[Fredrik]

I couldn't find any thread about wood as a source of energy, so I decided to start one up.

[Fredrik]

Hmm. My opening post was considerably longer than that, but the forum isn't letting me paste the follow-up from a text file I wrote while unable to access this site. Must be some taboo special character I can't pinpoint. Let's try again.

Now, it would be utterly naive to hope for any combination of bioenergy sources to save us after PO. But couldn't we at least use wood (alongside coal, biofuels and other alternatives) to mitigate the post-peak decline - not only for local heating, but also for heating and electricity on the regional level, as well as fuel for vehicles? (Assuming, of course, that wood is available in large scale in a given region or country.)

Last year, Finland produced 20 percent of its energy with wood - consuming only a very modest fraction of its forest reserves, which relatively speaking are not larger than in many other northern countries and regions. Besides, a lot of forest will probably be spared in the future as the demand for paper is reduced globally, so
there might be considerable potential, at least in the northern latitudes.

As a fuel for transport, wood of course gives much less energy per weight and is much more difficult to use to power vehicles than liquid fuels, but it's technically feasible. Buses that ran on wood were used during WW2 at least in my country, and probably elsewhere too. Way worse than normal fuel, but if it can move a vehicle by combustion, still considerably better than horses, whose large-scale return some have predicted.

[benzoil]

Wood as an alternative only works for specific people. Namely, those who live in rural areas AND have enough forested land to harvest their own timber AND who's forested land can support fast growing hardwoods.

Lots of cities/towns/villages are banning wood burners because of the smoke/pollution. I suspect that either future wood burner designs will change as a result or people will tell their towns to stuff it.

IIRC, wood has a relatively low energy density compared to coal, which also makes it not well suited to compact living arrangements. If you need 8-10 cords of wood for a winter, it will be difficult to stack that in your city lot backyard or basement.

That said, if you live in the hinterlands, I think wood will be THE way to go. In fact, I think deforestation will be an issue in some places.

[nocar]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'E')nergy history in seven words:

Wood... coal... oil, nuclear, NG... coal... wood

[thuja]

There are some pretty amazing new leaps that have taken place with wood burn gassification furnaces. This reduces the amount of pollution dramatically and also burns the wood much more efficiently. In Scandanavia, some of these furances are constructed on a massive scale and the heat is then pumped in to service entire communities. Pretty ingenious.

Unlike Benzoil, I don't think wood heat will be solely in the purview of ruralistas. I think that it will become a regional issue. It will be easier to heat with wood in the PNW, the North-East and parts of the South than in the desert SW due to proximity to forest land.

You will also get more bang for your buck with wood heat in cities and that is because the heat will be experienced by more people. In the back country, wood heat will be used for a couple people or maybe a family. When times get tough, a whole group of families can share the warmth of a fire in a city.

Whether we like it or not, wood will play a significant role in the future due to the depletion of non-renewable fossil fuels.

[kjmclark]

Benzoil's data is a little old. Newer wood stoves burn fairly cleanly, and are only a problem in areas with existing high particulates and usually temperature inversions or poor air flow (mostly valleys with no wind). We heat mostly with our wood stove and burn about a cord and a half of wood per year - in Michigan. Our house is smaller than typical these days, but 8-10 cords of wood is excessive.

The real problem is that many areas aren't good for growing wood. This is a problem mostly in areas with too little rainfall. Of course, the other big drawback is that there are too many people to draw on the wood in an area. That pesky overpopulation problem rears its head again.

So, will wood "save us"? It probably could, combined with solar, if we drastically cut back our energy use. Will wood replace current high energy consumption? No way.

[kjmclark]

Here's a decent set of tables,showing BTUs of various combustibles. Scroll down to "Conversion Factors - Average Energy Content of Various Fuels". They show coal ranging from 26 million to 16.2 million BTU/ton, and wood ranging from 17 million to 9 million BTU/ton. OTOH, down the page they list lignite as about 7k BTU/lb, which is only 14 million BTU/ton.

And how much energy would be lost sequestering the CO2 from that coal is another question. Wood can be grown and burned sustainably. (Not that humans are good at doing anything sustainably.)

[Commanding_Heights]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Gideon', 'I')f you need 8-10 cords of wood for a winter, it will be difficult to stack that in your city lot backyard or basement.
If you need 8-10 cords of wood a winter, then you live in a cardboard house.
I recognize that Stupubia is not set up like it should be to heat with wood, but if it was . . .
A nice, cozy, 1,500 sf house, insulated properly, could be heated to a balmy 70 degrees F, in the Northeast (i.e. NY, CT, NJ, Mass . . . ) for about 3 cords of hardwood with a nice 40,000 BTU airtight EPA cert stove.
With regard to "fast growing" hardwood, if it's "fast growing", it's typically crap firewood.
But if what you need is 3 cords a winter for heat, then you could probably harvest that off 10 acres of land (1/3 cord per acre per year growth).
Add another cord for cooking, and you'd need about 15 acres of good forest to support a typical house.
Now we look at Stupurbia and we see 1/4 acre lot sizes.
Good planning.

[Heineken]

No one has mentioned the labor (and time) involved in heating one's place entirely with wood.

As someone who heats entirely with wood, I can tell you that this is a huge oversight.

