1. 8 th February 2011SRF Meeting Oak Park SRF/SRC at Teagasc John Finnan

2. 8 th February 2011SRF Meeting Oak Park SRF/SRC Teagasc Work on this subject commenced in the early-mid 1970s after the first oil crisis Initial objective was to identify species which could be harvested at regular intervals

3. 8 th February 2011SRF Meeting Oak Park SRF/SRC in Teagasc Species trials on low grade agricultural land Species trials on peatland Agronomy of SRF SRF Recovery after harvesting Fuel properties –various SRF species Storage and Drying of SRF in chip and Whole Stem form

4. 8 th February 2011SRF Meeting Oak Park SRF/SRC- Teagasc

5. 8 th February 2011SRF Meeting Oak Park SRF/SRC at Teagasc

6. 8 th February 2011SRF Meeting Oak Park Land Limitations Poor Agricultural Land (blanket bogs, gley soils) Pinus spp proved to be the best performer on these soils The performance of broadleaved species was unsatisfactory at most sites Betula survived at many locations but gave an unenonomic yield

7. 8 th February 2011SRF Meeting Oak Park Trials on Harvested Peatland Reasonable yields only obtained where there was at least 0.5m of peat remaining. Very poor yields obtained when plants were sown directly into calcareous marl Salix and Populus proved to be the most promising species generally although there was considerable variation among species.

8. 8 th February 2011SRF Meeting Oak Park Fuel Properties SpeciesBulk Density (kg/m3) Fixed Carbon % Volatiles %Ash % Fraxinus22411.587.41.1 Populus (F.P) 2387.891.11.1 Populus (rap) 2209.389.90.8 Salix aquatica 20210.388.81.0 Salix dasyclados 2318.889.71.7 Salix viminalis 2159.789.31.0

9. 8 th February 2011SRF Meeting Oak Park SRF Drying Chip&Stems

10. 8 th February 2011SRF Meeting Oak Park More Recently Low Cost Willow Chip Drying

11. 8 th February 2011SRF Meeting Oak Park Willow Variety Trials

12. 8 th February 2011SRF Meeting Oak Park Bioremediation Measuring nutrient and heavy metal losses to groundwater and surface water Stimulus funded project just finished Interreg funded project starting with AFBI

13. 8 th February 2011SRF Meeting Oak Park Combustion Studies With both pelleted material and chipped material