grabowski
50a75c1fa4
Own land yields ~80-135 t/yr vs ~350-400 t/yr mature demand; forestry classification check gates everything; staged electric-first path with coppice planted now for the expansion-phase biomass boiler
88 lines
3.9 KiB
Markdown
88 lines
3.9 KiB
Markdown
# Biomass Fuel Strategy
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If the steam boiler goes the biomass route (see the options in
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[sustainability](sustainability.md) and the Getabec candidate in the
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[utilities CSV](finance/utilities-investment.csv)), the fuel comes from two
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sources: the team's own 60 rai of currently unused land, and northern
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Thailand's agricultural waste market. Figures below are planning estimates,
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plus or minus a wide margin, to be refined against the actual boiler choice
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and duty cycle.
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## Demand: what the boiler would burn
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The 400 kg/h boiler is roughly 300 kW thermal at full fire. With the heat
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recovery architecture trimming the load and realistic duty cycles:
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- Mature plant (semi-auto plus automated lines, two shifts, ~300 days/yr):
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roughly **350 to 400 tonnes of air-dry wood per year** (at ~80% boiler
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efficiency and ~4 kWh/kg air-dry wood)
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- Early operations (one press line, single shift): roughly a quarter of
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that, **~90 to 100 t/yr**
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## The 60 rai: own-grown fuelwood
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60 rai is 9.6 hectares. Managed as short-rotation coppice (planted once,
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harvested on a 2 to 4 year cycle, regrowing from the stump), fast species
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proven in Thailand (eucalyptus, acacia, leucaena, bamboo) yield roughly 8 to
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14 air-dry tonnes per hectare per year. So the land can sustainably supply
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about **80 to 135 t/yr**:
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- Enough to cover **most or all of early operations**
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- About **a quarter to a third of mature two-shift demand**
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That makes the land a meaningful supplement and a strong brand story
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("records pressed with steam from our own trees"), not a complete fuel
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supply.
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### The classification check comes first
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The land is currently classified as forestry, and in Thailand that carries
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legal weight. Before a single tree enters the fuel plan:
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- Verify the parcel's actual status: clean Chanote title vs Sor Por Kor vs
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National Forest Reserve. Planting, harvesting, and transporting trees,
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even self-planted ones, can be restricted depending on classification,
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and some species are restricted regardless.
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- If eligible, register the plantation under the forest plantation
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framework, which legalizes grow-and-harvest cycles and the transport
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paperwork.
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- If the parcel carries actual standing forest, it should not be harvested
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for fuel: that would undercut the sustainability commitments the plant is
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built on. Coppice belongs on the degraded or empty portions.
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## Filling the gap: the northern biomass market
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The region fills the remainder easily and cheaply:
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- **Longan orchard prunings**: Lamphun is Thailand's longan heartland and
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prunings are an established traded fuel
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- **Sawmill and wood-processing residues**
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- **Corn cobs and rice husk**: abundant regional crop wastes; a
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Getabec-class solid-fuel boiler is designed for exactly this fuel mix
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- Buying from local farmers also strengthens the local-sourcing story that
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already runs through packaging and PVC
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## Logistics on site
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To reflect in the facility planning: a fuel storage shed (biomass
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must be kept dry; monsoon-season storage sizing matters more than dry
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season), chipping for coppice wood, ash handling, and the emissions stack
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that comes with solid fuel. These are the capex/opex adders that the
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biomass premium in the utilities CSV (roughly 4M to 7M THB for the boiler
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package vs 2.5M to 4M electric/gas) partially reflects; fuel handling and
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storage are additional.
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## Decision framing
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- Biomass makes the steam genuinely renewable and pairs with cheap northern
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fuel, at the cost of higher capex, fuel logistics, ash, and an emissions
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point
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- The 60 rai tilts the economics and the story further toward biomass, but
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only after the land-title check clears
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- The electric boiler remains the alternative: cleanest permitting, no fuel
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logistics, but effectively grid-powered steam at a ~300 kW draw
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- A staged path is possible: start electric (fast, clean permitting), plant
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the coppice now (first harvest in 2 to 4 years), and add the biomass
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boiler at the automated-line expansion when demand and the fuel supply
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have both matured
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