Ran across this from Bloomberg:
Environment Be Damned, Oil Prices Light Fire Under Wood in U.S.
By Robert Tuttle
Nov. 21 (Bloomberg) -- More American households, faced with
an 83 percent increase in home heating-oil prices over the past
year, are turning to an alternative as old as the Stone Age:
wood.
While the typical wood stove emits as much as 350 times
more pollution than an oil furnace, according to the U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency, some homeowners find the
economics compelling. Firewood costs less than half as much as
heating oil in terms of energy produced, based on prices from
the U.S. Energy Department and firewoodcenter.com.
``I got nearly a $2,500-a-year saving by putting in a wood
boiler,'' says Wendy Wells, a 39-year-old New Hampshire
bookkeeper who replaced her oil furnace two years ago with a
$3,700 wood-oil combination.
Sales of wood-pellet stoves, the least environmentally
harmful wood-heating devices, more than tripled since 1999 to
133,105 last year, according to the Hearth, Patio & Barbecue
Association in Arlington, Virginia. At Thayer Nursery in Milton,
Massachusetts, owner Josh Oldfield says firewood sales are 15 to
18 percent higher than a year ago.
``As oil creeps up toward $100 a barrel, firewood sales
have increased dramatically,'' Oldfield says. ``There is
definitely a correlation.''
Business also has picked up for sellers of wood stoves,
boilers and ovens used to dry wood, or kilns, says Sherri
Latulip, co-owner of Mountain Firewood Kilns in Littleton, New
Hampshire.
`They Start Buying'
The company's sales have tripled, says her husband, Bill.
Mountain Firewood's kilns retail for $21,800, and combination
wood-oil boilers, for as much as $6,490.
``We really started getting the run on them at the end of
August, early September,'' he says. ``When people hear oil is
going to get expensive, they start buying.''
Crude oil, which accounts for about 60 percent of heating
oil's retail price, rose to a record $98.62 a barrel on Nov. 7
in New York, before declining as demand eased. Crude oil for
January delivery rose $3.39, or 3.6 percent, to settle at $98.03
a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange yesterday.
Heating oil futures, which represent wholesale prices, have
gained 61 percent in the past year, pushed higher by crude oil.
The retail price of the fuel averaged a record $3.21 a gallon on
Nov. 12, the most recent available, according to the Energy
Department. Natural gas prices have fallen 6.8 percent in the
past year through yesterday.
Wood prices have increased more slowly than oil because of
abundant supply and people's ability to gather and split their
own wood, particularly in the Northeast where usage is
concentrated.
Primary Heating Source
Ray Colton, owner of Colton Enterprises Inc. in Pittsfield,
Vermont, says he sells kiln-dried firewood for $220 a cord, the
same as last year. A cord, 128 cubic feet (3.6 cubic meters) of
stacked firewood, is about equal to the amount that can be
loaded onto two full-sized pick-up trucks. The national average
is about $160 a cord, according to firewoodcenter.com.
Wood was the primary heating source for about 1.3 percent
of U.S. households in 2005, according to the most-recent Energy
Department data. That was down from 7.1 percent 20 years
earlier. Seven percent of homes use heating oil, 58 percent
natural gas and 30 percent electricity. Propane and other fuels
account for the remainder.
Pollution is the big drawback. Even stoves that burn dog-
food sized pellets of compressed sawdust emit about 40 times
more particulate matter, similar to soot, than an oil furnace,
according to the EPA.
Federal Regulations
The emissions can contribute to respiratory illnesses such
as asthma, says David Wright, a supervisor with Maine's
Department of Environmental Protection. Wood burning for
residential heating accounted for 57 percent of toxic air
emissions in the state, he says.
The federal EPA issued regulations for woodstoves in 1989,
mandating that they emit no more than 4.1 grams of smoke an hour
for catalytic stoves, which convert particulates and harmful
gases into less-polluting exhaust, and 7.5 grams an hour for
ordinary stoves. Manufacturers that fail to meet those standards
may be fined as much as much as $100 a stove, says John Dupree,
supervisor of the EPA's wood heater program.
Several states, including New Jersey, Vermont and
Washington, also have regulations to control pollution, says
George Allen, a senior scientist at the Boston-based Northeast
States for Coordinated Air Use Management, a nonprofit
association of state air-quality agencies.
New Jersey, Connecticut
New Jersey has a law, enforced by fines, that forbids use
of outdoor wood boilers that emit smoke, says Lisa Rector,
senior policy analyst for the group. States including
Connecticut and Vermont have rules that require wood boilers to
be placed a given distance from a neighbor's property.
Wells says air quality isn't a major concern for people in
her part of New Hampshire, where the temperature falls to minus
20 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 29 degrees Celsius) for weeks at a
time. Almost everyone burns wood, she says.
``It is very expensive to heat our houses up here because
we are so far north and the climate is so cold,'' Wells says.
``We live among the trees, where the deer and antelope play.''
