Maine study weighs impact of more wood heating

[phantom power]

Heh. Consider the benefits of a career in logging!

Maine has about 17 million acres of woodlands that could be harvested commercially, officials said. It is also the state with the highest dependence on No. 2 heating oil, with more than 80 percent of its homes using oil-based heating systems, according to the task force.

Some 440,000 households in Maine use an average of 900 gallons of oil a year, the report said. At current prices, that means each family will spend an average of $4,100 on heat this winter.

(...)

At the same time, the report warned, "this situation presents potential serious public health concerns. The amount of air pollution emitted by woodstoves this winter could approach record levels."

(...)

Increased use of wood for heat could also lead to an increase in wood prices, the report said, calling on the state to educate youth about the benefits of a career in wood harvesting.

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5j_USm_FSzsXwsSCfXmp_AAG5axtQD93EVITG1

[Warpy]

1. The problem with wood burning is particulates

meaning fine ash in the atmosphere, along with some of the acid products of combustion. We have pollution alert days here in the Rio Grande Valley when wood burning is prohibited. Those are generally are warmer days, so it's not a terrible burden.

Other places will likely have to follow suit.

It's still not nearly as nasty as coal burning was in up until the mid 60s. The air was unbelievably foul when those old coal furnaces were still in operation.

[phantom power]

2. My personal skepticism regarding wood is wattage.

If you consider any forest (or group of forests, etc), there is some sustainable rate at which you can extract energy from that forest. A "sustainable wattage."

Now, Maine has a lot of forest, and not all that many people. So, it might be that Maine can heat itself sustainably with wood, although I've never seen anybody derive the sustainable wattage of Maine's forests and compare that against the wattage of Maine's heating requirements.

Regardless, Maine doesn't have a demographic representative of most other states. Also, I don't have much optimism that human nature will constrain harvesting to sustainable levels. That certainly hasn't been the case at the planet scale.

[Warpy]

3. What caused the deforestation of New England in the

nineteenth century wasn't home heating, it was the industrial revolution. Those without access to streams for water power used first wood and then coal to fire steam boilers.

Central heating with wood is just plain crazy and is not sustainable. Using a woodstove to heat one room fully and the rest of the house to a chilly but safe temperature might be. The energy required for point source heating is far lower than that for central heating and that is how it should be measured.

[jpak]

7. 19th Century Maine was deforested for agriculture - as all those stone walls and cellar holes attest

Most of northern Maine was logged for structural wood products but was not converted to agriculture...it remains productive woodland today (well until Plum Creek turns it into New Jersey)

[excess_3]

4. better than oil from the middle east .n/t

[phantom power]

5. I'm not sure concepts like "better" or "worse" apply.

Oil is going to start sliding off the peak. Americans, along with a lot of other people, will be forced to adjust. Along the way, we may discover that there are, indeed, worse things than "oil from the middle east."

Is deforestation "better" than transferring our wealth to OPEC? How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?

[jpak]

6. Wood is *far* better than freezing to death and/or financial ruin.

Which is a real possibility this winter for many Mainers.

Many homeowners that burn oil will burn through as much as $10K - easy.

Furthermore, most people are buying pellet stoves that emit far fewer particulates than conventional wood stoves.

...and no one is predicting the deforestation of Maine due to wood burning stoves...but apparently, no one sees the benefits of reductions in greenhouse gas emissions either.

:evilgrin:

[phantom power]

8. Yes, I agree...

I also agree -- I could be the only one predicting the deforestation of Maine (well, actually I'm predicting the deforestation of North America).

As you might recall, what I'm picturing is that first we have a mass migration to wood. Which helps people avoid freezing to death. Then we deforest North America. And then homeowners freeze to death in financial ruin.

[jpak]

11. I forgot - you can make fuel pellets out of many plant materials

english hay, prairie grasses etc. - not just wood

[excess_3]

15. suburban sprawl or a working forest

pick one

[NNadir]

9. In fact, the majority of air pollution deaths on this planet derive from wood burning.

I link this a lot, because it bears repeating.

http://www.who.int/quantifying_ehimpacts/countryprofilesebd.xls

I discussed some of the finer details here:

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/7/19/185333/801/255/554028

I have read, so as to believe it, that coal burning for home heating is becoming more popular as well.

http://pressherald.mainetoday.com/story.php?id=144707&ac=PHnws

Happy Man, that coal dealer John Flink, Maine coal dealer.

Of course, until they made their electricity exceptionally dirty and made their electricity more reliant than ever on dangerous fossil fuels, they could have probably saved something by using clean electricity. But that was not to be.

Heckuva job Maine anti-nukes. Heckuva job.

[jpak]

10. Ummmm - the *vast* majority of those deaths are due to unvented hearths in the 3rd world

- not pellet stoves in Maine.

An unvented hearth is not much more than a fire pit in the middle of a single room dwelling.

Any claim to the contrary is sickfuck sociopathic nonsense.

Hey - why don't you come up to Maine and take back Maine Yankee's spent fuel - you can use it to heat your natural gas-heated McMansion this winter...

:rofl:

[Dead_Parrot]

12. Stats on particulate deaths in Maine...

...from those sickfuck sociopaths at the NRDC

http://www.nrdc.org/air/pollution/bt/ME.asp

Bangor: 594
Lewiston-Auburn: 550
Portland: 1,147
Portsmouth-Dover-Rochester: 1,751

It never fails to amaze me, the things you think are worth a rofl.
Hey look! Four thousand dead people!!1! :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

[jpak]

13. Ummm - PM2.5 & 10 has many sources - like coal fired power plants in NJ, WV and OH

and automobiles and diesel vehicles and local industrial sources.

and most of Maine's photochemical smog and mercury and acid rain is imported from "away" (i.e., NJ) as well.

Why don't you post particulate deaths in Nuclear-New-Jersey-Which-Is-A-Fraud???

I bet it's more than 4000....

:rofl:

Here's today's EPA PM 2.5 map for New England

http://cfpub.epa.gov/airnow/index.cfm?action=airnow.showmap&pollutant=PM2.5&domain=neng&map=current_hour

[Dead_Parrot]

14. Ahh, right

So, as long as pellet stoves are cleaner than trucks it doesn't matter, and anyway it's all NNadir's fault.

Glad that's settled.