Could the pelleting system as mentioned on the news items on this website(Welsh farmers urged to cooperate) be used for converting straw to fuel pellets??? Dick

I suspect you could pelletise straw for heat fuel pellets - in fact barley straw is already pelletised for use as a water purifier in fish ponds so it is certainly mechanically possible! Pelletisation is simply the extrusion of sawdust and resin through a mesh under pressure. Of course, the obvious key difference is that wood is far more dense than straw (but of course pelletising it would make a denser 'unit'). The straw would no doubt need to be finely chopped to avoid mechanical problems. I for one wouldnt want to work in that operation - imagine the dust! At 5kWh per kg each kilo would (in theory) be worth about the same as half a litre of heating oil. This would increase the number of people that could burn straw for fuel massively as the only option available at the moment seems to be whole bale burners.

Dick A good idea i reckon. Probably best to compress the straw into brick sized blocks, like what they do with newspaper waste; you can find them in shops. It would make transport simpler and their use much more suitable for the average householder. Straw comes for free as a by product, and it is better for the environment than burning coal or other fossil fuels, that can contain hideous amounts of sulphur. Mayo

We source straw and timber for biomass production and would be interested to hear from anyone in the midlands area who wants to sell wheat straw for this purpose. jhbarber@fsbdial.co.uk.

Mayo, This by-product was making £80.00/Tonne plus in Cumbria this winter against a barley price of £65.00 ex-farm. Not to say that this does not sound an excellent idea,it would drasticaly cut haulage costs for one FP

A local firm here had a straw plant making bricquettes. Very expensive operation, uneconomic in energy terms then, dunno about now but doubtful. I don,t like expense, it usually means no profit. Jack Caley

Jack Is it not in your own interest to deter the use of this product, now that you are in the 'gas importation' business? :-) As an aside, what has Norway got in the way of natural gas reserves? Are they significant or not? Russia is hardly the most stable region on the planet. I reckon bio-fuels are the way to go. I also like the idea of harvesting OSR (and maize, if it would bloddy ripen!) to produce bio-fuels, only then to fill the combine up with bio-diesel- excellent. Not so sure about biomass. Some of it has to be oven dried prior to burning. How can you make any sort of energy gain doing this? We should copy the scandinavians and bale our forestry residues, straw etc. Fuel old coal powerplants with it. Do away with importing Australian coal and Persian gulf oil. Mayo

Am I missing something here,but weren't farmers banned from BURNING STRAW in the fields because of the pollution and smoke it caused.Surely if enough townies start burning these pellets in their homes the ash and soot would be horrendous.Maybe it's proposed to use it in a power station.

Mayo, I am not in the gas importation business at all. we merely sold(or gave away) a field some 10 years ago which will now house a gas processing plant to store grass underground. No financial involvement at all other than renting caravans to the construction workers. I was merely pointing out that pelleting straw is a very expensive business. There has to an energy audit which shows substantial benefit. Coppicing or biomass to me is a waste of time, even oilseed rape in to fuel is doubtfull. Jack Caley

Jack I was only joking about you importing gas, I remembered clearly what you had said on the matter. Sorry to have caused offence. Pelleting straw may be expensive, as with coppicing and biomass. However, energy costs can only go one way from now on. Dont discount bio-diesel or ethanol so easily. If you look to the states, they are already gearing up for it with heavily subsidised maize crops for ethanol (sugar) production (we would be even better off- think of all that beet we grow!). Brazil have been running a 'sunshine' economy for many years; they grow vast amounts of maize and cane for ethanol production. Also, the technology for using these fuels already exists. Hydrogen power or even electric cars (electricity is the most ineffcient form of energy going) are nowhere near being commercially viable if the manufacturers are honest. I was speaking to our JD rep the other day, and they will happily run on RME and bio-lubricants and grease with minimal modification. Until these ideas take off, i think we will all have to be happy with French electricity made from the power of the nucleus; despite its problems. I think its 3 tonnes rape: 1 tonne oil. Of course the remaining rape meal is ideal for feeding to animals. The futures bright; the futures yellow?!. Mayo

Mayo, No offence taken. I merely wanted to explain my position. Too many of these schemes are too idealistic, eg the Selby Biomass, the cowmuck generator in the south west. If the only justification for the resulting energy is that if taxfree it will be cheaper that is no argument. It has to be economic without. For instance it is possible to produce electricity from windfarms very competitively. Once the capital element is paid off it is possible to produce electricity for about 1.5p per unit. That is the sort of economic result you need for a project, it is no use using a whole heap of fossil fuel just to produce little more in energy. Jack Caley

Jack I agree totally. Of course I dont know how the economics of these 'green' options work out. I presume it is different for bio-diesel or ethanol since it is going into cars etc. The bio-gas project seems to be a non-starter for me. An average nuclear plant kicks out about 1500mw or more. The bio-gas plant someone mentioned some time ago gave out 7mw. Also not sure about tranporting the 'raw material' around. Im also unsure about the position we are in regarding fossil fuels. The reportedly US is sitting on a mass of coal that is ten times the size of all other known coal reserves. Its oil they need to run their economy. Only time will tell. The old man says electricity has, in effect, been too cheap for too long. Mayo