Any and all suggestion are welcomed and encouraged.

[madokie]

My brother has a sawmill business that generates the equivalent of about a cord of wood every two days in waste, what would be a good way to utilize that potential energy. I suggested he check out a gasifier to burn it and run a generator with. He builds and sells portable building with the lumber he saws that is not cabinet quality already and it serves him well but he still has a lot of waste. His sawdust at present is left to be reduced down to soil but that is only part of his total waste.

[catnhatnh]

1. You could look into pelletizing for heating fuel...

...I'm not sure how much equipment is involved.

[madokie]

4. not enough waste to invest the money in the pelletizer machine though

as the sawdust is the only thing that, without more work done to it, can be made into pellets, be diffcult to reduce the large pieces to small enough particles. right now the sawdust is probably only about maybe a 10th of the waste generated and the rest is in 8 ft long pieces that would have to be cut into smaller pieces for firewood which he does and which he sells. but there is a lot of waste that is not suitable for firewood. When he first started he tried to give the 'slabs' away but they were building up so fast he had to finally start charging for them and now most are removed, funny that huh, and that is part of the waste that he would like to increase its value of. He increases the value of the number 2 lumber by turning it into portable buildings now which he will continue to do. His philosophy is to utilize all the products of his business rather than just sawing more lumber to make more money which I am proud of him for doing.

[zabet]

2. We used to have a furniture

factory in our town. It closed and moved years ago. They used to sell
the wood scrap for X amount of dollars a pick-up truck load. Many people
in the area who used wood heaters would buy this scrap as it was excellent
'kindling' and way cheaper than fat-lighter to get the green wood used to
heat up enough to burn.

edit to fix spelling

[madokie]

6. but as firewood it doesn't have much value

and it requires his putting more of his labor into which lowers its value even more, I think I'm right there.

The waste from the furniture factory would be excellent for what you say though as it would be in small pieces suitable for burning in a stove.

[jdlh8894]

3. In OK

He could sell it to some Redneck dance halls or bars for floor covering? eom

[madokie]

5. easy now

I happen to have my kitchen floor made using the number 2 quality oak and it gets rave reviews from everybody who sees it ;-) In fact if I was so inclined I could prolly start a business making and installing the flooring but I'm not
anyways thanks for the input and it dang sure made me smile and emit an audible chuckle too

[jdlh8894]

7. Glad I gave you a smile & chuckle

Concerning the #2 ? How much sanding and poly was involved?

[madokie]

9. we just planed them then gave them a final sanding right before applying

the poly. What I did was cut the boards into 3 inch strips and then used a biscuit cutter on 8 inch centers to join them together. I left it as a floating floor. Its been about four years now and its holding up well. I put two good coats of poly for floors on it too.

if you want to see what it looks like I can send you a picture of it. ;-)

[GliderGuider]

8. What about charcoal?

Small scale charcoal retorts are pretty easy to build out of a 45 gallon drum, a bit of pipe and come cinder blocks for an enclosure. Have him hire someone to actually do the burn and market/distribute the charcoal either for BBQs or as a soil amendment (Terra Preta rules!!!) and offer that someone a profit-share. I think a cord every two days would be about right for a thriving small local charcoal business...

[madokie]

10. we talked about that yesterday but only for me to try to demonstrate the amount of gas

produced as he could relate to the 55 gallon barrel of wood. My son and I are going to build us a charcoal retort that I read about here on DU I think it was, this winter as we both use quite a bit of charcoal. I wonder about making charcoal and using the excess gas to run an engine to gen electric with, you've got me thinking now. Over close by here is a charcoal making operation where they have something like 6 or 7 20 ft wide by 40 ft long and 10 ft high or so metal building that they use as the containers to make the charcoal in and when they're making the charcoal I see a lot of smoke leaving the stacks. This will take some further studying though. the making part of a project is no problem as me and my whole family are good with our hands and can do pretty much anything, its the idea I need and this is a good one to give some thought time too, I'm a thinkin ;-)

[madokie]

12. I'm liking the idea better all the time

I wonder about the quanity of gas being produced in a barrel sized retort if it would be enough to run an internal combustion engine. yep you sure got me thinking. Instead of using the gas to heat the wood in the barrel as in the one you're talking about, sacrifice some of the wood as fuel to do the heating so one could draw the gas off to feed into an engine. sounds like it might be about time to get the cutting torch out and warm the welder up. I have quite an assortment of used engines from 7 hp on up to a ford truck six cylinder. thanks for the ideas

[jpak]

11. Compost, mulch or firewood

Here in Maine, all the small (and large) saw mills in my neck of the woods sell their sawdust to the local biomass power plant (and they get a good price too).

There is also a firewood market for slabs - local greenhouses and homeowners with large wood boilers can get them for way less than fitted dry firewood and processing is minimal.

Other than that, it's compost and mulch - for whatever price or customer he can find...