Tag Archives: Wood Energy

Wood-burning blamed for poor air in Fairbanks

From The Associated Press, Wednesday, January 13, 2010:

On winter days when the air is still and Fairbanks area residents fire up their wood stoves and outdoor boilers, Alaska’s second largest city becomes entombed in a shroud of pollution.

The problem is due in part to wood stoves and outdoor boilers that belch out small particles, forcing residents to breathe some of the unhealthiest air in the nation. The borough’s air problem can become acute during a temperature inversion, when cold air near the ground is trapped by warmer air on top.

“It traps everything near the ground,” said Glenn Miller, transportation director for the Fairbanks North Star Borough who oversees air quality.

The state’s lack of affordable heat has forced residents to pay $5,000 to $10,000 to heat their homes, so many turned to the old standby – wood heat.

Click here to read the full story.

Wood energy becomes increasingly popular

From The Tundra Drums, Sunday, November 29, 2009:

For the Bethel region of Alaska, the heating fuel of the future might be a throwback to the past.

A business and organizations there, including Bethel’s city government, are increasingly turning to firewood in an effort to replace the costly heating fuel that often exceeds $6 a gallon.

They’re getting the wood any way they can get in the often treeless Southwest Alaska region.

Click here to read the full story.

In your home, let the sun shine in

ASK A BUILDER

By CCHRC Staff

The “Ask a Builder” series is dedicated to answering some of the many questions Fairbanks residents have about building, energy and the many other parts of home life.

Q: Why is it beneficial to have south-facing windows on a home?

Because of the orientation with the sun, south-facing windows bring in both light and heat, which are important for homes in our climate. If you have a lot of north-facing windows, you’re going to lose a lot of heat with not a lot of heat gain.

The amount of heat your home gains from the sun should not be underestimated and sunlight also is good for your mood.

At the same time, some homes can become overheated in months like March, when there is no vegetation to provide shade, and the sun comes directly through your windows. Also, in the summer, the hot sun can overheat your home if your roof does not have enough overhang to shade your windows. Again, trees and other vegetation will help here as well.

Before you build your home, get a sense of where the sunlight falls in both winter and summer. If you are a morning person and you need that morning light to help wake you up, you’ll want to place your windows appropriately. If you like to entertain in the evening summer sun, then put windows in the appropriate place for that. It’s not just about getting light to see and heat your home, think about how light will affect your life in your home.

Q: I want to put a chimney in for a stove, but there are a bunch of things in the way, including a beam. How can I get around that?

It’s always frustrating when you’ve got the perfect place for a stove, but something is in the way. Ideally a chimney should be a straight shot for easy cleaning and proper drafting, but sometimes it just isn’t possible and you’ve got to put an elbow in the pipe. The best place to put an elbow is at the bottom because it allows you to scrub the chimney top to bottom when you clean it and you can still get inside the stove and vacuum out that elbow piece.

Sometimes you can run a stovepipe directly out the side of the house and up the exterior wall. How well this works is case dependent. If there is too much pipe in an uninsulated space, then the pipe can get cold and as a result, some of the smoke will get cold which can cause creosote build up and create a chimney fire hazard. Also, a fire started with a stovepipe that is cold may not draft properly so it may smoke and smolder and even introduce pollutants into your house if it’s not an airtight stove.

Q: What are the advantages of LED lights over those spiral compact fluorescents?

LEDs use less power, have a longer life and are more durable than compact fluorescents. Initially there have been some costs that have kept them from reaching the broad market, but every year brings new innovations in LED technology, bringing the cost down and improving the quality of light they produce. Compact fluorescents contain mercury, so disposing of them is a problem, while LEDs are fairly non-toxic. LEDs also work better than the average bulb in cold temperatures, which is important in our climate.

Alaska HomeWise articles promote home awareness for the Cold Climate Housing Research Center (CCHRC). If you have a question, e-mail us at akhomewise@cchrc.org. You can also call the CCHRC at (907) 457-3454

Coast Guard looking at heating with wood in Alaska

From The Associated Press, Thursday, October 28, 2009:

The Coast Guard’s plan to move away from oil-fired burners and toward heating with biomass could provide a lift to the timber industry in Southeast Alaska.

Projects are being considered in Ketchikan and Sitka that would convert building heating systems to biomass boilers that burn wood chips. That would provide a local market for processed wood made from Tongass National Forest timber.

