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woody crops Potential annual biomass production (millions of green tonnes per year) 4.7 – 7.8 6.4 – 9.6 9.6 - 13.5 21 – 31 million green tonnes Sugar system Sugar cane is grown mostly within 80 km of the coast, along the plains and in river valleys of northern New South Wales and Queensland. The cane lands stretch about 2100 km in a discontinuous strip from Maclean, near Grafton, New South Wales, to Mossman, Queensland (Figure 1.2). The principal centres of production are in the neighbourhood of Cairns, Innisfail, Ingham, Ayr, Mackay and Bundaberg. Queensland accounts for about 95% of Australia’s raw sugar production, and New South Wales around 5%. Sugar cane production is limited to areas of high and evenly distributed rainfall or where irrigation is available. Rainfall ranges from 4000 to 4500 mm in the Innisfail area ( Tully, Innisfail, Babinda), through 1750 mm at Cairns-Mossman and Ingham, 1500 mm at Mackay, 1100 mm at Bundaberg and 1000 mm at Ayr. All cane at Ayr is intensively irrigated. Some supplementary irrigation is also applied at Bundaberg and Mackay. More than 4000 sugar growing farms operate along Australia’s eastern seaboard. While the average size of a cane farm is 70 hectares, with an annual sugarcane production of 7000tonnes, some are in excess of 1000 hectares. While there are still a number of smaller farms, average farm size is increasing each year, as the number of growers contracts and area farmed expands. 1.3.2 Nature of future expansion Mallee system Future expansion in WA will be commercially driven. The initial planting effort was strongly encouraged by environmental management objectives and associated public funding, but environmental drivers are now less influential than in the 1990s. Farmers with mallees are now awaiting the development of markets and the harvesting of the resource they have already established. This same pattern of strong initial farmer support followed by the adoption of a wait-and-see approach before critical mass is achieved may be repeated in other regions of the wheatbelt of southern Australia unless there is a coordinated whole-of-industry development process. The pause in expansion of the WA mallee resource does not mean farmers are unaware of the environmental benefits, even though these benefits are difficult to quantify and include in conventional economic analyses. Farmers may adopt new enterprises for a range of reasons, not all of which are strictly economic. The drought tolerance of deep-rooted woody vegetation, the ability to utilise rainfall outside the winter cereal season and aesthetic values may all play a part. A social survey by Baumber et al (2011) of prospective mallee growers in central NSW indicates that a significant proportion of farmers do not see crops like mallee as being directly competitive with annual cropping and grazing but more as a supplementary production system that may help to even 21
out the fluctuations in farm income, even though the return per hectare may be lower than the long term average grain cropping returns. Farms are also increasing in size and there is a tendency to focus on annual cropping on soils that respond best to expensive cropping inputs. This may leave other soil types available for mallee as a land use with relatively modest returns but low inputs after the initial establishment. Sugar system Expansion in the sugar industry will primarily take place through consolidation and increase in contract area in existing mill supply regions. Consolidation is possible thanks to advances in farming technology, economies of scale, a stable market and available capacity in milling facilities. Given the large investments in milling infrastructure there is a desire to maximise volumes processed and extend the length of harvest season. International ownership of milling and processing facilities may have an impact on industry growth as would future expansion into biofuel markets. It is unlikely that new mills will be developed, however expansion of existing mill processing facilities to increase efficiency and diversify product streams is likely. There are now 24sugar mills down from a peak of 33 mills. 1.4 Resource management 1.4.1 Identification of existing and future supply areas Mallee System Existing resources in states other than WA are relatively small and they represent the initial trial plantings that are essential to starting a new cropping system and industry. In WA the resource establishment has progressed much further, primarily on the back of the environmental planting of the 1990s. There is also a significant but unknown resource that has been planted by various companies for carbon sequestration. The ultimate fate of these stands is hard to determine – some apparently have harvesting options within the grower contracts but there is no public knowledge about the suitability of these sites for harvesting. For example, row spacing and the number of rows in belts are possibly unsuitable if rows are too close for harvesting access, or the belts are so wide that the internal rows stop growing before they achieve yields that are sufficient to support viable harvesting operations. The existing mallee resource which comes under the overall interest and possibly future management of the Oil Mallee Association is understood to a degree. Work is currently under way collecting better quality spatial data to enable this information to be managed in a geographical information system. Site assessment will also be required to determine suitability for harvesting: • Are the sites big enough to justify harvesting, or are they in proximity to other sites so that collectively the cluster is large enough to harvest? • What is the row configuration? Spacing may be too close to allow any harvesting; length and straightness are factors that influence harvest efficiency. • Obstructions to the harvester (such as rocks) that may damage the saw and/or start fires. • Access to the harvester and the haulouts will need to be sufficient recognising that the haulouts will probably be larger vehicles than the harvester itself. 22
Page 1 and 2: Sustainable Biomass Supply Chain fo
Page 3 and 4: Foreword This report provides an as
Page 5 and 6: include business development (new p
Page 7 and 8: Acknowledgments The authors would l
Page 9 and 10: 4.1 Product Options and Supply Chai
Page 11 and 12: Table 4.2 Assessment of current val
Page 13 and 14: Figure 3.4 Tracked rigid self-prope
Page 15 and 16: Executive Summary What the report i
Page 17 and 18: • Biomass production potential of
Page 19 and 20: • As the Industry expands, the mo
Page 21 and 22: Harvesting, transport and storage s
Page 23 and 24: Biomass processing, supply chain pl