-- With reporting by Mark Shenk in New York. Editor: Wiegold
(djs/rls/ecw)
Environment Be Damned, Oil Prices Light Fire Under Wood in U.S.
By Robert Tuttle
Nov. 21 (Bloomberg) -- More American households, faced with
an 83 percent increase in home heating-oil prices over the past
year, are turning to an alternative as old as the Stone Age:
wood.
While the typical wood stove emits as much as 350 times
more pollution than an oil furnace, according to the U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency, some homeowners find the
economics compelling. Firewood costs less than half as much as
heating oil in terms of energy produced, based on prices from
the U.S. Energy Department and firewoodcenter.com.
``I got nearly a $2,500-a-year saving by putting in a wood
boiler,'' says Wendy Wells, a 39-year-old New Hampshire
bookkeeper who replaced her oil furnace two years ago with a
$3,700 wood-oil combination.
Sales of wood-pellet stoves, the least environmentally
harmful wood-heating devices, more than tripled since 1999 to
133,105 last year, according to the Hearth, Patio & Barbecue
Association in Arlington, Virginia. At Thayer Nursery in Milton,
Massachusetts, owner Josh Oldfield says firewood sales are 15 to
18 percent higher than a year ago.
``As oil creeps up toward $100 a barrel, firewood sales
have increased dramatically,'' Oldfield says. ``There is
definitely a correlation.''
Business also has picked up for sellers of wood stoves,
boilers and ovens used to dry wood, or kilns, says Sherri
Latulip, co-owner of Mountain Firewood Kilns in Littleton, New
Hampshire.
`They Start Buying'
The company's sales have tripled, says her husband, Bill.
Mountain Firewood's kilns retail for $21,800, and combination
wood-oil boilers, for as much as $6,490.
``We really started getting the run on them at the end of
August, early September,'' he says. ``When people hear oil is
going to get expensive, they start buying.''
Crude oil, which accounts for about 60 percent of heating
oil's retail price, rose to a record $98.62 a barrel on Nov. 7
in New York, before declining as demand eased. Crude oil for
January delivery rose $3.39, or 3.6 percent, to settle at $98.03
a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange yesterday.
Heating oil futures, which represent wholesale prices, have
gained 61 percent in the past year, pushed higher by crude oil.
The retail price of the fuel averaged a record $3.21 a gallon on
Nov. 12, the most recent available, according to the Energy
Department. Natural gas prices have fallen 6.8 percent in the
past year through yesterday.
Wood prices have increased more slowly than oil because of
abundant supply and people's ability to gather and split their
own wood, particularly in the Northeast where usage is
concentrated.
Primary Heating Source
Ray Colton, owner of Colton Enterprises Inc. in Pittsfield,
Vermont, says he sells kiln-dried firewood for $220 a cord, the
same as last year. A cord, 128 cubic feet (3.6 cubic meters) of
stacked firewood, is about equal to the amount that can be
loaded onto two full-sized pick-up trucks. The national average
is about $160 a cord, according to firewoodcenter.com.
Wood was the primary heating source for about 1.3 percent
of U.S. households in 2005, according to the most-recent Energy
Department data. That was down from 7.1 percent 20 years
earlier. Seven percent of homes use heating oil, 58 percent
natural gas and 30 percent electricity. Propane and other fuels
account for the remainder.
Pollution is the big drawback. Even stoves that burn dog-
food sized pellets of compressed sawdust emit about 40 times
more particulate matter, similar to soot, than an oil furnace,
according to the EPA.
Federal Regulations
The emissions can contribute to respiratory illnesses such
as asthma, says David Wright, a supervisor with Maine's
Department of Environmental Protection. Wood burning for
residential heating accounted for 57 percent of toxic air
emissions in the state, he says.
The federal EPA issued regulations for woodstoves in 1989,
mandating that they emit no more than 4.1 grams of smoke an hour
for catalytic stoves, which convert particulates and harmful
gases into less-polluting exhaust, and 7.5 grams an hour for
ordinary stoves. Manufacturers that fail to meet those standards
may be fined as much as much as $100 a stove, says John Dupree,
supervisor of the EPA's wood heater program.
Several states, including New Jersey, Vermont and
Washington, also have regulations to control pollution, says
George Allen, a senior scientist at the Boston-based Northeast
States for Coordinated Air Use Management, a nonprofit
association of state air-quality agencies.
New Jersey, Connecticut
New Jersey has a law, enforced by fines, that forbids use
of outdoor wood boilers that emit smoke, says Lisa Rector,
senior policy analyst for the group. States including
Connecticut and Vermont have rules that require wood boilers to
be placed a given distance from a neighbor's property.
Wells says air quality isn't a major concern for people in
her part of New Hampshire, where the temperature falls to minus
20 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 29 degrees Celsius) for weeks at a
time. Almost everyone burns wood, she says.
``It is very expensive to heat our houses up here because
we are so far north and the climate is so cold,'' Wells says.
``We live among the trees, where the deer and antelope play.''
-- With reporting by Mark Shenk in New York. Editor: Wiegold
(djs/rls/ecw)
