Coal or Pellets?

 
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lee32768
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Post by lee32768 » Tue. Mar. 04, 2008 8:59 pm

markviii wrote:The availability of pellets can change pretty quickly depending on what the lumber industry is doing. I live in update NY as well, my local stove shop told me that it is getting very hard for them to secure their next order of pellets.

As a side effect, the farms up here can't afford sawdust for bedding anymore. All of the sawdust goes to the pellet mills.
I just heard around the water cooler today that the price of hardwood sawdust (one the ingredients to pellets) is on the up swing - big time. The local pellet mill (that sometimes would get sawdust from the lumberyard where I am employed) at one time could truck all their material in from within 40 miles, now they are going out of state just to keep up with demand. My supervisor also told us the price per trailer load has tripled in the last year!

I don't know if the logic works out, but with the down turn in housing, a lot of wood product manufactures here in Central Pa are slowing down production. Which should mean less total lumber. Which should mean less total waste (sawdust). Which should means higher sawdust price. Which should mean higher pellet price$$$

On the coal side - what affects it's supply? Or it simply demand side economics?

 
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Richard S.
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Post by Richard S. » Tue. Mar. 04, 2008 9:19 pm

lee32768 wrote: On the coal side - what affects it's supply? Or it simply demand side economics?
Since anthracite is used primarily as home heating fuel that is the main factor, however they have closed down many smaller mines in South Pennsylvania area recently and some of the others are expected to close as well, these are small operations with handful of people operating them and they can't keep up with government regulations. I know few years back it affected the supply somewhat in that area at this time of the year but it isn't uncommon to see supplies get low this time of the year across the board especially for rice. If the demand keeps going up you might see some problems in the future but I don't think it will be because lack of raw product but lack of facilities to process it.

I'll also note that the price doesn't reflect any short term shortages that occur during this time of the year. Coal prices (locally) don't swing back and forth like other fuels, whatever the cost is in September will most likely be the price you pay in January or February. I believe Diesel prices have driven it up slightly in some places but you're talkiing about a few bucks and that cost will most likely be deducted in addtion to the normal price drop in the late spring. The general trend is modest increases each year in the fall and a small rollback in the late spring. I did a comparison using some prices from the early 80's I have here from my own records and if I remember correctly it was about the same price adjusted for inflation.

This of course may all change as more people switch to coal, blame me. :D

 
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LsFarm
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Post by LsFarm » Tue. Mar. 04, 2008 9:28 pm

I coughed up the money for a semi-load of coal. It should be about two or three years worth of coal. I'm storing that coal in a concrete 'bunker' that is 18'x11'x6'

I realize I have a large appetite for BTUs, but even if I had a much smaller house that only needed say 5 tons of coal per year, I can't imagine storing the equivalent amount of pellets..
Lets see you need double the tons of pellets to equal the heat output from coal, and the VOLUME that the pellets takes up is about double that of coal. So if I'm right, you need four times the cubic space for storage of pellets over coal.

WOW, that means that a person would have to use 1/2 of their two car garage for the storage of the equivalent BTUs as 5 tons of coal.

Are my assumptions correct? and my math??

Greg L.


 
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Sting
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Post by Sting » Tue. Mar. 04, 2008 9:34 pm

LsFarm wrote:I coughed up the money for a semi-load of coal. It should be about two or three years worth of coal. I'm storing that coal in a concrete 'bunker' that is 18'x11'x6'

I realize I have a large appetite for BTUs, but even if I had a much smaller house that only needed say 5 tons of coal per year, I can't imagine storing the equivalent amount of pellets..
Lets see you need double the tons of pellets to equal the heat output from coal, and the VOLUME that the pellets takes up is about double that of coal. So if I'm right, you need four times the cubic space for storage of pellets over coal.

WOW, that means that a person would have to use 1/2 of their two car garage for the storage of the equivalent BTUs as 5 tons of coal.

Are my assumptions correct? and my math??

Greg L.
YES - I started December with 18 1.2 ton skids of pellets taking space in my shed - space that could have protected other things. There will be 8 - 10 ton hibernating all summer for next year - depending on the next 8 weeks of heating.

Your bunker just out doors?? warped - doesn't if freeze into a chunk you cannot get the tractor bucket into to harvest January heating fuel?

 
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Post by LsFarm » Tue. Mar. 04, 2008 10:04 pm

My coal bunker has a tarp over a wood roof/framework, it keeps the coal dry.

Greg L
.

 
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Post by Coal Jockey » Wed. Mar. 05, 2008 4:40 am

http://newdeal.feri.org/nation/na3446.htm
Here's the way to get around government regulations... 8-)

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