diff --git a/README.md b/README.md index 7616957..ed1e044 100644 --- a/README.md +++ b/README.md @@ -67,6 +67,10 @@ The detail lives in dedicated documents: commitment, and the materials strategy - [Worker safety](docs/worker-safety.md): safety training, galvanics clean rooms and decontamination, PPE +- [Biomass fuel strategy](docs/biomass.md): the 60 rai own-grown coppice + idea (with the forestry-classification check that comes first), northern + agricultural waste as the main supply, and the staged electric-to-biomass + path - [BOI investment promotion](docs/boi.md): the promotion strategy (Group B base activity plus solar, automation, and R&D measures for the tax value), requirements, Northern-region angle, and why BOI approval precedes @@ -97,6 +101,7 @@ docs/ │ └── pressing-line.md Press fleet strategy and equipment plan ├── finance/ Project cost overviews ├── suppliers/ Supplier contacts, vendor landscape, supplier map +├── biomass.md Biomass fuel strategy and the 60 rai coppice idea ├── boi.md BOI promotion strategy and requirements ├── facility-security.md Security, HVAC, fire and life safety, compliance ├── process-flow.md Audio file to delivered record, with all checks diff --git a/docs/biomass.md b/docs/biomass.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..83c932e --- /dev/null +++ b/docs/biomass.md @@ -0,0 +1,87 @@ +# Biomass Fuel Strategy + +If the steam boiler goes the biomass route (see the options in +[sustainability](sustainability.md) and the Getabec candidate in the +[utilities CSV](finance/utilities-investment.csv)), the fuel comes from two +sources: the team's own 60 rai of currently unused land, and northern +Thailand's agricultural waste market. Figures below are planning estimates, +plus or minus a wide margin, to be refined against the actual boiler choice +and duty cycle. + +## Demand: what the boiler would burn + +The 400 kg/h boiler is roughly 300 kW thermal at full fire. With the heat +recovery architecture trimming the load and realistic duty cycles: + +- Mature plant (semi-auto plus automated lines, two shifts, ~300 days/yr): + roughly **350 to 400 tonnes of air-dry wood per year** (at ~80% boiler + efficiency and ~4 kWh/kg air-dry wood) +- Early operations (one press line, single shift): roughly a quarter of + that, **~90 to 100 t/yr** + +## The 60 rai: own-grown fuelwood + +60 rai is 9.6 hectares. Managed as short-rotation coppice (planted once, +harvested on a 2 to 4 year cycle, regrowing from the stump), fast species +proven in Thailand (eucalyptus, acacia, leucaena, bamboo) yield roughly 8 to +14 air-dry tonnes per hectare per year. So the land can sustainably supply +about **80 to 135 t/yr**: + +- Enough to cover **most or all of early operations** +- About **a quarter to a third of mature two-shift demand** + +That makes the land a meaningful supplement and a strong brand story +("records pressed with steam from our own trees"), not a complete fuel +supply. + +### The classification check comes first + +The land is currently classified as forestry, and in Thailand that carries +legal weight. Before a single tree enters the fuel plan: + +- Verify the parcel's actual status: clean Chanote title vs Sor Por Kor vs + National Forest Reserve. Planting, harvesting, and transporting trees, + even self-planted ones, can be restricted depending on classification, + and some species are restricted regardless. +- If eligible, register the plantation under the forest plantation + framework, which legalizes grow-and-harvest cycles and the transport + paperwork. +- If the parcel carries actual standing forest, it should not be harvested + for fuel: that would undercut the sustainability commitments the plant is + built on. Coppice belongs on the degraded or empty portions. + +## Filling the gap: the northern biomass market + +The region fills the remainder easily and cheaply: + +- **Longan orchard prunings**: Lamphun is Thailand's longan heartland and + prunings are an established traded fuel +- **Sawmill and wood-processing residues** +- **Corn cobs and rice husk**: abundant regional crop wastes; a + Getabec-class solid-fuel boiler is designed for exactly this fuel mix +- Buying from local farmers also strengthens the local-sourcing story that + already runs through packaging and PVC + +## Logistics on site + +To reflect in the facility planning: a fuel storage shed (biomass +must be kept dry; monsoon-season storage sizing matters more than dry +season), chipping for coppice wood, ash handling, and the emissions stack +that comes with solid fuel. These are the capex/opex adders that the +biomass premium in the utilities CSV (roughly 4M to 7M THB for the boiler +package vs 2.5M to 4M electric/gas) partially reflects; fuel handling and +storage are additional. + +## Decision framing + +- Biomass makes the steam genuinely renewable and pairs with cheap northern + fuel, at the cost of higher capex, fuel logistics, ash, and an emissions + point +- The 60 rai tilts the economics and the story further toward biomass, but + only after the land-title check clears +- The electric boiler remains the alternative: cleanest permitting, no fuel + logistics, but effectively grid-powered steam at a ~300 kW draw +- A staged path is possible: start electric (fast, clean permitting), plant + the coppice now (first harvest in 2 to 4 years), and add the biomass + boiler at the automated-line expansion when demand and the fuel supply + have both matured