Pellet mills are machines used to create pellets from a variety of powdered biomass materials such as wood, grass clippings, or peat combined with steam, or flour along with grain, sawdust, grass dry feedstock, and molasses for a wet ingredient. The purposes pellet mills are put to use for are either to create feed pellets for animals and poultry or fuel pellets to burn in place of wood, coal, or petroleum-based products.
For both purposes, pellets are far more convenient to handle than seed grain or logs, coal, or liquid fuels. Large-scale industrial pellet mills are used for factory production of these substances of course, but smaller-scale mills are increasingly finding their way onto farms, enabling them to produce their own fuel material. A variety of models is sold by dealers of Pellet Mills in Oregon.
Why Use Pellet Mills?
The instability of fossil fuel prices has made a fuel pellets a more attractive option. Purchasing fuel oil becomes unnecessary when switching to biomass as the alternative, and the farm pellet mill can manufacture fuel pellets from any available plant-based materials. It is true that logs may be cheaper on a per-unit comparison, but the other advantages far outweigh simple costs.
Fuel pellets churned out on mills are consistent both in content and moisture. The average load of pellets comes out at about 5% water by weight, while a fully seasoned log may have 25% moisture by weight locked up within it, and that’s even after two years drying. Worse, many logs sold on the commercial market aren’t even put through a drying process, and that means poor-burning fuel stock that is very inefficient.
These factors more than outweigh the per-unit comparison of pellets with logs, and doubly so if the farm is producing its own fuel pellets. Pellets are also far easier to handle than logs in addition to providing more consistent burning. That more than offsets either the direct cost of pellets from a supplier or the calculated per-unit production cost arising from on-site production at the farm.
So, Is A Pellet Mill A Worthwhile Investment?
By any calculation, it is far better to purchase a pellet mill and produce fuel right on the farm rather than buying logs or oil. Learn more about us and our line of quality machinery. Come to us when purchasing small- or medium-scale Pellet Mills in Oregon.
