[Stoves] Emissions from Residential Wood

[Steve Redmond]

"I can't see what this accomplishes. I think it merely complicates things.
Why is it important to the consumer to know how much energy was required to
dry, transport, and store the fuel?"

Well it would only be important to consumers who were concerned with things
like global warming and long distance pollution, etc.and their personal
contribution to it. It might make a better basis for a decision when
purchasing and installing say a furnace which commits them to a specific
fuel for ten to twenty years. It might also raise consciousness about the
wider contributory factors in these problems.

True, the fuel makers could also label for things like their brand level of
embodied energy -- it might make a good way to gain consumer preference. It
might then also affect distribution patterns of fuels in a more positive and
logical way. Advertising mileage could be had from an especially low
embodied energy and pollution rating.

It might also make a difference to EPA test results if the true overall
contribution to air pollution was determined for a particular furnace,
rather than simply the proximal one..

Using the present approach, a highly refined converted liquid fuel, labeled
as an alternative ecologically responsible innovation, packaged in a fossil
fuel based plastic quart bottle, cased in attractive carton,  transported
long distances by truck, burned in a highly complex furnace manufactured
from exotic materials might give a wonderfully low stack emission sample and
high level of efficiecy. Five stars on the EPA test scale. Meanwhile 2000
miles of truck exhaust are settling on the highways that directed it to that
furnace.

An exaggeration of course. But shouldn't we have some accounting of a larger
efficiency? It would be nice if the information was actually available to
let the market decide to act in its own ultimate interest, if it so chose.
That seems an even more effective way of making change than by merely
enforcing standards that don't bear a realistic relation to the larger
picture.

I hadn't thought this would actually come to pass, in mentioning it however.

--Steve