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The chipped biomass must be moved from the farm to a centralised receiving point for transfer to road
transport. The chipped biomass will be thrown directly from the harvester to a following bulk bin
(haulout) which will forward the material to the field edge. A shunt transport will then move the
biomass to the receiving point for the road transport. Due the cost of reclaiming heaps on the ground,
it is unlikely that chipped biomass will be stored on farm.
The dispersed layout of the mallee crops creates significant challenges for cost-efficient transport of
biomass from the harvester to the road transport receiving point. A lack of real crop distribution data
limits the usefulness of system analysis data. Infield transport distances will vary widely over short
periods of time, so transport to the roadside landings will require a two-stage process to give the
operation the flexibility to cope with widely varying harvester-to-landing distances. Haulouts will
need to have high capacities because they represent the smallest batch process in the supply chain.
The spatial distribution of landings will need to be matched with biomass distribution and available
yield. Tradeoffs will be required between an increased number of landings and shorter infield haul
distances. Haulout efficiency will be maximised if production per hectare and bulk density are
maximised and haul distances to the road landing are reduced.
Similarly, mallee is spread geographically across the Western Australian wheat belt and harvesting
will be a year round operation, so soil conditions will vary widely, both spatially and over time. The
Mediterranean climatic conditions can see unstable soils become commonplace during winter.
Vehicles used for infield haulout will need to be suitable for off-road use and have low ground
pressures. Depending on the row configuration and if low stumps are left by the harvester, rubber
tracks or low floatation tyres will need to be considered.
As transport regulations vary from state to state, licensing of infield transport that travel on public
roads may be required. This may involve the mallee industry working with the WA Department of
Transport to define appropriate guidelines for conditional registration.
Consideration could be given to pre-processing at roadside landings, involving upgrading processes
such as chip separation, oil distillation, drying and even pellet manufacture. This would improve the
marketing of the biomass, by placing the emphasis of the long-haul road transport upon the movement
of specific value-added products to appropriate markets. However costs and efficiencies of the several
options would need to be assessed.
The need for and role of material stockpiles will need to be evaluated in terms of the supply chain
management and impact on product quality. Stockpiles are a risk management strategy and can ensure
continuous feedstock supply in case of interruptions (for example fire, flood, soft soils, and major
mechanical breakdowns).
The grain transport trailers that are common in the wheatbelt regions do not have the volumetric
capacity for biomass. The wood chip transport systems are geographically somewhat distant from
mallee areas and they rely, partly for historical reasons, upon the use or rear discharge by tipping or
walking floors. This requires that road trains be decoupled and reassembled for every load, which
imposes extra cost upon woodchip transport compared grain transport, which can empty trucks
through a grizzly screen. The mallee industry will have the opportunity to avoid this problem if it
adopts side loading and unloading from the outset. If the materials handling process from the point of
harvest is containerised, then side loading and unloading can be accommodated using the principles of
sea container swing-lift technology.
Key considerations regarding sugar and mallee transport systems are tabulated in Appendix 1 of the
document.
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