Why the Hate for AD?

[Boysground]

That's how they should be in my opinion, finding a good use for waste.
Growing good crops on good food growing land, right next to a large population that need feeding but using them to produce electricity instead is just madness.

One of them would farm over 4000ac so could grow it themselves if they wanted.

Using waste has a serious benefit, they charge to bring it in another income from the digester helps.

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[TheEarlOfMoray]

One a couple of miles from me, only uses draff from distilleries. Only real complaint is upland farmers can’t get cheap draff to feed cattle any more. They do struggle to get rid of the digestate though. 26 tanker loads a day have to find a home and we are in an nvz area so they have to cart it miles away. I reckon if they burnt all the diesel they use in the haulage they would make more electricity than the digester.

 

[Sid]

I have 2 digesters within a 5 minute drive from me. Neither uses any farm grown crops it is all supermarket and food waste. I don’t think either would start using maize from what they have told me.

Ng

That's exactly what they should be using , waste.

Growing crops should be done without subs and rebated fuel

 

[deleted user 436632456]

Silly question but how many kWh would a 1.5mw ad plant produce a year? I know the answer is in the question but don’t know how to work it out.

A general rule of thumb is

kilowatt x days x hours x efficiency

So 1.5 MW = 1500Kw x 365 x 24 x 90% = 11.8MW ish (depends on a number of factors)

 

[Lincsman]

My only issue is its perceived and run as a farming thing when its really industrial.

As for green credentials thats one big minefield wherever you look, not much adds up without illogical subsidies on "green energy" but thats what you get with knee-jerk policies from politicians and campaigners.

Take a look at the carbon footprint of the feedstock of Drax... it now thunders through my village to grain stores when storage is short when unloading the ship adding £20 haulage to get it back to the dock when storage is available again... before then going to the powerstation

 

[sjt01]

A general rule of thumb is

kilowatt x days x hours x efficiency

So 1.5 MW = 1500Kw x 365 x 24 x 90% = 11.8MW ish (depends on a number of factors)

11.8 GWh. assuming the original question meant MW rather than mW!
We do about 1.2 GWh from our 170 kW plant, often throttled back because the grid connection cannot take everything we generate if not using much on farm

 

[Ffermer Bach]

Per acre the electricity yield from PV is far better, although more variable. Where AD comes into its own is when it incorporates wastes, in our case cow slurry, silage from the top and sides of the clamp which is lower quality, whey from our cheesemaking. Also when it utilises the heat, as we do for grain drying, dairy hot water, cheesemaking heat, heating 4 houses, office and workshop. It really annoys me when the big AD operators, moving their silage miles on our narrow roads, then dump all the heat from the CHP (apart from what is needed to heat the digester)

what you have just described sounds just the type on integrated farming and development, that I think the country needs, integrate it with regen ag for the field work and it is brilliant. I wish things like this could be shown on TV to help educate and show the public the great things that can and are happening in the uk.

 

[DRC]

You are lucky you are on aha land

I own land and grow a crop to clamp here.
Lots on FBT doing the same around here. As long as they are growing the crop, no different to wheat or barley

 

[sjt01]

what you have just described sounds just the type on integrated farming and development, that I think the country needs, integrate it with regen ag for the field work and it is brilliant. I wish things like this could be shown on TV to help educate and show the public the great things that can and are happening in the uk.

I am now experimenting with treating the digestate with cheap sulphuric acid to increase the retention of nitrogen, reduce ammonia losses and reduce our need for bought in N

 

[DRC]

Best thing they could do is cut the sub. That’ll soon separate the serious guys from the cowboys.

So you want more land growing low commodity crops that’ll help reduce the price we get for wheat, barley beans etc.
makes a lot of sense ( not )

 

[M-J-G]

We keep getting told our malting barley and beef etc. aren't wanted or are too expensive, maybe if an AD plant wants to buy crops then fair enough.

If a farmer's land is being destroyed due to a lack of due care and attention the it's an oversight on the farmers part.
It's up to the farmer to stipulate whats acceptable and what isn't, and anything outwith that is a breach of contract.

 

[M-J-G]

Best thing they could do is cut the sub. That’ll soon separate the serious guys from the cowboys.

The same could be said for farmers.

 

[farmerm]

White diesel for AD might not be that far away,

AD is supposed to be sustainable, renewable energy... never mind white diesel, AD power requirements should be met 100% by bio-diesel and electric.

 

[farmerm]

The same could be said for farmers.

Its happening in farming or have you not heard? It will separate the businessman from the hobbyists (like me )

 

[Exfarmer]

Not criticising @sjt01 but the figure of GWh , which is an industry standard, is highly misleading to Joe public
We have just seen this confusion on another thread discussing battery power where the figures quoted seem quite vast but in reality are not that that big
1 GWh suggests to the average person 1000 million as they assume, 1M = 1 Million, 1K = 1000
it gets confusing when converting into units
so 1GWh is actually 1,000,000 Kwh which everyone understands is 1million units

to give a comparison each of Hinckley points new twin generators ( if finished) should be capable of about 10,000 times the output of SJT's plant, and will produce 1.6GWh per hour or 1600M units

 

[Chae1]

One a couple of miles from me, only uses draff from distilleries. Only real complaint is upland farmers can’t get cheap draff to feed cattle any more. They do struggle to get rid of the digestate though. 26 tanker loads a day have to find a home and we are in an nvz area so they have to cart it miles away. I reckon if they burnt all the diesel they use in the haulage they would make more electricity than the digester.

Do you use digestate?

If so what's your views on it?

 

[deleted user 436632456]

AD is supposed to be sustainable, renewable energy... never mind white diesel, AD power requirements should be met 100% by bio-diesel and electric.

Methane powered machinery will come to play.. sometime in the future
If a decent electric handler was available it will be a real viable option for most operations.
It other parts of the waste industry, machinery like crushers, trommel screeners and shredders are all going electric

 

[teslacoils]

These things take time to bed in. Our local ad plant has replaced tankers for the digestate with pipes and lagoons. So effective now. Once the initial scepticism was overcome, you can start to make the whole thing more efficient. It's really enabled us to change our farming system.

The digestate was a case in point. On day one there was suspicion, and a lot of "cutting off nose to spite face" to almost avoid helping out a nearby farmer who had done well. Smelly. Can you trust the analysis etc. Anything to basically be a pain. It's that stupidity of not wanting to see others do well! But now we take as much as we can . It allows me to grow grass profitably, which allows a better rotation, which allows me to grow cereals better. No tankers on the road etc, etc.

Similar I expect with feedstocks - I'd bet there are plenty who own land close to an ad plant who can't stand their neighbour doing well, but the neighbour would probably pay to upgrade their farm tracks / build clamps etc to avoid driving on the roads.

 

[deleted user 436632456]

I have 2 digesters within a 5 minute drive from me. Neither uses any farm grown crops it is all supermarket and food waste. I don’t think either would start using maize from what they have told me.

And they probably never will,
Utilising waste products is what it is all about, Food waste is a tough game to be in but there is a vast turnover difference between funding feedstock growing crops and getting paid per ton over the weighbridge for input waste streams.

The problems do start though when the competition begins for the waste products.

 

[whitefox]

You are lucky you are on aha land

can you explain why this makes a difference? pls