The Renewable Energy Neither Candidate is Talking About

[Betonov]

There's a major renewable energy technology that neither presidential candidate is talking about, and it happens to be the one most popular with voters: The wood-burning stove. And though I believe the future of this country lies in aggressively producing more renewable energy, any strategy here should include modern wood stoves, not exclude them.

http://www.popularmechanics.com/scie...GE&spr_id=2718


We have a wood powered central heating system at home and I found this article interesting for the entire world, not just the US.
At least for wooded countries.
Our yearly heating bill (~€500) is less than half that of the neighbour, that uses heating oil and solar heating panels.

[Takeda Shingen]

How much wood does your household go through in a winter? Multiply that by every household in the nation. On top of that, how long does it take a sappling to grow into a harvestable tree?

It's not all that renewable.

[Betonov]

A birch tree can be ripe for chopping in 20-30 years.
But you wont believe how much firewood you get from one tree.

I own 5 hectares of forrest. It has enough birch trees ripe for chopping to heat my home for 5 winters. In that time enough birches will grow to the desirable size to cut them for another 5 winters and so on and so on...

Slovenia has 1.816.000 hectares of forests, about 58% of the entire country. Enough firewood to heat 1.000.000 homes (counting out the industry aplicable wood) per winter. In a country of 2.000.000 people we have enough to export.

Of course, lets be real. Wood burning only really works in rural areas and sub-urbs. One fammily houses. But its enough to shift oil and gas consumption from half the population.
And Texas or Spain would also be an exception here.

[Takeda Shingen]

Originally Posted by Betonov

A birch tree can be ripe for chopping in 20-30 years.
But you wont believe how much firewood you get from one tree.

I own 5 hectares of forrest. It has enough birch trees ripe for chopping to heat my home for 5 winters. In that time enough birches will grow to the desirable size to cut them for another 5 winters and so on and so on...

Slovenia has 1.816.000 hectares of forests, about 58% of the entire country. Enough firewood to heat 1.000.000 homes (counting out the industry aplicable wood) per winter. In a country of 2.000.000 people we have enough to export.

Of course, lets be real. Wood burning only really works in rural areas and sub-urbs. One fammily houses. But its enough to shift oil and gas consumption from half the population.
And Texas or Spain would also be an exception here.

I know how much firewood you can get from one tree. It all depends on the size of said tree. Here's a good estimate from the University of New Hampshire:

http://extension.unh.edu/resources/f...44_Rep1200.pdf

The age of the tree can be estimated using diameter as noted by the Missouri Department of Conservation:

http://mdc.mo.gov/landwater-care/hom...s/how-old-tree

I buy one cord of wood for the fireplace in my home, and we go through that entire cord by spring only burning recreationally. My bet is that if I heated my home with a wood stove, I'd need at least 4 cords, and probably more like 6-8. For the sake of argument, let's pick a very small number; say two cords per household seasonally.

http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/00000.html

Census data puts the number of households in the US at 114,235,996. We'll round down for expediency's sake and say 114 million. If 1/4th of all US households switched to wood heat that would be 28.5 million households. At two cords per household that is 57 million cords of wood, requiring approximately 2.85 billion 5" diameter trees seasonally. Each 5" diameter tree requires 25 years to mature.

No, it's not at all sustainable in large scale. That's why no one is talking about it.

[Platapus]

Can Bamboo be made in to a product that can be used in such stoves?

[mapuc]

Another thing you should also have in mind is the woods heat coefficient

or heat capacity


http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/sp...ids-d_154.html


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heat_capacity

Markus

[nikimcbee]

Originally Posted by Betonov

http://www.popularmechanics.com/scie...GE&spr_id=2718


We have a wood powered central heating system at home and I found this article interesting for the entire world, not just the US.
At least for wooded countries.
Our yearly heating bill (~€500) is less than half that of the neighbour, that uses heating oil and solar heating panels.

They've got that here (kinda), it's called bio-mass.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biomass

I guess what they do here is clean out the forest floor of the debris and convert it to bio mass. The debris they remove helps prevent forest fires, or something like that. It seems like a good idea, because they are not cutting down new trees. I'm not sure how large of a population this will support though.

[JU_88]

Originally Posted by Betonov

http://www.popularmechanics.com/scie...GE&spr_id=2718


We have a wood powered central heating system at home and I found this article interesting for the entire world, not just the US.
At least for wooded countries.
Our yearly heating bill (~***8364;500) is less than half that of the neighbour, that uses heating oil and solar heating panels.

Its nice for you in rural Slovenia with your 5 hectares of forrest mate. Now then, would you like to come in live in a 1,570 Km city like London when 8 million wood stoves are burning all at once? oh and where fire wood would have to be purchased from a profiteering retail outlet like Tesco for about 10% of the average wage?... No, I didnt think so. london used to be like that back when we had a life expentancy of 30 years, (but with coal) and from what I hear, it made from some pretty discusting living conditions.
Also in the UK we are so health and safty concious that is it is illegal to smoke a ciggarette in a public building, so you can forget about a wood stove.

[August]

Originally Posted by JU_88

Its nice for you in rural Slovenia with your 5 hectares of forrest mate. Now then, would you like to come in live in a 1,570 Km city like London when 8 million wood stoves are burning all at once? oh and where fire wood would have to be purchased from a profiteering retail outlet like Tesco for about 10% of the average wage?... No, I didnt think so. london used to be like that back when we had a life expentancy of 30 years, (but with coal) and from what I hear, it made from some pretty discusting living conditions.
Also in the UK we are so health and safty concious that is it is illegal to smoke a ciggarette in a public building, so you can forget about a wood stove.

"8 million"? A wood stove for every man women and child in London. Exaggerate much?

No seriously he said this was a rural solution.

[Jimbuna]

A smallish island like the UK should be investing more into harnessing the wind and tides IMHO.