Life goes on - Summer 2020

it’s amazing what comes up if you google this…
dang… another build on my wishlist…

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How many days do you usually have the hay on the ground before rolling it?

Hello Jan .

The lenght of time the hay dries depends on the weather and how thick the hay is . Two or three days of drying is usually enough , however the hay in the picture was cut Monday and rolled Thursday .

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Ok thanks Wayne, I usually try to have 4-5 days here, I am always worried that I not get it dry. Think it’s hard to know when it’s dry enough.

You just have to develop a feel for it. Walk through the field when it is first cut than about 8 hours later picking up clumps. After you do that enough you will understand how the color feel and smell changes when the hay is ready. It is one of those things where first hand experience is the only solution. When I came back to the farm I was paranoid I would cut all moldy hay doing it myself. But after over drying the hay a few times i realized when it was actually ready and safe to dry. Remember you don’t need it bone dry only 75% or so the last bit will dry in storage. Like I said it is all about experience.

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Here they say that the grass should go off when you turn it 3 times, have you heard anything like that with you?

The number of times you turn it only effects how much damage you do to the leaves. You don’t want to break all the leaves off and bale up stems.
I mow the hay then Ted it out. In good weather I can ted it the second day and rake at noon and bale by 2 on bad days it takes a 3rd day and an additional pass with the tedder. But the idea is simply to let the dew come off in the morning then flip the hay to fluff it enough that the bottom can dry.

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Thanks for the tips Dan, I may not need to be so worried then, 3 days of sun I usually find.

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Thanks for the carbonite linked information François.
Slow to completlty download for me.
Wonderful illustrations.
This endeavor approach killed because of the invasion German takeover??
Or petroleum company forced shut down?
Not enough bureaucrats pay-off’s?
Regards
Steve Unruh

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Steve unruh,

I admire your analytical skills and your questions are of exceptional relevance, right on the subject,
at the end of my report, we understand that the Sisteron factory went into full swing during the German occupation, so the resistance fighters sabotaged the factory for the first time, then when they landed in Normandis, the allies bombed the factory, because of this, production was stopped, and the carbonite fell into oblivion.

Best regards.

François.

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sorry Bill. Can’t help but feel sorry for you up there buddy. Not sure how sane you are either. You realize it’s the middle of June right?

EDIT: However, remembering now that Atlanta is on fire tonight…I doubt you have too many rioters to deal with up that way…so maybe you’re onto something.

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War is hell. So much lost, and so long to restore. Some lost forever. War is to be avoided until there is no logical alternative.

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Yup the one thing people call a positive of war is the technology advances. There are far better ways to get the government to fund technology but unfortunately our society calls that a dirty word. For some reason it seems government funding for war is the only kind of government funding our society approves of.

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Yes. And then post-WWII with USofA aid help. Initially no-cost dyno fuels. Then extremely cheap production over ran refined fuels. To go into US Aid-made tractors and trucks. Why? go the “dirty, sweating” solid fuels way. Put the human labors sweating into infrastructure was destroyed rebuilding. Getting as quick as possible back to foods producing.
Same story into Finland, Sweden, Germany the live recorded histories say.
Refined dyno fuels are the quick solution fuels.
Solid fuels, especially fossil coal for the rebuilding concretes and steels making. Existing heavy duty rail transportations.
S.U.

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Locally a new coal fired power plant was demolished and replaced with a gas fired power plant . The decision was made by a three person board and upheld by another three person board . It was opposed by native american tribes and dozens of public advocacy organizations .
Things are slowing for biomass. In the same report, the EIA says that electricity generated from biomass and waste totaled 70.6 million MWh in 2018, or about 2% of total U.S. electricity generation. “Expansion in electricity generation from biomass and waste has ended in recent years, after growing from 2004 through 2014, and in 2018 was 2% below its peak generation of 71.7 million MWh in 2014.”
No specific resource is available to pinpoint just how many biomass facilities have been idled or are financially flailing, but recent announcements are telling. Among facilities showing distress in the face of cheap gas is the 2013-opened 102.5-MW Gainesville Renewable Energy Center in Florida, whose merchant energy owners in November 2017 sold the facility to Gainesville Regional Utilities (GRU), which had a power purchase agreement (PPA) with the facility, in a $754 million deal. In Virginia, where Dominion Energy converted a handful of coal-fired power plants to biomass over the past five years, three 51-MW units—Altavista, Hopewell, and Southhampton—“make economic sense to run because with cheaper fuel, tax credits, and renewable energy credits, these are very competitive,” and are actually bid into the PJM market as baseload units, a spokesperson told POWER in May.

Dominion, however, in August placed its 1994-completed 83-MW Pittsylvania Power Station into cold operation because it no longer receives tax credits and is not as competitive. The project could be retired in 2021, the company said. After the Minnesota Legislature in 2017 scrapped a biomass mandate for utilities, Xcel Energy in April cleared potential roadblocks to buy and close the 55-MW Benson power plant in Minnesota (Figure 2), whose power it was obligated to buy under a PPA. The company also moved to terminate PPAs for 35 MW of biomass in Hibbing and Virginia, Minnesota.
The 55-MW Benson Power biomass facility in Benson, Minnesota, opened in 2007, burning a mix of poultry litter and wood to produce electricity. Xcel Energy recently bought the plant to shutter it, effectively terminating a power purchase agreement that ensured Benson’s operation through September 2028. Xcel said biomass power at the Benson power is about seven times more expensive than wind energy.

According to consulting firm Innovative Natural Resource Solutions, biomass plants in the Northeast have also been particularly hard-hit because prices for natural gas and heating oil are at recent lows—“and there is no reason to think this will change in any meaningful way.”

Pinnacle is a growing industrial wood pellet manufacturer and distributor and the third largest producer in the world. The Company produces sustainable fuel for renewable electricity generation in the form of industrial wood pellets. This fuel is used by large-scale thermal power generators as a greener alternative to produce reliable baseload renewable power.

Pinnacle is a trusted supplier to its customers, who require reliable, high-quality fuel supply to maximize utilization of their facilities. Pinnacle takes pride in its industry leading safety practices. The Company operates eight industrial wood pellet production facilities in western Canada and one in Alabama, with two additional facilities under construction in Alberta and Alabama. The Company also owns a port terminal in Prince Rupert, B.C. Pinnacle has entered into long-term take-or-pay contracts with utilities in the U.K., Europe and Asia that represent an average of 99% of its production capacity through 2026.

SOURCE Pinnacle Renewable Energy Inc. if you are in the business of producing wood pellets, and those pellets are used as a substitute for coal, then the equation is so much more favourable.

It takes roughly one and a quarter tons of pellets to provide the same heat as a ton of coal. In this way, every ton of wood pellets substituted for coal would cut the CO2 emitted by coal by two tons! That adds up, especially when your company produces over one and a half million tons of wood pellets a year.

In Pinnacle’s case, they produce enough wood pellets to abate the CO2 emitted by over a million tons a year of coal, and that number is growing.

Get into wood pellets – for all the right reasons!

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Midsummer celebration DOW.
Taking our visitors for a 50 mile roundtrip to go swimming at my sister’s lake cottage. Wife, daughter and dogs in the tiny Mazda back seat :smile: Me and son-in-law up front. Wife acts camera man and speaker.

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Looks great Jo. :smiley::smiley::smiley::+1::+1::+1:

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JO Very short–But— Youtube lead me to 4 more of your postings. Didn’t remember seeing them, but that is the neat thing about having a bad memory. They seemed new to me. TomC

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JO l fully support this. Each got to do what hes good at. You driveing and Marie speaking :smile: bet you are having a great day!

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