Woodsmoke has been pushing its way throughout the Interior for much of the summer. Fairbanks was recently blanketed with smoke that once again sent the borough air quality meters off the scale. At the same time, discussion is ongoing about how best to control air quality and meet EPA standards. It's increasingly difficult for the government to argue for controls over wood burning when mother nature is the worst offender of all. Still, just because something is "natural" doesn't mean that it's healthy. Water is perfectly benign - but I don't want my lungs filled with it. At the other end of the spectrum, life is not without risk and sometimes it's more important not to freeze to death or stay warm while supporting Exxon (or worse, the Saudis) than worry about small quantities of particulates in the air. But where does the line get drawn??
Personally, I'd prefer to see a way for all that wood that is going up in smoke to be put to use heating people's homes instead. The key is that it has to be burned cleanly.
The sellers of wood boilers generally don't mention the fact that wrapping a fire in water is probably not the most efficient way of burning wood. Most boiler water is kept at 180 degrees F-- well below even the boiling point. Efficient fires burn at around 300 degrees F. When you reduce the temperature of your fire, you lose lots of energy to smoke - sometimes as much as 30%. Quite simply, this loss results in wood boilers sending plumes of dirty smoke filled with particulates into the air. When installed near ground level, this pollution lingers near the ground, particularly where there are inversions such as during a Fairbanks winter.
There are ways to make wood boilers more efficient - but only marginally. New technology, such as "gasification" processes, may or may not alleviate the existing problems with wood boilers. The use of large water tanks for storing hot water will also help by allow the fire to be operated fully open without damping it down (resulting in more smoke). Educating homeowners on proper operation and setup will be key for wood boiler salesman if they want to continue selling them! Nonetheless, for boilers, there seems to be no simple magic bullet.
Woodstoves, in most cases, are a far better option than a wood boiler. Most woodstoves today are rated by the EPA. In fact, there is a tax credit for purchasing an energy efficient clean burning woodstove. Operated properly, a good woodstove should put out little more pollution than an oil boiler. You neighbors might never know that you have one if not for the piles of wood sitting outside. Still, many complain about the mess and constant feeding that a woodstove requires. Woodstoves with smaller fireboxes tend to be most efficient - and require more tending. The danger of chimney fires remains ever present, destroying at least a few houses each year. The elderly and handicapped also have difficulty using woodstoves.
Pellet stoves are a new addition to the woodburning arsenal. Pour a bag in and allow an augur to feed in just the right amount. For many, this has proved to be an ideal solution. Creosote is reduced. Waste wood can be put to good use. The drawbacks are in the availability of pellets and that the fact that the user still has to feed them. In addition, the user has to lug around bags of pellets in the back of their truck -- or subcompact, or transit bus - not always the best solution. Nonetheless, for most, this seems to be the best option for heating a house with wood. Furthermore, development of a new wood pellet plant in Fairbanks is helping to ease the costs of purchasing pellets while developing an entirely new industry. For now, this is probably the best option for most users.
In the long run, I'd love to see a solution that rids us of much of our summer haze while providing the efficiency of oil. Why is oil convenient? It is delivered with no mess. It feeds automatically. It burns cleanly. It is widely available. The downsides - rising cost and future shortfalls.
In my mind, this is a perfect challenge for the University and business community. Find a way to deliver wood heat to users cleanly and efficiently while creating a new infrastructure for Alaska.
Years ago, coal was king for heating. Coal would be delivered to a hopper and fed into a basement. Perhaps some lessons from that era can be applied to our future use of wood?
Imagine a system where a user calls a pellet delivery service. The pellet company brings a truck filled with loose pellets and then pumps or dumps them into a covered hopper. The user then flicks a switch to feed the pellets via augur directly to a wood heater. Imagine also that these pellets have been chemically treated somehow to reduce creosote, allowing him to clean the chimney once a summer at most.
A second industry that could spring up is the delivery of steam derived from woodburning. Downtown Fairbanks would be the perfect place for this. Why burn coal when wood is renewable and clean?
To me, these projects are all possible - but impractical at present due to the lack of infrastructure to support them.
The cutting of wood for heating is generally done by users and a future small entrepeneurs. Areas allowing woodcutting are few. The state would rather see wood go up in forest fires than open the land to woodcutting. Large utilities would never consider using wood waste for energy due to the general lack of availability even though we are surrounded by millions of acres of it.
Certain species - cottonwood or willow - are rarely collected for burning. Black spruce is avoided altogether as it is almost always too small to be worth the bother.
Secondly, the pellet stove business is in its infancy. To my knowledge, vacuum trucks pumping pellets from a truck into a huge bin heating a house are not available. In addition, while smaller bins are available - ones large enough for once a year deliver are not, still requiring the user to intervene periodically. Only recently has a wood pellet manufacturer opened in Fairbanks. Many users would never consider a pellet stove because it still requires intervention.
Third, cutting your own wood is still cheaper than pellets. Users will continue to embrace their woodstoves and wood boilers until a cheaper, more efficient option is available. For many, it is the only way they can afford to heat their homes.
With all the talk about using biomass for energy, it is amazing to me that so many have overlooked the enormous potential that the boreal forest offers. What Alaska needs is a wood energy infrastructure. The State, the University, and private Industry should partner to find ways to develop, encourage and grow this new industry. Most importantly, homegrown energy will put people to work and compete with the oil industry, possibly pushing them to gouge less. Maybe Governor Parnell's first actions should be to set up a wood energy task force to look at this energy? Doing so would permanently allow Alaska energy indepedence from the oil companies while cleaning our air.
