Below is a profile video of Michael Donnelly in Northern Island, who has installed a 20KW wood pellet boiler in his garage. Michael has connected the wood pellet boiler to his house via underground hot water pipes. The wood pellet boiler will heat the hot water storage tank, then the house will feed from the tank. Michael has a large fuel store to hold 4 tonnes of pellets. The auger to the wood pellet boiler then feeds from this store which Michael states lasts him between 6-8 months.
As Michael states in the video, the location of a wood pellet boiler must be considered for several reasons. The first is a location for the wood pellet boiler with an adequate fuel store close by and with regards to routine and yearly maintenance. Secondly is how to get the hot water to the property where it is needed. At PelHeat we have chosen the same method as Michael and placed the pipes underground to the house. As Michael also states, the ash from the wood pellet boiler is potash, which is a very good soil conditioner.
The PelHeat Mobile Pelletizer can process biomass including wood into fuel pellets. If you would be interested in registering your interest in the PelHeat Mobile Pelletizer and receiving updates on our progress and informed when the pelletizer is on sale please send us an email to:
Hemp is currently and has been for the last century demonised with the association to marijuana. Hemp is not a drug, but it is almost everything else. So many different items can be produced from hemp including food, clothes, plastics, paper, cement and of course fuel.
To try and address issues as serious as climate change and fuel independence without including hemp into the solution is a huge mistake. As these issues increase and population size increases, available productive land is reduced and even more valuable. Therefore growing a highly flexible crop such as hemp on some of this land is more than necessary. Attitudes to hemp must change before it is too late.
With regards to the fuel side and hemp pellets, these could be produced from surplus and damaged crop yields, by-products after hemp processing for fibre and oil and finally residual hemp remaining in the field. As fibre processing companies do not want the crop harvested to the grown as they cannot process the lower few inches. After the hemp has been harvested, bailed and sold this lower few inches could be collected for pellet fuel production. These low ash pellets could be used in pellet stoves and pellet boilers, and also in gasification systems to generate electricity.
The PelHeat Mobile Pelletizer can process resources including hemp into fuel pellets. If you would be interested in registering your interest in the PelHeat Mobile Pelletizer and receiving updates on our progress and informed when the pelletizer is on sale please send us an email to:
Switchgrass in now been taken very seriously as a biomass fuel, particularly in the US. The video below shows Switchgrass cultivation and trials. It shows how choosing the right species of Switchgrass for the right climate will maximise yields and reduce the risk of the crop loses.
Switchgrass has many advantages, firstly as the video states the large root system can help reduce soil erosion of arid land. This root system also enables Switchgrass to prosper with little rainfall. As Switchgrass is a perennial, the root system remains in the ground, more evidence is arising that this maybe a way to trap carbon back into the soil. Different Switchgrass species can be grown in a wide range of climates. Switchgrass can also be grown by simply planting a seed, and will only require planting once.
Switchgrass pellets are another possible biomass fuel. Productivity through the pellet mill compared to wood is higher, due to the materials lower density. This means less energy is consumed in the production of Switchgrass pellets compared to wood pellets. Switchgrass pellets do contain more ash, and there are clinker and corrosion issues. However these issues are no worse than our ancestors experienced with coal, and technology can be produced to work around these issues.
The PelHeat Mobile Pelletizer can process biomass including Switchgrass into fuel pellets. If you would be interested in registering your interest in the PelHeat Mobile Pelletizer and receiving updates on our progress and informed when the pelletizer is on sale please send us an email to:
Below is a video from Voice of America on wood stoves and wood pellet stoves, and the increase in demand that was seen in 2008 due to the dramatic increase in the price of fossil fuels such as oil, coal and gas. The interviewee at the begin states how when her electricity rates doubled was the prime reason for her purchase of the wood pellet stove.
The dramatic increase in demand took some wood pellet stove and wood pellet manufactures by surprise and their current supplies could not meet this demand. This is where small-scale wood pellet manufacture has a huge advantage, as it is far more flexible to market demand changes.
As is stated in the video standard wood log stoves are not as efficient as wood pellet stoves, they do not produce as much heat, have a lower efficiency and flue gases contain more particulate matter and chemically active gases. They also are less convenient to maintain and feed. In pervious posts I have summarised these issues, and why wood pellet stoves and gasification technology is the way forward.
In the video the wood pellet stove is not their main source of heat, but it can be. We heat our entire house with a 25KW Tatano boiler, and there are wood pellet boilers available that can meet the demands of any property.
The PelHeat Mobile Pelletizer can process resources including wood into fuel pellets. If you would be interested in registering your interest in the PelHeat Mobile Pelletizer and receiving updates on our progress and informed when the pelletizer is on sale please send us an email to :
Hemp is a truly universal source of food, clothes, plastics, fuel and many other uses. The CNN video below shows Canadian farmers harvesting and processing Hemp for the production of hemp oil for food products. The video shows some of the vast number of food products that can be produced from hemp. Also how hemp can be used to produce car parts.
Hemp Biomass Pellets
Hemp as a biomass fuel source will not impact on any of the other uses for food, clothes, plastics or car parts. After hemp biomass processing as with all processing there is a by-product. This hemp biomass is what could be compressed into pellets to be used as a fuel in pellets stoves, pellet boilers and pellet gasifiers to generate heat and electricity. Hemp pellets produce good heat and low ash.
