Green Heat News
A monthly news service for everyone
interested in renewable wood & pellet heating
May 2021
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Featured Stories
On Tuesday, April 5, the EPA published their letters to wood stove testing labs, announcing they were embarking on a historic review of certification paperwork, based in part on the Alaska review of certification paperwork.
US Stove Co., a Tennessee-based company has been accused by a former employee of fraudulent activity, which he reported to the EPA enforcement division. The employee who wishes to remain anonymous, alleged the company told retailers that a popular stove model complied with 2020 EPA emission standards. If those allegations are confirmed, thousands of people may have purchased far dirtier stoves than they thought they were buying and could lead to massive fines for the company. The EPA confirmed it was investigating the allegations.
Companies can cooperate with, or impede, investigations by the EPA and CPSC, and there are different implications in each case. The EPA Office of Enforcement has reportedly referred the US Stove case to the Justice Department, but to date, no one from the US government has contacted any of the key players, leaving the whistleblower legally exposed.
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EIA: After industry, "the residential sector is the second-largest user of wood for energy in United States. In 2019, wood energy accounted for 4.4% of residential sector end-use energy consumption and 2.5% of total residential energy consumption. In 2015, about 12.5 million, or 11% of all U.S households, used wood as an energy source, mostly for space heating, and 3.5 million of those households, mainly in rural areas, used wood as the main heating fuel."
USDA: Robert Bonnie, a biomass advocate, was one of 150 experts with high-level government experience to deliver actionable advice to the incoming Biden-Harris administration on a whole-of-government response to climate change. Bonnie was later tapped by the Biden-Harris transition team to lead the agency review of USDA.
US Forest Service: National forests all over America allow for personal firewood collection that can also help reduce potentially hazardous wildfire conditions. But the program is stuck in the past and should be reviewed to include a plan and a pledge by those applying for permits to split, stack and store the wood so that it is well seasoned before burning.
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This bipartisan legislation that would incentivize the use of energy efficient biomass heaters in homes and businesses instead of relying on fossil fuel energy. “Wood biomass is a cost-effective, renewable, and environmentally friendly source of energy that helps individuals heat their homes in the winter months and creates jobs here in Maine,” said Senator Collins.
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AGH is a proud sponsor of the 2021 Biomass Thermal Summit, being run by BTEC. We highly recommend this virtual event that consists of 6 weekly seminars on heating with wood, pellets and chips. AGH is moderating the session on the potential of the 26% tax credit for efficient stoves and boilers. It starts on Thursday May 6. Reigster now and spread the word.
In Minneapolis, more than 6,000 homes had required energy audits, including assessment of hot water heaters, furnaces - but wood stoves were excluded. This leaves owners and potential buyers in the dark about potential safety problems of wood stoves. AGH has been urging the DOE and states to require inspections of stoves, using a BPI annex, whenever a home uses wood or pellets as a primary or significant secondary heating source.
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Discussion: Whose forests are they? |
Dogwood Alliance, a North Carolina non-profit, has consistently undermined the rural, low-income families who heat with wood and pellets with its "Our forests aren't fuel" campaign. Dogwood is committed to social justice and environmental justice but has a blind spot when it comes to wood heating households. For Native Americans, First Nations and millions of lower income rural households, forests are often their heating fuel. But their voices have been marginalized. Increasingly, people confuse Dogwood's messaging against exporting pellets for electricity and using wood or pellet for local heating. Over the last decade, AGH has reached out to Dogwood many times urging them to clarify that there is a difference and that they don't oppose using wood and pellets for heating. This section of the newsletter will cover the ongoing discussion about these equity issues.
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Innovations & The Wood Stove Design Challenge |
The goals of the 4th Stove Challenge were to fairly test stoves against one another with cordwood; help each team to improve their units and help educate a wider public about novel stove technologies that challenge how we think about traditional, manually operated wood stoves. Overall, the repeatability of each stove was favorable with coefficients of variation (COV) ranging from 7 to 15% for measured PM concentrations.
