Yes, the survey has some sloppy wording and we're talking a healthy amount of flack from both the pro and anti-wood burning camps on it. Also getting lots of good feedback. The survey doesn't have a specific purpose. We wanted to to reach people outside the wood burning community and make them think a bit more about the issues. Craig, I didn't realize I should check with you before posting a link like this, but will do so in future. And want to clear up any impression that Alliance for Green Heat has negative views and opinions about hearth.com. A researcher here wrote that Hearth.com is hard to navigate for purposes of stoves reviews and concluded another site was better.
Anyway, the Alliance for Green Heat was established to bring together the wood burning community, environmentalists, health professionals, foresters, and policy makers to promote cleaner and more efficient wood heat. We work at the federal, state and county level to push for more acceptance of biomass appliances in renewable energy programs. We worked with the non-profit energy efficiency groups in Washington to get biomass appliances in Home Star which will mean a $1,000 rebate on top of the 30% federal tax credit, if it gets passed. We also join in fights to restrict unregulated outdoor wood boilers. We're trying to make the case in Pennsylvania now, that in addition to only requiring Phase 2 OWBs, they should also give a tax credit for clean biomass appliances, instead of just giving tens of thousands to wealthy families that can afford solar panels. Right now in America, millions upon millions of our tax dollars are going to the wealthiest families to install solar panels while low income families that want to install ultra-clean biomass get next to nothing. We want to see a comeback of wood heat because we think its generally as climate neutral as other renewables, and its 10 times cheaper. We are a small non-profit trying to make a big dent in Washington. Its still an ongoing experiment.