The PelHeat Mobile Pelletizer can upgrade hemp into fuel pellets. If you would be interested in registering your interest in the PelHeat Mobile Pelletizer and receiving updates on our progress and informed when the pelletizer is on sale please send us an email to :
Ian Smith from Kent in England had a choice to make when his oil boiler needed replacing, to choose another oil boiler or move to a biomass system. Ian had a choice between a log fired boiler or a pellet boiler, and due to the convenience features, he opted for the pellet boiler. Ian’s main focus is the ‘green’ aspects of installing such a system, not a decision purely driven on cost savings. The system Ian chose to install is completely automated with a very large 6 tonne hopper, which for the size of Ian’s property would heat his home for well over a year.
The pellet boiler Ian has installed is a OkoFen pellet boiler. This is a highly efficient pellet boiler with very low maintenance, however the boiler can only handle premium wood pellets with a low ash percentage. For more information on the OkoFen please use the search bar to the lower right of the Blog.
Ian also talks about the carbon foot front associated with producing pellets. With the PelHeat Mobile Pelletizer we were keen to source a power unit that could accept bio-diesel under warranty. The Perkins engines we have opted for allow the user to use bio-diesel, this reduces the carbon foot print of pellet production and reduces production costs for the user.
Ian’s situation is very similar to what started PelHeat as a company, as our oil system was inefficient and needed replacing, and the cost of oil was costing thousands of pounds a year. We also installed our Tatano pellet boiler in an external building like Ian, and we pipe hot water underground to the house. The Tatano boiler we installed is not as sophisticated as Ian’s OkoFen, however we do have several other advantages. Firstly the cost of our setup was less than half that of Ian’s £12,000. Also what the Tatano lacks in sophistication, it makes up for in fuel flexibility. The Tatano can also burn logs, and any type of biomass pellet, for example we currently burn wheat straw pellets. The Tatano can also have installed at any time a bolt on oil or gas burner, which reduces the risk for people not totally convinced by biomass as a back up. In the future we intend to explore biomass pellet gasification, we will therefore fit a gas burner bolted to the back of the Tatano running on gas made from biomass pellets.
One important final point that pellet boilers offer compared to log boiler is this. You only get logs from trees, but you can produce fuels pellets from any cellulose biomass feed stock. So again this becomes a question of flexibility and how to make best use of resources. The PelHeat Mobile Pelletizer is also designed with flexibility in mind, keeping the process simple and adjustable so the user can process any biomass into pellets as they wish.
For more information please visit:
www.PelHeat.com
The PelHeat Mobile Pelletizer can upgrade various biomass resources into fuel pellets including wood pellets. If you would be interested in registering your interest in the PelHeat Mobile Pelletizer and receiving updates on our progress and informed when the pelletizer is on sale please send us an email to :
Below is a video of Dean Tiessen, who is a Canadian farmer talking at a US farmers conference. Biomass supply is clearly the most important aspect of a renewable energy future. What Dean is highlighting in his presentation, is the new role that agriculture will have to play in the 21st century in producing biomass to be upgraded in valued added usable goods such as biomass pellets.
Dean also talks about whether farmers will be just part of the supply chain as they currently are for food production, or will they play more of an integral role in biomass energy production. The PelHeat Mobile Pelletizer is being developed for several uses and markets, including farmers. The unit will give farmers the opportunity to produce their own fuel to reduce their on farm heat and energy costs and reduce their carbon footprint. However it could also be used as a way to introduce farmers to the biomass fuels market, to learn the pellet production process and research local and regional market potential. This potential may simply be in the form of heating via pellet stoves and boilers, or by more sophisticated technologies such as gasification, which could be used to produce gas to power generators for electricity generation. We see the PelHeat Mobile Pelletizer as a means of fuel independence, but also as a means to explore biomass energy potential, and as a stepping stone on to larger scale pellet production solutions.
If you would be interested in registering your interest in the PelHeat Mobile Pelletizer and receiving updates on our progress and informed when the pelletizer is on sale please send us an email to :
New England Wood Pellets are a large-scale pellet production company, who focus on producing premium wood pellets primarily for the residential market. Renewable Energy World took a tour around the factory to view the wood pellet production process first hand.
To learn more about the pellet production process, please follow the link below to the Wood Pellet Production Guide developed by PelHeat.
The PelHeat Mobile Pelletizer can upgrade various biomass resources including wood into pellets. If you would like to register your interest in the PelHeat Mobile Pelletizer please contact us at:
New England Wood Pellets are a large-scale pellet production company, who focus on producing premium wood pellets primarily for the residential market. CBS News visited their plant to talk about the importance of pellets in our new energy future and the confidence manufactures have in the growth of the wood pellet industry.
As stated in the video wood pellets are one of the few energy sources that are safe to handle, store, transport and produce. These are the reasons why small-scale wood pellet production is possible.
The potential for other forms of biomass pellets is also discussed in the video, which is where the potential of pellet production really lies. The ability to produce a pellet from practically any cellulosic material and produce a uniform fuel is why pellets will become one of the main fuels of the future.
The PelHeat Mobile Pelletizer can upgrade various biomass resources including wood into pellets. If you would like to register your interest in the PelHeat Mobile Pelletizer please contact us at:
Burning biomass is a carbon neutral process as you are burning a resource, which is already part of the carbon cycle, unlike fossil fuels. Therefore as long as biomass is re-grown then burning biomass does not add to global warming.
However there is evidence of certain crops actually reversing the process. For example Miscanthus is regarded as a carbon sequestration plant that can actually remove carbon from the atmosphere and trap it in the soil. This therefore is actually reversing global warming.
Another way to do this is once you have burnt your biomass pellets, using the ash to make a fertilizer or soil conditioner.
If you would like to register your interest in the PelHeat Mobile Pelletizer please contact us at:
