Harvester Development for New High Yielding SRC Crops and Markets: DTI Project Summary

Abstract:

<p>The objectives of this project are: <bl> <li>To develop harvester drive chain and feeding systems to cope with larger, modern, higher yielding crops.</li> <li>To assess, by harvesting sites of different ages of the most recently planted varieties, the most economic harvesting cycle for SRC crops. Focus on maximising machinery and crop output thus minimising delivered cost per tonne whilst still maximising grower return.</li> <li>To produce in one pass fuel that can be directly fired with coal in pulverised fuel systems.</li> <li>To produce in one pass large grade fuel suitable for gasification.</li> <li>To achieve a harvesting cost of ANY fuel specification of &#163;10-&#163;11/odt.</li> </bl></p> <p>The conclusions of this project are: <bl> <li>Harvesting of SRC crops using the technology developed as part of this project is technically robust.</li> <li>Fuel specification can be altered to suit the requirements of different markets and can be produced economically.</li> <li>In production of fuel for co-firing in large coal combustion plant using pulverised fuel there are a series of complex economics involving secondary processing and haulage that will dictate the most cost effective method of delivering product.</li> <li>As the scale of market grows the ability to harvest SRC over the majority of the year is essential to the economic viability of the crop as a fuel source in order to meet the desired tonnages of end users and to maintain a continual level of supply on a year round basis.</li> <li>Harvesting of crops that have grown beyond the normal scale is extremely costly (may be over three times the normal cost at &#163;35/ODT) and not recommended.</li> </bl></p>

Author(s):

DTI