I use wood for heat and have for years. My question:

[panader0]

Does heating with wood cause more damage to the environment than coal or propane or heating oil? My wood comes from my own property, and if I trim the trees (mesquite) each year, I can have heat forever. I also BBQ once a week on average. So, who hurts the environment more, oil heaters (which involve drillers, ships, trucks, etc,) or wood users?

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

1. I heat with wood as well

to my mind, getting the wood from your own land means less of a carbon footprint. Of course, I'm assuming you've got a good efficient stove.

[rurallib]

2. I have a similar question about heating with corn

this is our third year with corn.
Plus, can I recycle the ashes?

[TexasProgresive]

6. Corn has a much higher carbon footprint then panader0's

mesquite since it is grown, harvested, dried and trucked by petroleum using equipment. The corn itself would not add any carbon to the air but all the processing does. It still probably better then using oil or propane.

About the ashes, wood ashes are very acquiline(sp) and are good for acid soils but not base soils - I don't know about corn ashes.

[amandabeech]

13. Modern corn farming uses lots and lots of natural gas and petroleum inputs.

Writers and scientists disagree, but modern corn may actually use more fossil fuel to grow it than you will get out of it to burn it, according to Padzek, et al. Others see an energy gain of maybe 33 to 50%. On top of that, you're hauling it in from as far away as Nebraska, depending on how the crop in Texas was that year.

Corn production also uses a huge amount of fertilizer and pesticide. The nitrogen fertilizer (made from natural gas) and the phosphoros fertilizer (made from a depleting source) cause real problems in ecosystems downstream from the corn fields, including causes the huge "dead zone" in the Gulf of Mexico every year where fish and seafood cannot live. Generally just burning the natural gas or fuel oil won't do that. Modern wood plantations use some fertilizer, but not like that thirsty corn. I'd use that instead if I were you.

[rurallib]

15. Sadly, I live in Iowa and we have lots of corn

and not many trees. Burning corn at least keeps mt money in the local economy. Else it goes to Warren Buffet.

[amandabeech]

16. I understand. Burn it there, if you can,

but I don't know how much longer it will just sit around.

As I'm sure you know, stocks of grain, including corn, are at lows not seen for years.

Frankly, I'm surprised that there is corn to burn even in Iowa.

Sorry about my lecture on pesticides and fertilizer. You obviously don't need it.

Actually, I'm from a fruit-growing area of Michigan, and there's a version of the coal burner that will burn dried cherry pits. Who'd a thunk it?

[TexasProgresive]

3. I would say that you are adding very little carbon to the air

with your wood heat. The carbon from the wood came from the air and is being returned as you burn it and would eventually when the tree died and decayed. My guess is that you added a bit of carbon with a chain saw and/or truck to get it home but that is much less then what comes from heating oil or propane.

[panader0]

8. I don't use a truck. I have 15 acres and a wheelbarrow is fine.

My stove has is efficient, with the secondary burning, but I still wonder. Thanks

[NNadir]

4. Under the circumstances, your wood heat is probably the safest form of energy you can use

Although heating with biomass kills about 4 million people per year, it hardly compares with the killing done by dangerous fossil fuels.

The only form of energy that might be superior - depending on where you live - is electricity.

The matter might be different if you used a truck to transport your wood though.

[DB1]

5. I do the same .

I think that what is very important is the efficiency of your stove. The real pollution in wood also has to do with the 2 cycle chainsaw we use to cut it. Trucking and transporting other fuels also add to their carbon contribution. Maybe someone will enlighten thanks to your thread.

[tularetom]

7. If everything you cut off grows back the next year

your worst offense is using a dirty oil burning 2 cycle chain saw to cut the wood. Your stove doesn't have a great effect.

Of course if you lived here you couldn't burn the wood. I live on 40 acres and can only see ONE other home from my window but the elevation is such that the Air Quality Management District has forbidden the burning of wood fires on days when there could be an inversion.

I converted a pellet stove several years back.

[TheMadMonk]

11. buy a couple of 44s(55s) and make charcoal...

...when the wind's up, to burn on those pesky windless days.

http://www.twinoaksforge.com/BLADSMITHING/MAKING%20CHARCOAL.htm (disclaimer: not my page, just something I discovered when researching making charcoal for other purposes. Specifically making Terra Preta for soil improvement.)

Re-reading the page, it strikes me that a considerable improvement in efficiency could be achieved by scaling up and firing the drums sequentially. Though I suspect a certain amount of technical aptitude and experimentation might be needed to get it right.

The black smoke problem mentioned on the page, could be alleviated (or at least hidden from the authorities) by conducting burns on days when it is raining. Or alternately by making the enclosure more gas tight and bubbling flue gases through water. Again technical aptitude and experimentation will be necessary.

[ConcernedCanuk]

9. You are just accelerating a natural process - read on

.
.
.

"When you warm up your life with wood, you participate in a natural cycle and an ancient human ritual."

/snip/

"As trees grow, they absorb carbon dioxide from the air in a process powered by the sun. Indeed, about half the weight of dry wood is this absorbed carbon. A tree destroyed in a forest fire or one that falls and decays in the forest gives up its carbon once again to the air as carbon dioxide. And so continues the earth's carbon/carbon dioxide cycle. When trees are used for energy, a part of the forest's annual growth is diverted into our homes to heat them. Both natural firewood and wood pellets~made by compressing waste sawdust-are energy products from the forest. Well-managed forests can be a renewable, sustainable source of energy that helps us reduce greenhouse gas emissions by displacing the use of oil, gas and coal."

Lots of more interesting stuff about burning wood here

Another site that may interest you is



http://www.woodheat.org/q&a/qachimney.htm

[wtmusic]

18. Some of the carbon ends up as carbon dioxide

"Woodsmoke emissions also contain components such as carbon monoxide (an asphyxiant), various irritant gases such as nitrogen dioxide, sulfur dioxide, hydrochloric acid, and aldehydes such as formaldehyde and acrolein, and chemicals known or suspected to be carcinogens, such as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (pahs), oxygenated pahs, and polychlorinated dioxins and furans."
<>
"Animal toxicological studies demonstrate a reduction in pulmonary anti-bacterial defense mechanisms associated with woodsmoke exposure. More than 90% of the woodsmoke particle mass consists of fine particles, the fraction of pm that many researchers consider to have the greatest association with adverse health outcomes."

http://burningissues.org/car-www/education/secondwind.html

[lurky]

10. Sounds about as carbon-neutral as you can get.

The soot in the smoke might be an issue in an urban area, but it doesn't sound like that's you.

[OKIsItJustMe]

12. How do you cut your wood?

Chain saws use gasoline, and put out CO₂ and CO and other pollutants but nowhere as much as an oil burner would.

[losthills]

14. For any individual in a rural area...

heating with wood is a reasonable choice, and for a guy like you who gets the wood on their own property it's obviously the best choice. But if millions of city dwellers started turning to wood for heat it would be a huge disaster.

We've had passive solar housing designs our there since the seventies that allow us to build houses that require very little heating and cooling year round. These designs are little used and should be mandated for everyone in my opinion....

[philb]

17. We heat with wood also; we don't add to global warming at least

the wood we use is recycled with more growing and soaking up CO2 even as we send that from current wood up the chimney. With coal thats dug up and released that wouldn't be otherwise.

[eppur_se_muova]

19. If you are harvesting no faster than it grows, it is entirely renewable energy.

And if you cut your own wood with an axe or handsaw, it warms you twice. (pithy old saying :))

Kudos to you!