[Greenbuilding] Wood-burning Cooking, Central Heating, & Hot Water: Advice Needed

Wed Feb 21 11:23:37 CST 2007

Thank you for the input, Dan. I will carefully consider it. (We do plan to
implement solar hot water, but we need a back-up and we need to cook food,
as well, and we don't want to use fossil fuel...)

BTW, I agree with your forest biomass analysis... But the burn piles do
serve a couple of other positive purposes: they also provide ash to the
soil, and the smoke is detrimental to the Sudden Oak Death fungus, which
resides in redwoods, bay laurels, as well as tan oaks and oaks. (We have
been doing a permaculture treatment to fight SOD on our land, which
permaculturists laud as 90% effective; if anyone is interested, contact me
off-list).

Cheers and Best,

Mary

Mary Bull, Co-director
Greenwood Earth Alliance, Save the Redwoods - Boycott the Gap Campaign
252 Frederick, San Francisco, CA 94117 http://www.gapsucks.org
Chalice Farm and Sustainable Living Center, 748 Montgomery Rd, Sebastopol CA
95472
415-731-7924 - 415-509-1188 chalicenew at earthlink.net

----- Original Message ----- 
From: <dantonioli at earthlink.net>
To: "'Greenbuilding'" <GREENBUILDING at LISTSERV.REPP.ORG>
Sent: Wednesday, February 21, 2007 8:50 AM
Subject: Re: [Greenbuilding] Wood-burning Cooking, Central Heating,& Hot
Water: Advice Needed

> By far the cleanest, most renewable way to heat water is with solar. A
well
> designed system can also provide an abundance of hydronic heat. Both solar
> hot water and solar hydronics will, at the very least, provide "pre-heat"
> for water and/or glycol entering: 1) a conventional boiler, or: 2) a
> wood/pellet burning boiler or stove.
>
> Like many things, Europe is way ahead of us on these combi systems. Last
> year I had the opportunity to go on a green building tour in Austria and
> visited homes, football stadiums, breweries, and a public swimming pool
all
> of which were heated (water and hydronics) with solar and pellet boilers.
> The state-of-the-art pellet boilers are high tech, thermostatically
> controlled, and super efficient.
>
> Looking into smaller systems for our neck of the woods I've learned a few
> things. First, you can no longer buy a regular wood burning stove that has
> an integral heat-exchanger in it for hot water. The EPA has restricted
this
> and, hopefully, this will change. You can buy stoves out of state and
import
> them, but even mid-western states that used to do that are no longer
willing
> to take the risk.
>
> Or you can buy an after market hot water jacket.
>
> Much as I like wood burning stoves, I think a more efficient way to burn
> wood for fuel is to use an outdoor "central boiler" that will provide hot
> water and hydronic heat. I've never used one but I've been researching
them
> and am willing to believe some of the claims, such as only needing to feed
> and stoke them once a day.
>
> More to the point of some of the discussion on this thread, central
boilers
> are well-suited for biomass and will take and burn things that regular
wood
> burning stoves won't burn well. In Mary's area and where I have property
in
> Northern Mendocino, there is a dangerous amount of fuel build up in the
> forest, much of which gets burned by locals in burn piles, with all the
> wasted heat going up in smoke. Much of that forest fuel could be converted
> into usable fuel in central boilers. Many forests are suffering from too
> much biomass build up and, of course, massive catastrophic fires.
>
> Dan Antonioli
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Subject: Re: [Greenbuilding] Wood-burning Cooking, Central Heating,& Hot
> Water: Advice Needed
>
> Hi Amy and Greenbuilders,
>
> We had a long and enlightening thread on this list a while back regarding
> woodburning and carbon neutrality.  The amount of CO2 a field of biomass
> absorbs is equivalent to the amount it releases when burned.
Theoretically,
> if you follow a balanced rotation, e.g., grow a field of biomass; cut it
> down and burn it for fuel, regrow the field of biomass; cut it down for
> fuel; regrow the field of biomass...then the amount of CO2 the biomass is
> absorbing is equivalent to the amount it is releasing when you burn it,
and
> you are carbon neutral. The fossil fuel thing is that CO2 is being
released
> into the atmosphere with no parallel absorption. Others on this list have
> described it more concisely--that's why I am ccing them here.
>
> We would devise a rotation for harvesting willow for fuel that will allow
> the willow to absorb the amount of carbon we are releasing. We would only
> use what we grow, and keep the plants growing at a sustained intensity.
> There are issues such as trees absorbing less carbon as they grow older,
but
> with willows, they are coppicing trees, and are constantly growing new
> branches--cutting them back stimulates new growth. I need to research this
> more.
>
> The scrubber technology exists, but has not been used on a large scale
> according to Monbiot. A big issue is what to do with the CO2--Monbiot
> suggests sequestering it into the caverns that have held natural gas; this
> requires that new power plants be built near these caverns so that more
> carbon is not generated during the transport and sequestering process. I
> doubt that it is commercially available on a small scale, and can't recall
> offhand what Monbiot has to say about that or if he even addresses it (he
> does talk about small- and very small-scale heat&power units). There are
> issues re planting trees for carbon credits that Monbiot does address--it
is
> extremely iffy at best for a number of reasons.
>
> Cheers and Best!
>
> Mary Bull, Co-director
> Greenwood Earth Alliance, Save the Redwoods - Boycott the Gap Campaign
> 252 Frederick, San Francisco, CA 94117 http://www.gapsucks.org Chalice
Farm
> and Sustainable Living Center, 748 Montgomery Rd, Sebastopol CA
> 95472
> 415-731-7924 - 415-509-1188 chalicenew at earthlink.net
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Amy Bauman" <abauman at greengoat.org>
> To: "'Mary Bull - Greenwood Earth Alliance'" <chalicenew at earthlink.net>
> Sent: Tuesday, February 20, 2007 9:22 AM
> Subject: RE: [Greenbuilding] Wood-burning Cooking, Central Heating,& Hot
> Water: Advice Needed
>
>
> > Hi Mary -
> >
> > Your 'zero footprint' benefit got me thinking.  How do you calculate
that?
> >
> > My logic is this -
> >
> > Trees take in CO2 out of the atmosphere and give off O2 at a certain
rate.
> > When they're burned, they release CO2 into the atmosphere, and the fire
> eats
> > O2 at certain rate.
> >
> > Are the two exchanges the same?
> >
> > I'm sure there's a physics law that applies here, but I'm still curious.
> >
> > Another question - does 'scrubber' technology exist for residential /
> small
> > commercial scale?
> >
> > Ever curious -
> >
> > Amy Bauman
> > greenGoat
> >
>
>
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