Ad plants , you can’t make it up
- Thread starter Surgery
- Start date
Matt
Member
- Location
- herefordshire, uk
Some come past us at ledbury and head for Gloucester and beyond.
No,they can run on red as the whole harvesting operation is classed as agricultural use,but if the feed stock to the AD plant was from an industrial source such as waste food from a factory,then white diesel is required...
- Location
- southern riverina Australia
I think they're a good idea that should be adopted here. Better than burning stubble like the vast majority of my neighbors still do every Autumn. Might be different where @Farmer Roy farms as his soils readily break down residue. Ours don't. Better to be used for gas/power production .... They're burning it anyway, so may as well be of use. Plus it provides another industry /outlet for straw baling.
- Location
- Hampshire
I think it depends on who owns the machinery. A contractor has to use white diesel hauling other people's crops, presumably the same with the forager. When I get someone in with a tractor and trailer to haul grass I always say to them I will hire your tractor and pay you a wage, then it is OK to use red.
- Location
- Cumbria
With AD being a live process, periodically the calorific value of the feed-stock varies and can unknowingly create more gas than predicted.
If the utilisation is already at max output, then the gas is flared, and the feed-stock input is reduced slowly to reduce shock loading to the process to stop flaring as it's burning money. As any tariff's are paid on production, there is little point over-feeding a plant, and flaring the gas, it is simply a waste of feed-stock, unless it is waste and the operator is being paid a gate-fee for the feed-stock, then the practice is questionable.
Flaring is also common when the utilisation unit is being serviced as you can't just switch a biological process off.
However, it needs kept in perspective. Due to location some of the North Sea oil rigs flare off ALL the gas that is a by-product of the process of extracting oil.
www.theguardian.com
If the utilisation is already at max output, then the gas is flared, and the feed-stock input is reduced slowly to reduce shock loading to the process to stop flaring as it's burning money. As any tariff's are paid on production, there is little point over-feeding a plant, and flaring the gas, it is simply a waste of feed-stock, unless it is waste and the operator is being paid a gate-fee for the feed-stock, then the practice is questionable.
Flaring is also common when the utilisation unit is being serviced as you can't just switch a biological process off.
However, it needs kept in perspective. Due to location some of the North Sea oil rigs flare off ALL the gas that is a by-product of the process of extracting oil.
UK North Sea oil rigs release as much CO2 as coal-fired power station – study
Rigs burn off enough unwanted gas to heat 1m homes, UK regulator said last year
www.theguardian.com
Tarw Coch
Member
- Location
- Bottom of Wats Dyke
As I understand it a contractor chopping maize will be perfectly entitled to run the chopper on red as will any tractors and trailers that he supplies as part of the harvesting operation, as would the farms own tractors too. however any additional tractors and trailers from another contractor/individual should be on red.
The rules being all the more murky as either farmer or contractor could also hire in additional tractors and trailers and employ someone to drive them,
- Location
- Cumbria
Don't think it's going to be an issue for much longer, as red is under the spotlight for being banned (cause we like banning things)
Is this the place where they were trying to haul it through growing wheat crops and dumping it on the edge of fields?
- Location
- Cumbria
Can't understand why some are negative about AD.
What is wrong with producing energy ?
We have done this with crops for decades (bio-diesel) why the sudden negativity ? In Scotland we grow Barley to produce whiskey.
So, what happens when the lights go out, grab a bottle of Scotch and drown your sorrows. ?
We clearly need a mix of renewables, the wind does not always blow, the sun does not always shine, however AD is always there as a base load.
Most importantly. the nutrient is returned to the land where it came from.
What is wrong with producing energy ?
We have done this with crops for decades (bio-diesel) why the sudden negativity ? In Scotland we grow Barley to produce whiskey.
So, what happens when the lights go out, grab a bottle of Scotch and drown your sorrows. ?
We clearly need a mix of renewables, the wind does not always blow, the sun does not always shine, however AD is always there as a base load.
Most importantly. the nutrient is returned to the land where it came from.
Till next summer anyway
- Location
- North Norfolk
My grandfather and great grandfather grew energy crops - hay and oats for the horses that were their motive power
- Location
- Cumbria
farmerm
Member
- Location
- Shropshire
We probably don't like to see others making more money from land than we can.... You have to admit AD is reliant on vast inputs of fossil fuel for growing crops, transport, construction and fertiliser, how much additional energy is leveraged by putting that fossil energy though an AD plant?
- Location
- Cumbria
You make the argument without looking at the facts first.
To input crop into AD, you must carry out a sustainability audit, quite complex and time consuming.
They don't seem to want us to produce food, it's legal so you crack on. There are better things to get in a tizz about frankly. Like aeroplanes. I should know, I was on one a few weeks ago.
- Location
- East yorks
They are in germany as they are not allowed to claim the rebate for AD work as its not agriculture
- Location
- Cumbria
I don't know how we get hung up on such debates. A farmer fills a clamp with Maize, he has surplus and sell's it to the local AD Plant, what do you suggest, someone calculates how much fuel he used to plant, harvest and transport it and retrospectively he is charged fuel duty ?
Or the farmer who has a couple of hundred dodgy silage/straw bales he sells to the local AD Plant etc, etc etc..........
What about all the malting barley ? Used for non agricultural use ?
What about the spreading of digestate to agricultural land, which fuel ?
The law is clear ' haulage ' is white diesel if it not part of an Agricultural operation.
My farm contracting business has grown considerably due to our local AD plant. I have two self-propelled forage harvesters and am involved in contracting services planting and harvesting the maize feedstock and taking it into the AD plant. I sometimes harvest and move the maize to a farm field-side clamp, then move it into the plant when it is required. Can I used red diesel?
Yes, as your services are an integral part of the agricultural operation. If you were only employed to move the maize into the AD plant, without being directly involved in growing and harvesting the maize, then you would need to use white diesel as this would be haulage.I also have a low-injection spreader which I use to apply digestate from the AD plant. I transport the digestate from the AD plant and then spread it on farmland. Can I use red diesel?
Yes, as you are part of the agricultural operation.My neighbours 1mw does very well indeed. He feeds it with rye, triticale and maize as well as any waste products he can access such as stock feed potatoes etc. He’s selling electricity from it and using the heat to dry biomass for a nationwide logistics company. His income is about £20,000 per week apparently. He doesn’t rent in land for it and everything is grown locally minimising haulage.
farmerm
Member
- Location
- Shropshire
Sustainability is an odd term for a process currently reliant of fossil fuel inputs... I looked long and hard at the facts about 20years ago, most I have long forgotten but when I did a life cycle analysis back then I seem to recall the energy of fossil fuel consumed in growing and transporting a ton of various feedstocks and then spreading the digestate was not vastly lower than the energy produced from digesting 1T that feedstock.. Basically a complex process for converting relatively cheap fossil fuel energy into a more valuable product ie government grant money. If you consume a 39MJ litre of fossil fuel derived energy for every 40MJ of biomethane produced it is hardly a technology to save the planet. I genuinely would like to know though, how do the figures look today? For every MJ of energy exported from a typical AD plant how much energy is used in the full life cycle of the feed stock? Is AD leveraging fossil fuels to create energy or does it simply convert it for little or no net gain?