips to the burner with an arm diverting them into the chamber. This is all computerized, vfd fan, conveyer, arm, auger and ignition. I was there changing out the conveyer motor. (bad bearings) When they where doing the spring cleaning. I saw with my own eyes, the amount of ash being removed.
The chips are hard wood, trunk only. From what they tell me, soft chips or branch chips are to eratic in burn rates for the equipment to adjust to in time.

 

[bigz64]

a few years ago i looked into commercially producing pellets but there are a few factors that make it not worth while in time and money.

first is supply, around here the best species is white spruce as it has the best ash content. so the best for start ups are cabinet makers as they have nice dry sawdust you just have to make sure there is no glue in the sawdust...

second is the moisture content, if you do not get cabinet quality sawdust you will have to dry the sawdust first. drying sawdust will be your biggest pain/cost. you can use wood chips/firewood to dry the sawdust but i didnt see the efficiency or sense in drying wood with wood heat to produce wood heat for sale...

third is demand, around here they are not many pellet setups it is catching on but it is very slowly... the large guys here produce 600 ton a day for markets over seas

fourth is power, this is industrial equipment so it is strongly recommended to have 3 phase power, it is very expensive to bring in 3 phase power. you can buy single phase power units but their production is low and their reliability is not the greatest for pellet machines

so my estimated cost for machines alone was $50,000-$60,000. if a large chipper is required then add $20,000-$30,000 add another $10,000 for a natural gas heater (rotary). to bring power in is dependent where you are located, it may be cheaper to buy property adjacent to 3 phase, for my situation it was about $500,000 to bring in 3 phase power...

so with all that i could produce 10-12 (24/7) ton a day, i could get $300 a ton in these parts, money would have been good, if i could find supply and demand

the biggest problem was that the natural gas companies found huge reserves that will last earths needs for 150+ years, which is why natural gas is at its lowest price in recent history.

it is much easier, cleaner and CHEAPER to heat your house with natural gas than pellets and even firewood now...

i still sell firewood because there is a strong demand and people love fires!

 

[pdqdl]

Yep. That pretty much sums up my discoveries too.

The machinery that I looked at came from Germany. It apparently squeezed the wood fibers so hard that the moisture content was literally squeezed out of it in one pass, although the residual heat probably had a great deal to do with the final drying.

I have 3 phase power, but my one acre of industrial zoned ground isn't quite big enough to support the operation that would be required to make it all pay off.


BTW: the one website I looked at listed the softwood products as having the lowest ash content.

 

[redprospector]

There are a lot of pro's & con's to making pellets.
I had a pellet stove for a few years, and if you didn't buy what you needed for the winter ahead of time you would be out of luck. Everyone who handles pellets around here runs out before winter is over, and the mills that are operating can't keep up once that happens.
I am planning on putting in a pellet mill here, mostly to handle the wood I have to dispose of from my thinning jobs. Quality pellets are bark free, so my 1st expenditure was to buy a pole peeler. My 2nd was a piece of ground to put it on, but that fell through, so I'm back to square 1.
I don't think that chips from tree services will produce anything other than a lower grade pellet. Mostly because of the dirt & bark.
I plan on running my poles through a chipper, and then a hammer mill to get them to the size needed to produce pellets. I will then run the bark through a hammer mill and fire my dryer with that. I don't plan on loosing anything from the trees I use.
3 ph power is the only way to go, and expensive if it's not already there. I got a good deal on a 175 kw diesel generator when I bought my peeler. Hopefully that will power the whole plant until I can get on my feet and get 3 ph from the electric company.

I know it sounds dumb saying the pole peeler was the 1st step, and land the 2nd, but it didn't start that way. I had a deal on land, so I made a deal on the peeler. Then the people who own the land backed out, but since I try to keep my word I went ahead and bought the peeler first.

Andy