Pepe, I planted some of those a long time ago and they did grow good. About five years ago I tried them again and they did not take. In the 80’s I saw their wood gas truck in Waterford. They also ran a co-gen for the green house.
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We are banned, have high import tariffs, or trade limits for exporting cereal grains in 180 countries. We can’t even sell it to other countries for food unless they change their laws. We -were- paying for MTBE from Quatar as a fuel oxygenate as MTBE leaches into the groundwater at a very fast rate, and the price wasn’t very consistent. We were also paying for price support to help keep farmers in business or paying them not to grow crops. So we switched the subsidy to ethanol producers and they have improved their technology so we are slightly energy positive. And the bonus is the proteins left in the distillers grains are not covered under most cereal grain import restrictions, because it is processed and typically intended for animal feed supplements.
As far as trees, popular and the european birch can and are coppiced in colder regions in europe.
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Right. The particulate emissions are what is the big knock against burning biomass, and coal. Coal is far worse because of the heavy metals, but biomass is on the list too because of air quality. In California, they are shutting down some of the older biomass generation units because of their particulate emission laws.
Bon fires are open fires and emit far more particulates and have a more incomplete burn then what most people are doing here. Not to mention a lot of people who have open fires don’t think twice about throwing plastic into the fires which the chlorinated plastics are turn into some really nasty crap if it is burned which is initially why they started cracking down on burner barrels, incinerators, etc.
In developing or 3rd world countries, the open fire is how they cook. There are some efforts to get them to change their habits, and thus the rise of the “rocket stoves” and such to reduce pollution as well as use less fuel.
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Yup, my daily life in a nutshell…
Plant a three and use it for gasification/energy making…
Stop using fossil fuels…
Focus on solutions, not debate about problems…
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Does not seem to be a fair way to present the "total cost " of some of these methods, such as solar or wind, as your examples are the overall cost of building the methodologies ( i.e.: solar panels etc) but compared to only 100 units of energy output, where the solar panels will produce for a very long time without producing a bit of co2 from being put on line at day 1. However, that is not to say that gasification isn’t critically important as a practical back-up power production method (albeit with far more user-required participation) for local/homestead use when the sun isn’t recharging the batteries.
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euh Robin…
Those are the numbers per each 100 units… no joke, so if you multiply the energy units, then also the Co2 units increase with the same factor,
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Er, ok. Thanks for the clarification. That changes everything…
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Sorry to be responding so late. I would say short rotation, small diameter willow is the best potential biomass crop for gasification in temperate zones.
On paper hybrid poplar performs better, but in actual practice it often doesn’t meet expectations. I suspect that is due to its need for nitrogen. It needs quite good land. Hybrid poplar has been developed to fully perform only under exceptional conditions much like modern field crops that only reach full potential with soil fertility additions. I suspect that also hybrid poplar may not form effective symbiosis with mycorrhizae existing in the soil, being effectively an alien species, a man made creation.
It is my observation that willow grows almost equally well on poor soil, hinting at good symbiotic activity.
Willow is propagated very easily lending itself to thick field planting. If intercropped with a legume like clover or alfalfa artificial inputs should be limited to some mineral supplements. Small diameter willow harvesting should be very amenable to standard agricultural practice and equipment. Standard sickle bar mowers will easily cut small stems, where it will readily dry, far quicker than other wood. Once cut and dry it could be baled or bundled. The resulting wood will be readily chopped with minimal energy into short length material for gasification or central heating systems.
Once established willow is quite tolerant of cutting to the ground. I believe I read that established stands can be expected to last decades under intensive harvesting. Also, the rotation between harvests will be very short, between 1 and 3 years. Considering all the above I believe that willow will significantly outperform other temperate biomass crops in terms of energy inputs for maintenance and harvesting and processing, and pounds of woody material extracted over time.
Regards,
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Willow is one of the trees that can be coppiced (cut off and will regrow) and grows fast. I have seen biomass research for it. It grows fast, but typically requires a LOT of water, and takes longer to dry out. I also don’t think it has a strong enough root system for heavier clay soils. The root system grows out instead of down thus it doesn’t penetrate the clay pan. The wood itself is fibrous instead of straight grained.
Popular has a stronger root system and can penetrate heavier clay soils and penetrate the clay pan which has been packed down from row crops so weaker root systems can go deeper. It is a benefit when you switch back to row crops, or wish to improve the land for better hardwood growth later.
