Pellets and wood pellets: what future for the price?

[Christophe]

Yes in 2010 I paid my stere 35 € ...

Of course, basically we are not paying for (fossil) energy at the right price!

I just take offense at the alignments of the energies non-fossil for purely capitalist reasons and short-term profits ...

[Christophe]

Otherwise, I had the opportunity to observe a forestry cutting / pruning / skidding harvester ... in 2 minutes flat, it transformed 1 standing tree of 20 m into a log ready to load on the logging truck!

So we can not say that the human cost has increased in logging in recent years ...

A beautiful machine to "manufacture unemployment" ... like many technological advances: a fact that these stupid politicians always striving for full employment have still not integrated into their mediocre minds ...

It was a machine like this:

[Christophe]

It's not just gas and electricity prices that are skyrocketing. Those who heat with pellets have also seen their bills rise. The reason: wood, which is becoming increasingly rare. The shortage of pellets awaits. And it will not suit Ghislain who has chosen to heat with pellets. Basically, the stove was to complement its oil-fired central heating. But now, he uses it almost exclusively.

Thanks to pellets, he can heat his whole house for less than 600 euros per year. "In the evening we heat ourselves with pellets and the boiler is not even on the way... or we leave a base at 17 degrees with the radiators." But even if the pellet remains very economical, its price has also soared: + 30% in just a few months. This is unheard of ! "The 285 euro pallet delivered this summer is currently 389 at the warehouse“, explains Eddy Populaire, manager of a fuel company in Gilly.



https://www.rtbf.be/article/le-pellet-a ... x-10918476

[Ahmed]

Christophe, you write:

A beautiful machine to "manufacture unemployment" ... like many technological advances: a fact that these stupid politicians always striving for full employment have still not integrated into their mediocre minds ...

Economic competition implies always reducing the quantity of work per unit of product (productivity), but the obligation to sell one's labor power on a shrinking market is nevertheless maintained (since it is part of the social relationship which requires that all we related to others through the exchange of a product). This explains much better than a supposed "debility" (which I perceive as a kind of shorthand ) the obligation for politicians to call for a maximum creation of jobs (without regard for a precise utility, since their utility in maintaining the economic structure is enough), while encouraging the growth of productivity, the key to competitiveness... and unemployment!

I do not know why Did is regularly offended by forecasts of tariff increases in the price of pellets... I made myself "guilty" of it (I'm probably not the only one) and the facts proved me wrong temporarily, no doubt because I misjudged the various factors that contribute to price formation. I had probably underestimated the weight of competition and the need for producers to run their equipment, which represents a substantial invested capital, faced with a product that has little margin per ton and which is, moreover, affected by strong seasonality.
I think things may be normalizing, as the cost of shaping has gone up since sawdust is no longer its main raw material. Restrictions on the use of fuel oil could do the rest, even if it is normal for a differential to remain in the face of network energies.
This change in the nature of the supply is also a constant in the timber industry, sometimes for technical reasons, often for economic reasons. Like this factory, whose slogan boasted a 100% hardwood* composition, came to incorporate softwood to prevent the pellets from crumbling after a few weeks. The idea of ​​shredded wood suffered a few deviations: originally, it was a question of getting rid of tortuous poles, "bark beetle" spruces and other downgraded products, then, very quickly, both under the effect of volumes and also practice, straight poles have joined the lot, avoiding costly sorting and "loading" difficulties in the shredders...

* Hardwoods are perceived as a better fuel by the "general public", by assimilation with the use of logs, but this is no longer true with regard to pellets, since the density effect is rendered null and void by the pressing.

[Philippe Schutt]

yes, that had to happen.
With people who heat themselves at 24° to be able to be fine at home, those (including town halls) who heat with pellets instead of insulating, the greening of coal-fired power stations by adding pellets, and tax incentives it was run.
I remember that at the beginning of the pellets I had read a study which calculated that the growth of wood in France made it possible to heat approximately 20% of the buildings. If we admit that insulation can reduce consumption by 50%, more than half will still have to use another source of energy.
By prohibiting gas and fuel oil in new homes and wood being available in limited quantities, we are sure that prices will rise and relaunch the electricity sector and in particular nuclear.

