[BabyPeanut]

http://www.summitdaily.com/article/2005 ... /101290021
Highlights:

Biomass - burning organic material for energy - is becoming increasingly popular in Western states, where local governments are turning to wood chips to heat municipal buildings. The process provides a homegrown, renewable energy source whereby the wood is removed, chopped up, burned and turned into energy.

...

Last year, private property owners deposited 2,500 tons of wood at the landfill. The waste was produced through fire mitigation projects, pine beetle treatments and construction projects.

Forest thinning operations conducted by the U.S. Forest Service this summer in the Upper Blue Basin and at campgrounds around Dillon Reservoir will add to the supply.

Dillon District Ranger Rick Newton said he is excited about the biomass project because it presents a potential market for forest products, which can help offset the cost of forest fire mitigation.

...

"It's quite expensive to get wood into a format that's useable," said Gary Severson, president of the council. A chipper, for example, could cost $300,000 to $800,000.

In Nederland, where a $500,000 biofuels plant heats a small community center, the public participates by bringing wood from private property clearings to a community site, where it is chipped and then transported in a small truck to a storage facility on town property.

...

Despite the challenges, wood is less expensive and is less volatile in price than competing fuels because the cost is based on local rather than global economies.

[Ludi]

local governments are turning to wood chips to heat municipal buildings.

We're finding this kind of technology not so straightforward because we havn't devised a suitable way of chipping the wood without using petroleum-powered equipment.

[The_Virginian]

Don't worry,

water mills, wind mills, and solar could provide some energy that would power (some of) these plants.

I'm convinced however, that this article is where COAL will be be used/abused to do things like keep the factory floors running at 1/2 speed...

And the these 1/2 way mesaures, such as wood chip furnaces, are a sure sign the "Peak Effect" is taking hold.

[pea-jay]

I recently acquired a wood pellet stove and did a little research in the matter. Wood pellets are probably the most efficient way burn wood, with much of the wood being fully combusted. It's true that the pellets are not easily found (when was the last time someone chopped down a pellet tree?). Right now, most pellets are made from sawdust from commercial sawmills, so they really represent a waste recovery operation and not true energy harvesting. Kinda like collecting waste cooking oil from resturants and converting it into biodiesel. As to wood pellet production I would be interested in knowing what the EROEI is for pellet production, especially when you include the harvest and manufacture of them.

The Virginian is right, the sawing/grinding energy could be provided by solar or water power.

Like truly sustainable agriculture wood use really needs to be LOCAL. None of this cutting in the Pacific Northwest and shipping to the great plains or the high desert. If we are to use wood it should be harvested, processed and consumed in a small area. If the local population is too large to be served by locally available wood, too bad. If there is no wood available--ditto.

[BabyPeanut]

local governments are turning to wood chips to heat municipal buildings.

We're finding this kind of technology not so straightforward because we havn't devised a suitable way of chipping the wood without using petroleum-powered equipment.

Pellets are supposed to be made from factory waste wood.

[dduck]

Unless we are talking about simple heating of a dwelling, wood as a fuel can be very labor intensive and even risky without modern control systems and safety interlocks. Any system large enough to require water or steam for heat transfer beyond simple convection will require circulating pumps, with appropriate sensing, control and interlock equipment. (The most common cause of furnace/boiler failure is low coolant level or loss of circulation). The fuel system will require chips or pellets with auger or conveyer feed (and associated controls), with the logistics tail implied by that:hopper, hopper replenishment, fuel bulk storage, chip or pellet production to storage, and raw wood acquisition and storage.
All this implies reliable electric power and perhaps fossil-fuel-powered handling along the logistics tail.
It ain't just throwing another log on the fire.

dduck

[pea-jay]

Unless we are talking about simple heating of a dwelling

That's exactly what I imagined wood use as being for. Nothing larger.

[bentstrider]

First things first.
Insulate your home really good.
At my stepdads place, we tightly packed two layers of the think insulation foam and covered it with plastic wrap. Then we put the drywall over it.
The house is 3/4 finished and we only got a wood-burning stove to keep it heated.
Cool thing is we only use it during cold nights and no fire during the sunny day.
This house was built to be an oven!!!

[Madpaddy]

Bentstrider,

You got it in one - This is the way the Scandinavians have been building their homes for years. One heat source and ultra efficient insulation - underfloor geothermal heating is nice but not really necessary. Of course the geothermal can cool the house as well if you reverse the heat pump.

[bentstrider]

YIP.
This house is definetely worth the money that was invested.
It will definetely be around alot longer than these $200,000+ cracker boxes that keep popping up all over the once quiet Southern California desert.
It gets pretty cold here during the winter.
In the summer heat, we just open the windows.
The house is located right near the Cajon Pass area.