You can intercrop with both, but I don’t think it is done very often unless you are doing like a 10 year growth stand. Eventually the clover gets shaded out.
Willow actually has a growth hormone you can use for cuttings in the bark. I think black willow is especially high in it. But if you grow a lot of cutting, you can extract it and use that instead of buying the commercial stuff. Honey supposedly works well too.
Paulownia actually grows faster but it doesn’t work well in the northern climates. I think Wayne said he was going to try to grow it.
Switchgrass gives you more biomass, and it is drought resistant.
There are a couple of others like bamboo, and another tree that just go nuts but are more for other parts of the world and/or extremely hard to keep under control.
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The types of willow I have in mind are quite wet soil tolerant, wet to well drained, and seem to do well in clay soil. I have observed that often quite poor soil will grow excellent trees, which has to be due to symbiotic relationships in the soil microbiome.
The type of intercropping I envision is to plant the willow in strips, and in between legume / hay. Otherwise the willow stubble would likely wreck ordinary tractor tires. Also the willow would rapidly crowd out interplanted forage.
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It will work. If you normally strip farm to prevent erosion, it is actually a good choice. The roots will help reduce erosion. I think I just read they hold nitrogen over winter. You just run over them with your forage chopper. Probably the trickiest part will be drying it out.
I have seen trees grow on rocks and in rivers with little to no soil. I don’t think they develop nearly as much of a symbiotic relationship with the microbiome as say legumes do.
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I have black cherry trees here. They make great jelly from the berries. The nicest native lumber around here and they burn very well. But interestingly if it is a smaller healthy black cherry tree you cut maybe about 6 inches across it will shoot right back up. Do this a few times and you have a cherry bush where you where trying to get the tree away from your house…
It has been my experience that most of the fruit trees have this same habbit.
I was just wondering if anyone has information on poling as a method of raising wood. I first read about it after watching the WWII movie as a kid. You would see photos of them driving through what looked like rows of trees with all the branches cut off. When. I asked about it my grandfather just said oh that is how they cut wood in Europe leaving the pole to grow back faster. I have read that same thing in some books about what we call masonry heaters or what was called tile stoves. I so want to build one of those for this house.
There where comments about the emissions from burning wood. I wanted to point out that is true with poor quality wood stoves but if you burn it correctly like in the old tile stoves where the temperature is high enough or a wood gasification boiler you get more heat per cord and it burns clean. It is very simple old technology.
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I don’t want to overwhelm people with information, but here’s a sampling of how these ideas are being commercialized.
Short rotation coppice - Wikipedia
As Dan observes, other species may also be suitable to similar cultivation, that will vary by region. In northerly areas paper birch (Betula papyrifera) may do well, as it is tolerant of being cut to the ground, very soil and cold tolerant and can be propagated vegetatively.
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You’re describing pollarding, related to coppicing.
Coppicing has been done by hand for centuries in densely populated Europe. Garry’s article shows the modern mechanized version, “short rotation coppicing” which harvests sooner with very thin poles, for maximum yield per acre.
The nice thing about hand coppicing is that you can size the poles exactly to what you need. For gasifiers, that’s about 2-3" diameter, several year’s growth. If you want 6" logs for firewood, simply leave them to grow longer. You may not maximize the yield in the agribusiness sense, but this doesn’t matter on a personal use scale. You are getting the most fuel for the least processing effort and usually with no inputs like fertilizers.
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Row spacing is important for sizing for trees for maximum yield for the desired girth. The first stuff I read which was info from like the 70s, was for 4-5" girth poplar which is like an 7-8 year rotation. you planted the trees in a pattern to maintain a sort of canopy. you harvest tree 1 the first year, then tree 4 the following year, etc. It doesn’t work well for mechanized harvesters though because you can’t get the equipment between the spacings.
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I was more wondering about a combination orchard and wood farm setup. I want to setup a orchard here even have a place picked out. Sort of wish I had started it right away because of the time the trees need to grow but I need to plan it out and budget it or find trimmings I can start. I have been debating dwarf trees as well except that some of the stuff I want is non common fruits and they don’t come as dwarfs.
So harvesting would all be done by hand with a chainsaw.
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You typically get a LOT of trimmings from pruning back orchard trees. You may not need/want a wood farm set up. Or you might have one set up until your trees start to mature and start to need trimming.
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