Page 25 and 26: Key barriers to biomass industries
Page 27 and 28: Crop-Biomass Production Production
Page 29 and 30: Figure 1.1 The cropping and pasture
Page 31 and 32: Table 1.1 Mallee species used for p
Page 33 and 34: 1.1.4 Growth Cycle Mallee System Ma
Page 35 and 36: northern New South Wales (where it
Page 37 and 38: Almost 80% of the industry now cuts
Page 39 and 40: Bark has relatively high ash but as
Page 41 and 42: Carbon sinks Planting of mallees to
Page 43: Table 1.5(a) State Land area devote
Page 47 and 48: Mallee system Most of the mallee bi
Page 49 and 50: inconclusive result may have been d
Page 51 and 52: For a sustainable woody crop indust
Page 53 and 54: changed significantly since they we
Page 55 and 56: Figure 2.2 Biosystems Engineering p
Page 57 and 58: Whole-of-crop harvesting represents
Page 59 and 60: During the last decade the harvesti
Page 61 and 62: single row, as this would improve t
Page 63 and 64: 2.2.2.2 Weight Sugar System The Aus
Page 65 and 66: Table 2.1 Harvester Comparison Tabl
Page 67 and 68: The quality of cut may be less impo
Page 69 and 70: ate than a 170 tonne/ha crop of sta
Page 71 and 72: Dry Leaf 6.1 - 3.5 17.0 58.9 53.2 T
Page 73 and 74: Bulk density will be a key consider
Page 75 and 76: Table 2.4 EM levels in cane supply
Page 77 and 78: L/T L/T 60 0.97 0.71 80 0.92 0.66 1
Page 79 and 80: Total 7.5-26 16.5 Mallee System The
Page 81 and 82: • waiting for mill delivery of em
Page 83 and 84: perhaps at 10 - 20 km intervals. Th
Page 85 and 86: transport arrangements, harvest gro
Page 87 and 88: contractors and growers, and the fa
Page 89 and 90: experience of the sugar industry wi
Page 91 and 92: Table 2.11 Alternative harvest paym
Page 93 and 94: onto the harvester. BR+F still send
Page 95 and 96:
Repairs and maintenance 2.10 Capita
Page 97 and 98:
Figure 2.14 and Table 2.14 describe
Page 99 and 100:
Sichter et al. (2005)), harvest and
Page 101 and 102:
Transport efficiencies may be possi
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3. Transport and Storage Systems Tr
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same time, the potential problems o
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Figure 3.3 Articulated self-propell
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• The harvester will not have any
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Figure 3.7 Gross mass compared with
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external factors dramatically impac
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Figure 3.11 The effect of haulout t
Page 117 and 118:
3.3 Road Transport 3.3.1 Configurat
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Figure 3.15 shows an example of the
Page 121 and 122:
Road distance one way < 20 km 70 km
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Haul distance is largely outside th
Page 125 and 126:
3.6 Recommendations The nature of t
Page 127 and 128:
• The strategy offered lower tota
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sugarcane billets are such that wit
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• Transfer the whole tree product
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Figure 4.5(b) Energy balance of con
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2010). Table 4.2 presents a summary
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4.4.2 Activated charcoal Activated
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Nett Product Value ($/t) $475.00 $
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Table 4.9 presents an estimation of
Page 143 and 144:
• Oil from leaf @ $2/kg • Synth
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• The mallee oil would be extract
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5. Industry and Business Structures
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is conducted into tariff levels on
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Bx is % brix in first expressed jui
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Hildebrand (2002) estimated that th
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also has a flow on effect to the sp
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Sugar Industry Illustrative Example
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with super size multi-lift bins ove
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farmer vs. harvester) is the next l
Page 163 and 164:
6. Supply Chain Planning and Manage
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Figure 6.1 Building blocks of the s
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weighed against the costs of operat
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• There is close contact between
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6.4 Planning, Management Tools and
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• Harvest and transport logistics
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interface. The system allows users
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Case Study 6.2 - Model Application
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Relationships between sectors and p
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7. Supply Chain Modelling and Econo
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It was assumed that there was a fif
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Table 7.2 Scenario two capital equi
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Table 7.4 Fuel burn rates harvester
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Figure 7.5 Effect of capital equipm
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Figure 7.7 Effect of annual tonnes
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30 1.8 7.0 12.3 17.5 50 1.1 4.3 7.6
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8. Conclusions and Recommendations
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Biomass bulk density has a large im
Page 199 and 200:
Vehicles used for infield haulout w
Page 201 and 202:
This can be compared with harvest a
Page 203 and 204:
While diversification can add value
Page 205 and 206:
Appendix 1: Comparative Assessment
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and transport conditions. Billet le
Page 209 and 210:
that cane production is the most pr
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on sugar only, other proceeds (mola
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References Agnew, J 2002. A Partici
Page 215 and 216:
Enecon 2001. Integrated Tree Proces
Page 217 and 218:
Keating, BA, Antony, G, Brennan, LE
Page 219 and 220:
Ridge, DR and Linedale, AL, 1997. T
Page 221:
Willcox, T, Hussey, B, Chapple, D a
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