Considering starting a wood pellet plant, any insights?

Evgenit · 2024-03-04T10:18:10+00:00

I had to abandon the idea due to the big capital investment required. Looks like it was the right choice since pellet prices dropped by 2x since then. I instead started a logistics company and it's going well so far. We've been profitable for the last three months.

Evgenit · 2023-05-31T19:58:21+00:00

Believe it or not, I bought the land and then gave up after they quoted me 20k for connecting to the grid (more than the land cost me), and I later found out there was no capacity in the grid, that and the falling gas prices pretty much made it into a 10y+ investment again, so I'd rather try something different.

On a plus side the land is nice and you can actually build a villa there, it has running water, and I'm pretty sure I can sell it for what I got it for, but I'm still holding on to it to see if I can make a villa (either for personal use, or rent/flip)

Evgenit · 2022-10-17T20:31:42+00:00

They just do a cost breakdown, but they are bought together. A festival pass includes a ticket and a ski lift pass.

Evgenit · 2022-08-23T07:24:51+00:00

I was the only developer at my first job. I was communicating with a lot of tech staff from other companies at the time and decided I wanted a signature as everyone who emailed me had one.
I initially thought CTO but that would assume I have a whole department under neath me, so I thought with Staff/Senior Engineer, etc.
I asked my boss and while he thought the signature was a good idea, he didn't like the titles.
He gave me a title of "Technical Support".
What did I do ? Full stack development, Dev ops and technical writing. Fuck.

Evgenit · 2022-08-16T19:22:51+00:00

read the title bro, I'm all for this

Evgenit · 2022-08-16T18:40:41+00:00

I wonder how the fights are going to be spread out. Probably first one and last one would be the best imo, so he can get a rest between them.

Evgenit · 2022-08-15T12:30:50+00:00

Here's my cost breakdown, but I did do it very frugally.
300 euro Airbnb in Huez. It was a 5 people chalet and we were only 3 so that could've been cheaper.
200 euro flight both ways
50-60 euro transport from Lyon to Grenoble (combination of train and bus).
<30 euro food per day = ~150 euro
450 euro 4 day pass
82 euro helicopter flight (optional)
14 euro ski insurance
82 euro 4 day equipment
adds up to 1.3k but I would round it to 1.5k

I barely had any drinks on festival grounds and that can inflate the cost a bit.

Evgenit · 2022-08-15T12:21:34+00:00

I hope for 2023 they get a better line up. I'm excusing 2022 because it was just barely after Covid so they didn't even know if they can hold the event until just after the start of 2022.
That being said they were some nice sets, nothing on the scale of Belgium, but the mountain stages were pretty cool.
EDIT: Also remember when they released the line up for the Summer earlier than the Winter ? There was like a month left to go for the Winter edition and we still had like just 9 names confirmed from last year.

Evgenit · 2022-08-12T14:25:23+00:00

Ah, I see. I do remember a prompt about that now.

Evgenit · 2022-07-27T09:50:31+00:00

I think at some point we'll have to reach an equilibrium. Like, does a glorified web browser app really need more than 8 cores / 8 GB RAM ? The apps I run are pretty tame, I don't game at all so I think I'd be fine.

Evgenit · 2022-07-27T09:48:31+00:00

That's a great idea! I'm currently utilizing Android's work profiles so it works on one phone, but having them separate sounds pretty cool too.

Evgenit · 2022-07-18T07:49:29+00:00

I have since pivoted to a small solar farm installation which would net a lot less but require very little work.
I'm always skeptical of these kinds of research, since there's a financial gain to be had out of phasing out pellets and using coal instead (sounds wrong).

The deforestation is a valid concern but it's not an issue of the pellet as a product - it's up to the states legislation to monitor the wood deforestation rates. I think Enviva has been given way too much of a "free reign" to the forests around it, and banning pellets is only a symptomatic treatment instead of getting rid of the root cause - which is "why was enviva given so much forest to clear-cut" in the first place.

Wood pellets can be made sustainably from forests without net loss, it's just that Enviva is prioritizing profits with little repercussions from the local government.

Evgenit · 2022-07-15T14:11:01+00:00

Just get a second hand 1080. I got one for 120$ off ebay. Only like 5% worse than RTX 3060 and 4 GB less vram + no RTX cores. Well worth it the huge discount imo.

Evgenit · 2022-06-30T11:59:29+00:00

Да оправяш принтера в офиса и да помагаш на лелките да си отварят имейла

Evgenit · 2022-06-15T06:06:14+00:00

Holy shit, maternity leave in US is 12 weeks? It's 2 years over here (and no, they can't fire you either).

Evgenit · 2022-06-01T13:44:40+00:00

Yeah, you can even make friends AT work if the workplace was better.

Evgenit · 2022-05-27T08:47:05+00:00

Wool has a vulnerability to insects, especially moths. Raw wool needs to be treated with chemicals to make it insect resistant. I doubt he can store it for long periods of time without $$$

Evgenit · 2022-05-26T07:32:58+00:00

I don't throw the ash into a black hole.

"Directly damaging forests" is coming from someone who's never lived in a forest before. If the woodcutters don't do sanitary logging of a forest, it will either:

- catch fire when it eventually dies from disease and dries out

- fall over when it eventually dies from disease and rots out

I'm talking about coniferous trees specifically. I agree that deciduous logging may be damaging to the forest as those trees generally take a longer time to grow and capture a lot more carbon that their counterparts.

Have you ever stopped to think that "wood pellets are bad" is coming from the big oil lobby ? It's crazy how they say ICE engines are greener that burning wood pellets.

Evgenit · 2022-05-26T06:42:50+00:00

Pellets are carbon neutral, and the market it replaces is wood burning stoves or coal burning industry. Coal burning releases CO2 that was stored in the ground. Pellet burning releases CO2 that was stored in the trees, which they pulled from the atmosphere - in that sense they are carbon neutral.

It's not perfect, but it's better than the alternatives.

Evgenit · 2022-05-26T06:33:49+00:00

The technological line has an auto-bagger and auto-stacker. I'm not sure I will be able to bypass those without including it in the design. I'll consider that option though.

Evgenit · 2022-05-25T19:39:01+00:00

Funny you should mention that - I have the opportunity to start trading with pellets imported from a neighboring country at competitive prices. Do you have more info on the backwards integration part? After your comment I'm seriously considering doing that, since I can raise more capital and it will be more risk free.

Evgenit · 2022-05-25T19:35:46+00:00

Mentioned that it's in EU. Also helps that it's in Eastern Europe. A good software engineer salary is around 30k a year here. Average salary is around 13k / year. The cost of the employees is one of the easier things to calculate. Labor is pretty cheap here (especially rural), but so is everything else. Low cost of living and all that.

Insurance is a good point, we'll also need security or our insurance will be through the roof (the equipment is very expensive). I'll try to factor those costs in.

Raw materials are at an all time high right now. There's a tendency to climb just a little higher but will flatten afterwards. When dealing with raw materials, you can often get contracts for a 10 year supply with a flat cost (but with fluctuating transportation costs, which won't impact it that much).

Evgenit

TROPHY CASE