[madrasahs]

Originally Posted by Mee-n-Mac

Since it 'tis the season to be warm ... where do y'all stand on burning wood ?

New Hampshire has been burning wood to produce electricity -- even recently.

NH construction-debris burning to produce energy has been stopped -- or stymied. (In Spring, you can pass several new spec-built lakefront homes burning construction debris in the open anyway).

But funny you should mention "burning wood". I'm warmed by woodstove heat today -- burning the remains of a damaged red-oak pallet fallen -- or discarded -- in front of my gate last winter. However, I'm presently one-hour's drive south of Grobania, Florida.

This antique woodstove got installed after a 1989 ("The Christmas-") Freeze that caused our electrical utility to have "planned rolling-blackouts". Here, it was scheduled for 8AM to Noon. The temperature was 28° in the living room.

A long-stored kerosene heater saved that day. I may take it to Winnipesaukee this March. It's odorless, smokeless, extremely efficient -- 99.9% -- and a quick morning heat to supplement the usual quick morning electric heat for a cottage.

This morning's temperature was 35° outside, and hasn't warmed up much...so this is an Internet-day. (Note to self: It's too hot...Move computer station further away from woodstove).

The day did not start off well though, as "Mac's" question found me first exploring www.earthcrash.org. It's depressing -- don't go there.

Everything in this part of Florida gets burned. You're supposed to get a permit from the State of Florida, but only a few bother. Because of wildfires and development, we get a stinky haze most days. It helps that Florida is a peninsula, so the "bad-air" gets disbursed to the oceans. No locals complain because "It's progress -- you can't stop it".

This past Spring, about ¼ of this lake's shoreline was bulldozed of its orange groves and live-oaks for a new development. Everything got burned -- and the burning continues today. The State won't permit pressure-treated wood in their landfills, so four old docks joined the burn-piles, too. The bulldozers left a "fringe" of 60-foot-tall pines along the shoreline. Hurricane Charley blew nearly half of them into the lake, where they remain today. (The trees that would have blocked the wind had been bulldozed before the hurricane season).

Yesterday, too late for County pick-up/burning, a one-ton pile of hurricane debris was burned by me -- mostly my neighbor's non-native trees that fell/blew over the fence. My own live-oak "forest" stayed largely intact through all three hurricanes that hit here (Charley, Frances, Jeanne).

But it was a "new" family member who made me aware of "Energy":

He is a naturalized citizen from Holland, and was a youngster when Holland was overrun by the Nazis. He has actually burned the family's wood furniture to keep warm -- and disassembled Nazi barracks (stealthily, board-by-board) for more wood to keep his family warm. Some great stories, there.

He presently lives in bad-air California, and has installed a solar unit (by himself) on his new house. On their many sunny days, they can watch the electric meter run backwards. 1000Kw just today -- money in their pockets. Too cool!

When he visits Winnipesaukee, we set up a solar panel to charge the batteries that we use to peaceably cruise the shorelines. I think it's fun -- all of it.

NH's woodstove population spares the benzene, formaldehyde, toluene, dimethylbenzene, carbon monoxide, arsenic, vinyl chloride, formaldehyde, and chromium added by 2-stroke exhaust from snowmobiles. (Although those pollutants could be added to the woodstove fires just to fit in).

Originally Posted by Mee-n-Mac

Do you favor CA style controls that outlaw open fireplaces and wood burning stoves ? ? Is this a debate about a molehill or a mountain for NH ?

California has seen a population crush unmatched in other states -- including even in its own history.

The population crush has created a fossil-fuel problem which has made them acutely aware of "bad-air". They also have wildfires that we don't have. This one's of Seattle's air, though.



But at Winnipesaukee, there's not the pressing population -- yet -- to restrict woodstoves. Isn't it only California's Marin County that's affected by fireplace bans? But even far from Marin County, I stayed at California's Yosemite Park when campers were chopping down green redwood saplings for barbeques, creating an eye-burning, localized, smoggy bad-air environment. Similar local smoggy days occur on Winnipesaukee weekends.

At Winnipesaukee, an EPA-approved woodstove (a glass-fronted Waterford) burns local wood, including some I have cut myself. When wood decays in forests, it releases carbon dioxide, just as a woodstove does when wood is burned in it. I see it as a trade-off.

Open fireplaces are poor heaters -- something even Benjamin Franklin recognized. A cast iron "Franklin" woodstove built in 1870 heats my Florida home -- it even has isinglass windows to watch the fire! A good woodstove design will burn with minimal smoke once it reaches operating temperature -- and is burning well-seasoned wood.

All of Humanity affects their surroundings -- just by their very "being". Some just have a greater high-profile presence (the in-your-face presence) than others.

What's wrong with the low-profile approach of olde New Hampshire?