[Did67]

I do not know why Did is regularly offended by forecasts of tariff increases in the price of pellets... I made myself "guilty" of it (I'm probably not the only one) and the facts proved me wrong temporarily, no doubt because I misjudged the various factors that contribute to price formation. I had probably underestimated the weight of competition and the need for producers to run their equipment, which represents a substantial invested capital, faced with a product that has little margin per ton and which is, moreover, affected by strong seasonality.
I think things may be normalizing, as the cost of shaping has gone up since sawdust is no longer its main raw material. Restrictions on the use of fuel oil could do the rest, even if it is normal for a differential to remain in the face of network energies.
This change in the nature of the supply is also a constant in the timber industry, sometimes for technical reasons, often for economic reasons. Like this factory, whose slogan boasted a 100% hardwood* composition, came to incorporate softwood to prevent the pellets from crumbling after a few weeks. The idea of ​​shredded wood suffered a few deviations: originally, it was a question of getting rid of tortuous poles, "bark beetle" spruces and other downgraded products, then, very quickly, both under the effect of volumes and also practice, straight poles have joined the lot, avoiding costly sorting and "loading" difficulties in the shredders...

* Hardwoods are perceived as a better fuel by the "general public", by assimilation with the use of logs, but this is no longer true with regard to pellets, since the density effect is rendered null and void by the pressing.

I'm not offended by an increase...

I was offended, my words are precise, against those who 10 years ago said, I sum up: no need to switch from fuel oil to pellets, since in any case, prices will align... It's the "alignment" and automaticity... like a kind of pie-to-the-cream idea of ​​bofism: there is no point in doing something, since it will be the same anyway! It was not my conviction - otherwise, I would not have traded in my oil boiler which still worked for a pellet boiler...

It is obvious that it is a product like any other, and in a liberal economy, its price results from multiple factors. And that by the mechanisms of the liberal economy, its price will adjust. What we are witnessing... We will have to see how it evolves. There had been, at the very moment when I had ordered my boiler, a "surge" in prices, while fuel oil was falling... Quite simply because the manufacturers of poles and boilers were in the process of achieving a relative breakthrough ( modest all the same) and that the manufacture of pellets had not followed...

I seem to have specified, I'm too lazy to research, that it was, we were there in 2008, an opportunity that wouldn't last forever! If fossil fuels become scarce tomorrow, fuel prices triple, and of course there will be a rush on alternative energies - and in a certain number of cases, it will be pellets. And it is very likely that we will then go towards tensions - if only because we will not be able to take money forever. For the moment, there is stock (on foot). The brake is we will say roughly ecological: how much can we artificialize forests for heating, building furniture and houses and making paper??? For some, nature should not be touched (and the forest is only seen like that). For others, "sustainable management" is enough...

There is necessarily a limit to exploitation! But the question is much broader than heating, because the sources in question (oil, gas, wood) have many other uses than to burn them!

In short, I'm not offended. I was offended, nuance! Because basically, they were trying to show me that I was making the wrong choice. "Anyway, it's going to line up with fuel oil!".

FYI: I installed a 9 ton silo for an estimated consumption of about 4 tons. Precisely, to allow me to buy according to the oscillations of the market. Until then, the "off season" offers were unbeatable. It may not be the case next spring: that's good, I'll still have a year of stock. Afterwards, one of two things, where the prices are permanently high, and I would have no choice. Or it was a speculative push and I'll still get away with it. This is the proof that I had "considered" price variations (in liberal economy).

[Did67]

I do not know why Did is regularly offended by forecasts of price increases in the price of pellets...

.

I forgot this part of the answer: you will note all the same that it has been 12 years - and that these "predictions of increases" (beyond a few %) had never materialized! That's a fact.

On this site, you can tick the years on the graph to follow the evolution: https://www.heizpellets24.de/charts/holzpellets

[Ahmed]

The possibilities of insulation are still immense, but many buildings will not be able to be, or in a very imperfect way... Generalized wood heating has existed but, although with much lower comfort requirements, this has everything in the same way led to the fact that the Morvan was "ratiboized" at the beginning of the previous century by the only city of Paris!

@ Did: I had a bad memory and I fully agree with your comments. Yes, 12 years of stability, I admit it! Mea culpa, mea maxima culpa!
I note (maliciously!) that your storage capacity allows you to speculate! But it is a good precaution and the seasonality of consumption actually pushes producers to "spread" the distribution of a product that they cannot store as much as possible, both for reasons of space, but above all to financial imperatives: your foresight allows both parties to be satisfied.

[Christophe]

A little update is needed...Did67 was offended in January...and what is it today? The Hara Kiri in anticipation? Ah Did67 has already committed suicide from this forum it's true...it's stupid!

Hey yes friends...because:

All is good in the pig capitalist: https://www.carmen-ev.de/service/marktu ... e-pellets/

Screenshot 2022-09-07 at 10-13-18 Marktpreise Pellets – CARMEN eVpng (140.38 KiB) Viewed 763 times

[Ahmed]

I had wrongly anticipated this increase too early, which seemed to me justified by technical reasons, but which did not materialize then, due to the strong competition between producers. Today exogenous factors appear and feed these high prices and this time it is the competition between the price of different energies which is the essential cause.