I love wood stoves. There is nothing like the heat and sounds and smells of killing and burning a tree. Wood burning is renewable. It produces lots of smoke and CO2. What’s not to love.
And it is catching on! (h/t Tom Nelson)
“Wood, humanity’s earliest fuel for keeping warm, is being touted these days as the latest thing in renewable energy: a greener, often cheaper way to heat a home or building than burning oil or propane or consuming coal-fired electricity.
Save the coal. Kill and burn a tree.
It’s also less expensive to buy and install than solar panels or geothermal systems, advocates say. It’s the workhorse of renewable energy in Europe and should be in the United States,” said William Strauss, president of a Maine-based consulting firm specializing in what it calls “bioenergy.” He spoke recently at a day-long conference in Annapolis aimed at encouraging more use of wood in Maryland to heat homes, offices, schools and even hospitals.”
Bioenergy. Give tree killing and burning a nice new eco-friendly name and its win win!
“Two-thirds of the renewable energy generated in Europe comes from burning wood or other plant-based material”
Sure, Germany and the UK have squandered hundreds of billions on wind and solar, but its good old fashioned CO2 producing burning that does the most work.
While some environmentalists are fully behind expanded reliance on wood-burning for heat, others say that newer stoves and boilers still generate potentially harmful air pollution, especially particulates that can aggravate asthma and cause serious long-term health problems.
They are even dumber than I thought they were.
They also worry that expanding government incentives for wood heat may slow development of other energy sources they think are much greener, such as solar.
Excellent.
And since burning anything to produce energy also puts carbon into the atmosphere, they doubt that promoting wood heat truly helps combat climate change.
Duh!
sunshine hours 