    As a biomass fuel, pellets offer the advantages of sustainable energy supplies through renewable raw materials.

    Biomass pellets reduce the use of dwindling fossil fuels, often imported from foreign countries.

    In addition, pellets are a by-product, not a primary user, of these renewable materials.

    Using pellets also helps reduce the costs/problems of waste disposal. In 1993-94, more than 6½ million cubic yards of waste were diverted from landfills and converted to home heating in the form of pellets.

    As part of the tradition of the hearth, pellet burning offers the enjoyment of fire viewing and active participation in providing winter comfort in the home.

    Heating by wood pellets is considerably cheaper than heating with electricity. Heating with wood pellets is cheaper than heating with liquid propane. Only firewood in a good wood-burning stove and COAL (!) would be cheaper.

When I redid my house in California's Kern River Valley, I tore out 2 wood burning stoves, disabled several electric wall heaters and put in a, Enviro Evolution E5 WOOD PELLET STOVE which is rated @ 83% efficiency & 45,000 BTU heat output on MAX. It is my primary source of heat. I use propane for my tankless hot water heater, the stove & clothes dryer.

Richard Rowe Wofford Heights, CA in the Idyllic Kern River Valley

Read more here:
http://www.rumford.com/articleWhat.html

I think they press the logs together with a hydraulic press, rather than just using a binder like wax, and that makes for a slower burn.

On pellets:  Add cogeneration to these pellet stoves, then you would be cooking with (out gas) steam!  The electricity generated could help pay for the pellets used.

A microturbine powered by steam directly driving a high rpm generator synchronized with utility electricity, then the used steam could be used to heat domestic hot water and the home through radiant tubing in the floor.

This might solve the problem bio-d has pointed out with using solar in cloudy areas like Seattle.   Solar power stored in cellulose.

But these systems, like small wind and solar, would have a longer payback period without mass production and unlike small wind and solar emit CO2 and its economics would be at the mercy of the market in fuel pellets.

The more people who go to pellets the higher the fuel cost and the chance that forests will be chipped up to feed the demand.

Small wind and solar have no fuel cost and emit no greenhouse gases.  Best to use solar and wind wherever possible and only use pellets where solar and wind is not practical.

But then the question comes up:  is it better to use commercial  wind and solar to power areas that can't use small scale green energy, or use small scale combustion  like these pellet systems?

I would put the capital into medium scale commercial wind and solar instead.  

Using incentives to encourage homeowners and small businesses to add extra capacity in very windy or sunny locales to make up for the lack of wind and solar feasibility in other areas.

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin

Second of all, while I am not at all familiar with California oaklands, clearcuts, when properly applied, are not a bad thing. I know how many people will have their eyes popping out of their head when I say that, but there are worse things you can do to a forest, like high-grading (taking of the best trees and leaving genetically inferior trees).

Actually, tree species diversity generally goes up with clearcuts (at least in the Northeast), as do numbers of small mammals and shrub song-birds. Furthermore, this is prime territory for large mammals as well (deer, bear, etc.) for the next 20 years due to high cover and plentiful vegetation for food. The nutrient spikes that occur first year are generally mitigated very well by the advance regeneration of trees (provided that the clearcut is done properly). So the second question to you is, do you have any information on how the foresters or loggers apply the clearcut?

Regards,

Peter

I question the benefits of the pre-fab logs.  They have less pollution on burning, but we also have to factor in the amount of machinery used in the production, the pollution created in the manufacturing, and the transportation needed to ship them.  Similarly, when considering gas, factor in the extraction, transportation, piping manufacture, etc.  

I agree that a fireplace is inefficient, but, as others have suggested, a wood stove is more comparable to the efficiency of gas, and, carefully managed, we will have trees forever and can divert wood waste from landfill by burning pellets.  One burned, gas is gone for good.