Firewood being burned in the UK has
an average moisture content of around 35%. Therefore, the
500,000 tonnes
of firewood sold and burned in the UK during 2009 probably
contained about 175,000 tonnes of water!
Currently more than 3 million households in the UK are finding
it difficult to pay their energy bills, a phenomenon called
Fuel Poverty! As the costs of electricity, oil, gas and coal
are never going to come down, wood, in the form of logs and
chip, is once again being considered as a cost-efficient means
of domestic heating.
However, burning wood as a fuel is still so wasteful that
any gains made from utilising this resource, which is considered
to be renewable, are lost through the inefficient nature of
managing woodland, the energy spent on harvesting, processing
and supply, and the wastefulness of conventional (even modern)
wood burning stoves.
Transport Of Wood Fuel Most firewood suppliers in the UK will be claiming
to supply logs with a ‘moisture content’ of around
20%. This means that a log weighing 1 kilo will have 200g
of water in it.
In reality, the firewood being burned in the UK has an average
moisture content closer to 35%. Therefore, the 500,000 tonnes
of firewood sold and burned in the UK during 2009 probably
contained about 175,000 tonnes of water!
Transporting water around the country, in the form of wet
firewood, requires fossil fuels and produces carbon dioxide
(CO2), which cannot be recovered through the effort of burning
wood however carefully the woodland is managed!
If a tonne of firewood costs around £100 then during
2009 £50million was spent on firewood and of that £17.5
million was spent on water. Reducing the water content of
firewood directly affects the cost and carbon efficiency of
its transport.
Making Wood Work As A Fuel
Very wet logs sizzle; you can hear water being driven off
before the wood burns. This takes energy and makes less heat
available to us. Even in drier wood, some moisture has to
evaporate off before burning takes place. This leads to significantly
better energy returns from drier wood.
Burning
wood at 20% moisture content provides 4000KwH of energy
per tonne. If we can burn wood at 5% moisture content, which
the technology being supported by
Carbon Synq
aims to do, a tonne of wood will instead yield 5000KWh of
energy per tonne.
For every tonne of firewood we burn at 20% instead of 5%
moisture content, we are potentially wasting 1000KwH of
energy: 100,000 TONNES OF WATER = 100MILLION kWh of wasted
energy annually.
For every tonne of firewood we burn at 35% instead of 5%
moisture content, we are potentially wasting 1750KwH of
energy: 175,000 TONNES OF WATER = 175MILLION kWh of wasted
energy annually.
Carbon Synq
will support the development of a rapid wood-drying process
that facilitates the production of small diameter woodfuel,
with consistent moisture content below 10%. This technology
has been developed and tested by Black
Mountain Woodfuels and will be made available exclusively
to
Carbon Synq
to support the creation of 100 new jobs in the UK.
At the same time it will support the promotion of a range
of woodstoves designed specifically to burn this woodfuel
at increased rates of heat/energy efficiency. The outcome
will be more heat from less wood, from less land, and without
having to plant anymore trees!
It will encourage the expansion of the woodfuel market in
the UK, promote and combine the traditional ways of woodmanship
and the new ways of stewardship, promote graft in places
that thrive on it, and it will support the (re)creation
of vibrant, rich woodland ecosystems, maintained with knowledge
of how to provide others with some comfort from their endeavours.
