Health and Diet Scottish Recipes Ferret for Ferrets


RE: [pf] For an Opposing View on Wood!...
by Mullen, Emory
28 November 2000 20:07 UTC

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Thanks for all that information, Molly.  I appreciate you providing
information and articles on both, differing viewpoints for woodburning.
Natural Gas is probably a more efficient, cleaner fuel than wood-especially
for more urban areas.  While I hesitate to place emphasis or 'hope' in
technology too much, hopefully we can find more efficient, cleaner sources
of fuel-and reduce our consumption and need to use fuel based technology.
Wouldn't cold fusion be nice? (:

Emory

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Molly Williams [SMTP:mmw@waveinter.com]
> Sent: Tuesday, November 28, 2000 1:10 PM
> To:   Positive Futures Listserv
> Subject:      [pf] For an Opposing View on Wood!...
> 
> http://web.archive.org/web/20010514132124/http://www.ata.org.au/heating/wood1.htm
> written by Colin Hassall, Mont Albert, VIC Australia
> 
> Which begins: 
> 
> The use of timber for heating can be disastrous for the environment! In
> terms of its smoke pollution, carbon
> dioxide (greenhouse gases) emission and its sustainability. 
> 
> To heat a normal suburban home with an efficient wood heater requires 4
> tonnes a year of dry split wood, housed
> in a 2x3 metre shed. To obtain this amount requires one hectare of
> forest, which growth must be sustained if we
> are not to deplete the forests. 
> 
> My recommendation is not to heat houses by burning wood, and this is
> made to assist sustainability in the timber
> industry and to reduce the high pollution effects of smoke and
> particulates, particularly in the Melbourne
> metropolitan areas. 
> 
> Do what you like in the country areas as the pollution is not
> concentrated, nor is supply sustainability much of a
> problem as most is retrieved from fallen and dead trees. Country
> supplies can become stretched when Melbourne
> freezes. 
> 
> Wood heaters are 70 to 80% efficient at best, 0 to 15% at worst for an
> open fire place. That's efficiency, ie
> energy out versus the stored energy in the fuel, and does not relate to
> the cleanliness of the burning process. Go
> outside on any winter night and smell the wood smoke in the street,
> particularly on a foggy night or when a
> temperature inversion layer has occurred. I suggest that heating in
> Melbourne should, if at all possible, be done by
> natural gas, and not by wood. 
> 
> Timber is an environmentally friendly product if used in the correct
> way, and I believe the correct way is by
> building with it, rather than burning it! 
> 
> The reduction of greenhouse gases in the domestic area can be obtained
> by reducing energy consumption for
> heating, cooling, hot water and lighting and hence reducing emissions
> from the Latrobe Valley. This is the
> traditional method and is recommended by all supply authorities for
> reducing greenhouse gases. However there is
> another major method of reducing these gases, and that is to build the
> buildings out of low energy materials, that is
> low 'embodied' energy. This energy is the energy required to convert the
> raw material to a usable product. For
> example timber requires 100kWh of energy to produce one tonne of timber,
> brick requires 1200kWh, and
> aluminium requires 56,000kWh. 
> 
> etc.
> 
> [posted by Molly]