Welcome to the latest issues of HarvestTECH.News.
Biofuel announcements on both sides of the Tasman continue to pop up – almost daily now. Better utilisation of forest residues has moved from highlighting opportunities in harvesting, transporting and drying some of these residues from logging operations to now major investments in new heat plant by industrial-scale operations.
Genesis Energy in NZ believes that converting part of the Huntly power station to run on biofuel could be economic, but it’s going to need a source of specialist wood fuel (steam-exploded wood pellets) to be created. Scaling up is what they’re pushing for – and it’s this scaling up of a reliable consistent resource of biofuel from forestry operations that’s going to drive the switch from fossil fuels like coal.
It’s also this collaboration by forestry companies to best meet the growing demand for biomass that will feature in the eagerly awaited Wood Residues 2022 event, which runs on 26-27 July in Rotorua, New Zealand. Included in the event is a practical workshop on in-field chipping technologies. Before it was postponed in early March because of Omicron, a significant number of forestry companies and harvesting contractors from across the country had already signed up. If interested, full details including both the programme and registration information can be found on woodresidues.events.
This week we’ve built in a number of stories linked to harvesting and wood transport. Of interest are a couple of stories drawn from the South Island of NZ. First, Otago locals were pretty impressed with some old man radiata that were about 80-100 years old with logs being up to 12 tonnes being loaded. Then to better that, a local contractor sent in photos and details of a redwood logged in South Canterbury. This one was close to 150 years old, the butt log was 3.1metres in diameter at the large end and the 6m log weighed in at a very respectable 21.5 tonnes. Any advances on these two – then please send them through.
Check out these stories and much more below. Enjoy this month’s issue.
Remember, please send through any stories or video you want us to pass onto the wider wood harvesting and log transport community.
Stories this issue:
- Specialist wood fuel suggested by Genesis
- Car and truck carrier loads wood products
- John Deere introduces new full-tree simulator
- C3 delivers industry-first grapple log loading innovation
- Yes – big trees, they still exist
- Addressing driver fatigue with technology
- Improved log load securing project underway
- Monster Redwood from South Canterbury
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