Also, Gideon is right: There is an inverse relationship between how fast wood grows and how much heat energy it supplies. That is because the slower wood grows, the denser it is, and vice versa. "Fast-growing" methods (like coppicing) aren't a magic bullet.

Wood can play an energy role in a future world, but it will be a radically different world with far fewer people.

[Commanding_Heights]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Heineken', 'N')o one has mentioned the labor (and time) involved in heating one's place entirely with wood.
As someone who heats entirely with wood, I can tell you that this is a huge oversight.
Also, Gideon is right: There is an inverse relationship between how fast wood grows and how much heat energy it supplies. That is because the slower wood grows, the denser it is, and vice versa. "Fast-growing" methods (like coppicing) aren't a magic bullet.
Wood can play an energy role in a future world, but it will be a radically different world with far fewer people.

[frankthetank]

Not sure if your looking for wood to replace: electricity/heating/transportation, but just on the heating front, if you were to replace all natural gas with wood, it would require the same amt of acreage as all the corn crop (90million acres/give or take). This is just for NG (no electric/oil/etc). I did the math on it a couple weeks ago, i'd have to dig it up. This is for the US and i figured it using a "sustainable" method of harvesting wood. Never going to happen, IMO. People will have to move to a more moderate climate or do without. Go read the book, "Coal: A Human History"... shows how the English used up all the wood around London and then reverted to coal... Wood is great if you have a RELIABLE source (your backyard) and ability to cut and store it. I honestly feel that someday, the trees/forests surrounding my town will disappear in the mad rush to keep the heat going, considering how cold this area gets for 3 months out of the year.

[benzoil]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Heineken', 'N')o one has mentioned the labor (and time) involved in heating one's place entirely with wood.

[bshirt]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Heineken', 'N')o one has mentioned the labor (and time) involved in heating one's place entirely with wood.
As someone who heats entirely with wood, I can tell you that this is a huge oversight.
Also, Gideon is right: There is an inverse relationship between how fast wood grows and how much heat energy it supplies. That is because the slower wood grows, the denser it is, and vice versa. "Fast-growing" methods (like coppicing) aren't a magic bullet.
Wood can play an energy role in a future world, but it will be a radically different world with far fewer people.

[Commanding_Heights]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('benzoil', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Heineken', 'N')o one has mentioned the labor (and time) involved in heating one's place entirely with wood.

[bshirt]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('benzoil', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Heineken', 'N')o one has mentioned the labor (and time) involved in heating one's place entirely with wood.

[Fredrik]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('frankthetank', 'N')ot sure if your looking for wood to replace: electricity/heating/transportation, but just on the heating front, if you were to replace all natural gas with wood, it would require the same amt of acreage as all the corn crop (90million acres/give or take). This is just for NG (no electric/oil/etc). I did the math on it a couple weeks ago, i'd have to dig it up. This is for the US and i figured it using a "sustainable" method of harvesting wood. Never going to happen, IMO.

[Commanding_Heights]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('SpringCreekFarm', 'A') cord of wood is defined as a stack measuring 4 feet wide by 4 feet high by 8 feet long, or a stack occupying 128 cubic feet. This is called a bush cord.

Of course when those of us who burn wood refer to a cord, it is usually 4 feet high by 8 feet long by whatever width you cut your sticks. Mine are between 16 to 18 inches. This is called a face cord.

I think that is where there is some confusion.

I normally tell people that I burn between 14 and 16 face cords per year when actually I should be telling them that I burn 672 cubic feet, which is the volume of my woodshed. I fill my shed each summer with dead, dry wood from the bush and I pretty much burn it up by spring.

I have seen some coppiced trees in my woodlot from the days that my dad cut wood. There are several large trees growing from where there was obviously a tree that lived in the past. I have a whole grove of hickory trees that are coppiced this way. I haven't got to them yet because there are too many dead trees to keep up with so I try not to cut any living trees unless they are in the way or are a casualty of cutting another tree down.

If times are as hard as some people here predict, then I predict that the population will starve long before they get all the trees in my area.

[WisJim]

Insulation is cheaper than fuel in the long run. Our present house is an old 2 story farmhouse, gradually remodeled and insulated over the last 17 years, with wood heat. We replaced the old woodburning forced-air furnace with a new one last fall, and burned a bit more than half as much wood this winter as in most previous winters. Our new furnace is a Charmaster Chalet:
http://www.charmaster.com/wood.html and we are pleased with it. It also has a coil to preheat our domestic hot water, which we have set up with a 50 gallon water heater tank, so it is also reducing the amount of LP (propane) that we use in the winter to heat water. Our house is about 1800 square feet plus the basement, and we will use about 3 to 3.5 full cords of mixed hardwoods to heat it this winter.

[benzoil]

I noticed I had a much better burn rate with unsplit green oak than with the split, aged maple and oak I've been using the last couple months. I haven't seen that it harms the furnace and its easier to deal with to boot.

One of the other things I've noticed is that I am suffering serious heat loss on the way into the house. The heat from the water is actually melting the snow on the ground above the pipe. At some point I'll have to dig up the lines and rebury them deeper or replace them with more insulated lines.

[Concerned]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Gideon', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'I')f you need 8-10 cords of wood for a winter, it will be difficult to stack that in your city lot backyard or basement.