ASAT, and Oregon company assembled an affordable and clean-burning biomass stove for heating and cooking for developing countries that they demonstrated at the 4th Wood Stove Design Challenge. It includes a thermoelectric generator and an electrostatic precipitator.
"A wood burning stove with a hot water coil and storage can be connected to an air source heat pump. When the stove is providing hot water to the storage tank, the air source heat pump is not working unnecessarily. Thermal storage allows the wood burning stove to contribute to both the central heating and hot water production in the home."
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COVID-19 Stove Relief Fund |
The Stove Repair Relief Fund helps families impacted by COVID-19. Air quality agencies, change out programs and low-income winterization programs can link to this fund to help their clients and residents. It provides up to a 50% reduction in the price of pellet stove parts for orders up to $500. Dozens of families are now keeping their pellet stoves running safely
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State News
Alaska: “The National Ambient Air standard is 35 and Fairbanks is now are 63 but in 2014 it was 139! “We have three active grants right now that means is that the wood stove change out program is going to be fully funded through 2025.”
New Hampshire: "Our biomass industry should be encouraged to provide heating energy to replace conventional out-of-state fossil-fuels. ... Imagine how beneficial it would be to retain the $5.8 billion that leaves our state annually. Let us not turn back the clock, but plan for the future instead."
New York: The city of Ithaca, NY is writing its own energy code and it only allows wood stoves on the EPA list of certified appliances. That's the good part, but it gets more prescriptive....
Oregon: One of the most venomous battles in our polarized nation is the one that has unfolded between loggers and environmentalists in timber towns. If loggers and environmentalists can come together, maybe the biomass community can do the same?
Pennsylvania: A short history of wood and coal heat, and the dawn of gas and electric heating: "In the end, the convenience of getting heat on demand without worrying about coal or wood prices, shady dealers, or how to operate their furnace outweighed any concerns consumers has about the origins of their energy."
International News
Canada: Why did HPBA Canada choose the town of Comox for their campaign and then not respond to a requests for an interviews? Mayors now ask HPBA Canada to correct its ad campaign and say their rules are here to stay.
China: The Volvo plant in Heilongjiang province uses locally and sustainably-sourced agricultural and forestry residues. “For us at Volvo Cars, sustainability is as important as safety.” Volvo Cars’ climate-neutral manufacturing target is part of its wider climate plan.
Moldova: A great example of green heat: The heat-only boiler plants will run on Miscanthus hybrids as a dedicated local crop providing heating to 5,500 apartments, 110 houses, 40 businesses, 12 public kindergartens, 25 education facilities, and eight medical institutions.
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All events listed below are virtual except the European Pellet Conference, which has a virtual option, and the CSIA training academy. |
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May 6, 2021
The webinar will present the most recent findings from ongoing work within Task 32 on design guidelines for wood stoves and real-life test methods.
May 7, 2021
On how adapting European boiler standards would enable Canada to tackle climate change and provide affordable, clean and responsible energy and heat.
May 6 - June 10, 2021
This virtual event will feature six sessions on the state of the industry and latest federal policy developments from the US Congress, the Biden Administration and agencies.
June 2, 2021
Free online conference begins at 1 p.m. Atlantic time and continues for three hours.
Wels, Austria, June 22, 2021
The European Pellet Conference 2021 moves to the summer.
June 23-26, 2021
HBPA recently switched its in-person Expo to a virtual one.
July 19-24, 2021
This six-day course combines classroom training at the CSIA Technology Center with real world experience in the field.
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Misleading Article of the Month
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This article tests the limits of how much bad, misleading and false information can be packed into a single article. One reader wondered whether it was generated by a computer program. For starters: “Firewood used to be cut from living trees. This was done because green wood burns easier than dry wood, and it heats faster.”
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Thank you to everyone who donated to AGH during 2020! Your support makes a huge difference and is very appreciated. The Alliance for Green Heat is an independent non-profit organization working to promote cleaner and more efficient biomass heating. Please consider making a generous contribution. The Alliance is a tax exempt 501 (c)(3) organization.
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