Robert Deering, with the Coast Guard’s Civil Engineering Unit in Juneau, said Southeast Alaska is the first place the Coast Guard has considered using biomass energy. Last year’s spike in oil prices partially drove the decision to support it, he said, but a new directive from President Barack Obama revived the project. Obama signed an executive order this month that mandates environmentally friendlier federal buildings.

Click here for the full story.

State of Alaska energy plan not popular with some lawmakers

From the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner on Wednesday, January 28, 2009:

A document submitted as a state energy plan falls short of its mark, while renewable energy projects submitted for funding might go too far, legislators said.

Members of the House Energy Committee, including Rep. Jay Ramras, R-Fairbanks, were critical of the Alaska Energy Authority’s state energy plan as director Steve Haagenson detailed the more than 240-page volume during a hearing Tuesday afternoon.

Rep. Bryce Edgmon, a Democrat from Dillingham and committee co-chairman, said calling the report an energy plan was something of a misnomer. Instead, the report seemed a “first step” toward a state energy plan, he said.

Click here to read the whole article.

State of Alaska $100 million energy proposal

 

report cover

The State of Alaska has published its proposal for grant allocation from the Alaska Renewable Energy Fund. This money will fund the construction of a wide range of alternative energy projects throughout the state. The total proposed expenditure from the State of Alaska is $100 million, with a Federal match of approximately $300 million.

 

Click here for a link to the Alaska Energy Authority page that outlines the proposal and links to relevant documents.

Wood heat warms home, pollutes air

From the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, on Saturday, December 6, 2008:

In early winter 2008, Fairbanks [Alaska] has had some of the worst air quality ever recorded, according to Jim Conner, an air quality specialist for the Fairbanks North Star Borough.

“We exceeded (federal air quality) standards in October this year for the first time,” Conner said. “It looks like we’ll have twice as many exceedances this year, about 50 (days).”

The bad air — caused by tiny floating particles from burned fuels — will lead to the Environmental Protection Agency in December to declare the borough as “out of attainment” of the National Ambient Air Quality Standards.

This means that Alaskans will have three years to come up with a plan on how to solve Fairbanks’ air problems, or the federal government will draw up a plan for Fairbanks.

Click here to read the whole story.

High school may use wood-fired boiler heater

From the Anchorage Daily News, Wednesday, December 9, 2008:

The Alaska Energy Authority has agreed to spend $20,000 to analyze whether energy-efficient wood boilers would be cheaper to use than heating oil for the roughly 50,000-square-foot school being built near Talkeetna. The Matanuska-Susitna Borough, which requested the study, has also chipped in $5,000. …

Local residents cooked up the idea. For more than a year, they’ve pressed the borough to consider using a wood-heated boiler as the primary heating source for the school, and to leave the fuel-oil boiler as a secondary heater. The wood could be harvested on borough-owned land a few miles from the school, whereas fuel oil would be trucked to the school from Nikiski, said mechanical engineer Tami Hamler, a supporter of the wood-fired boiler project. And if sustainable harvest practices are used, wood from public land could heat the school indefinitely, Hamler said.

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Fairbanks mayor pushes for woodstove trade-in program

From the Fairbanks Daily News Miner, on Monday, December 8, 2008:

The Fairbanks North Star Borough will look to create a trade-in program to reduce the number of older, inefficient home-heating systems — think old wood stoves and outdoor boilers — borough Mayor Jim Whitaker said this week.

Outdoor, wood-fired furnaces and older indoor wood stoves, particularly ones that have difficulty burning as hot as newer ones, are linked to the chronic air pollution that has landed Fairbanks in trouble with federal environmental officials.

The state and borough governments are well into a $2 million study of borough pollution and exactly where the bulk of it comes from. Air-quality specialists said they expect to have some conclusions this summer and more in 2010.

Click here to read the whole article.

Wood heat rising in popularity

From the Christian Science Monitor on Monday, October 21, 2008:

Both traditional and pellet-burning wood stoves are in high demand as cold weather begins to grip the northern United States and Canada. Sales of wood stoves are up 55 percent so far this year over last, according to industry figures. And sales of wood pellet stoves are even hotter: up 135 percent over the same period last year.

But as people polish their stoves and admire their woodpiles, environmentalists and health officials are expressing concern that burning wood in old or poorly designed stoves could add significantly to air pollution. And although wood represents a local and renewable fuel source, its credentials as a “carbon neutral” fuel – not adding to global warming – are hazy at best.

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