Direct and Indirect Costs of Transporting Wood Chips to Supply a Wood-Fired Power Plant

摘要

The type of transportation system employed by a wood-fired power plant (WFPP) will have a major impact on the success or failure of that operation. Procedures employed in transporting the wood influence the cost and the community's acceptance of the plant. Several alternative designs of a transportation system for a hypothetical 50-MW WFPP in Vermont are analyzed. Two means - truck and rail - of moving the fuel, wood chips, from the harvest site to the WFPP are investigated. Either transportation system will require special techniques for loading and unloading wood chips. For trucking, the system would include unloading equipment at the plant. For rail transport, truck-train transfer equipment is needed, along with machinery to unload the railcars at the plant. The direct cost of both systems is summarized with their possible variations, as accurately as possible, and compare the general cost ranges of the two. Although cost factors will vary greatly depending on the location and particular design specifications of the WFPP, it is concluded that the 35-truck fleet is probably the least-cost system in terms of capital costs. The analysis concludes that the specific WFPP site has a strong influence on the costs - direct and indirect - of the various possible transportation systems. (ERA citation 04:056817)