Home heating and the environment

August 23rd, 2010

Eighty percent of the #2 heating oil burned in the U.S. is burned in the Northeast.  We have adapted well to a fuel that was plentiful, easy to distribute, and easy to consume.  Much of the world, and a growing number in the Northeast,  have recognized that the patterns we’ve grown accustomed to are unsustainable. Roughly 85% of the energy we use in our homes in the Northeast is used for heat and domestic hot water.

Pellet-fired central heating has some distinct economic advantages for our region.  Retaining money spent on home heating energy in the region can only mean good things for employees in our region.  In truth, the economic possibilities for our region from a significant shift from fossil fuels to renewable, biomass heating are breathtaking.

Thoughtful people looking at conversion from fossil fuel heating to wood pellet heating quickly ask three  questions:  what about atmospheric carbon, what about combustion emissions, and could our forest sustain more home heating with wood and remain healthy?

Let’s look at those questions.

What about atmospheric carbon?

Nearly everyone is concerned with the increase in atmospheric carbon that has occurred in recent decades.  While some argue that the Earth’s populations will be in trouble if atmospheric carbon concentrations exceed 360 ppm, current carbon concentration is approximately 390 ppm.  The rapid, dramatic increases in atmospheric carbon concentration have arisen largely from human combustion of fossil fuels which releases carbon that has been “stored away” in fossil form for millenia.

The prevailing wisdom has held for some time that burning wood does not significantly increase greenhouse gas carbon dioxide because the carbon stored in the trees is part of the active carbon cycle.  That is, the carbon emitted from burning wood as carbon dioxide was removed from the atmosphere by the growing tree and will return to the atmosphere whether the tree is cut and burned or dies and decomposes. Green plants will again take up the carbon and the cycle will repeat.

Recognizing that fossil fuels are utilized in harvesting and transporting the wood and pellets has led to the widely accepted claim of  70-75% carbon neutrality for the combustion of wood pellets for heating. The US Environmental Protection Agency made the following statement in 2010:

“Although the burning of biomass also produces carbon dioxide, the primary greenhouse gas, it is considered to be part of the natural cycle of the earth. The plants take up carbon dioxide from the air while they are growing and then return it to the air when they are burned, thereby causing no net increase.”

What about emissions?

There is no sulfur and little nitrogen in biomass. During combustion AutoPellet boilers produce no sulfur oxides,  less nitrogen oxides and less carbon monoxide than oil or gas boilers. They also produce very little particulate matter but a bit more than oil or gas boilers (oil boiler .007 lb/million BTUs, AutoPellet .019 lb/million BTUs).  This performance has the AutoPellet systems achieving the very demanding standards that the EPA is proposing for biomass boiler systems.

Could our forest sustain more home heating with wood and remain healthy?

Currently Maine alone has the mill capacity to produce over 300,000 tons of pellets per year.  Many of those pellets leave the state because there is not a sufficiently large local market for their consumption.  300,000 tons of pellets would heat more than 33,000 typical New England homes, so, if the pellets stayed in the State, 7.5% of Maine’s oil-burning homes could be heated now with today’s local pellet manufacturing capacity.

The Northeast is heavily forested and traditional consumers of harvested wood have been consuming less and less material for decades.  In 2009, following a substantial 2008 run-up in oil prices, Maine Governor John E. Baldacci commissioned a task force to study the issues surrounding greater use of wood for thermal energy in Maine.

The Wood to Energy Task Force considered a 10% conversion of residential heating in Maine to pellet heating over the decade.  In looking at longer term forest products implications, the Task Force drew on the “Maine Forest Service Assessment of Sustainable Biomass Availability: Absolute Supply is not the Issue” in concluding “…there can be enough wood in Maine in 20 to 30 years to eventually make a significant proportion of Maine’s homes and businesses independent of imported oil without a demand induced scarcity of forest-based raw material and thus without a demand induced price rise even if the pulpwood demand remains constant.”

The answers to the three conscientious questions are all well-considered and positive answers.

  • Atmospheric carbon emissions will be substantially reduced by those who switch from fossil fuel burning to pellet-fired central heating.
  • High quality pellet boilers have very favorable emissions profiles reducing sulfur and nitrogen oxides and meeting, or exceeding, very stringent EPA proposed rules for particulate emissions.
  • There is an ample pellet supply in Maine today to convert more than 30,000 Maine homes to clean, renewable, locally produced pellet fuel.

The author is the managing director of Maine Energy Systems, which imports and assembles OkoFEN pellet boiler systems.  He can be reached at dutch@maineenergysystems.com

Posted in Environmental issues, Fuel consumption, Pellet burners, Pellet fuel, Uncategorized, Wood pellet boiler | No Comments »

Lower priced boiler added to MESys line-up

May 21st, 2010

The MESys 6000C is undergoing testing in the lab at Maine Energy System’s Bethel facility.  The 6000C is designed to be a reliable, relatively low-cost pellet-fired boiler system for those willing to manually remove ash from the boiler.

The 6000C is a vertical steel tube boiler designed and fabricated by TDC of Pennsylvania coupled with the Swedish Janfire NH burner. In initial testing at TDC, the boiler had an output capacity of approximately 80,000BTU/hr; the boiler will be marketed as a 23KW (78,000BTU/hr) unit.

In its current configuration, the boiler’s vertical tubes can be cleared of flyash with the simple turn of  a handle and ash can be easily removed from the base through a large access door on the side of the system. The ash removal interval is not yet determined, but it is expected to be approximately every four weeks during the peak heating season, given the generous size of the ashbox.

The addition of  automatic de-ashing equipment for the system will be investigated at Worcester Polytechnic Institute this fall.

Images and initial test results will follow shortly.

Dutch Dresser

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New Hampshire Takes Leadership Role

May 13th, 2010

On May 11,  2010, I had the pleasure of attending a meeting in Concord, NH, in which Jack Ruderman, Director of the Sustainable Energy Division of the New Hampshire Public Utilities Commission,  Laura Richardson, ARRA Coordinator for SEP, NH Office of Energy and Planning, and Barbara Bernstein, Sustainable Energy Analyst, NH Public Utilities Commission, were accepting industry assistance in the drafting of language for a proposed Residential Central Pellet Heating System Rebate for the residents of New Hampshire.

This was a refreshing experience for several reasons.  First, the New Hampshire PUC had decided to earmark a small, but meaningful, sum of ARRA money to begin to catalyze residential fuel switching in New Hampshire through incentivization of residential central pellet-fired heating systems.  Their goals for the proposed plan are intelligent and forward-looking and recognize the importance of helping homeowners take advantage of locally produced heating fuel for economic, environmental, and independence reasons.

Second, the government officials sought industry advice on ensuring that the equipment to be incentivized would include  equipment that would both be sufficiently automatic to satisfy American homeowners and insurance underwriters and would be sufficiently well developed to be environmentally friendly.  They also understood the value of reasonable pellet storage volumes to encourage a growth in bulk pellet distribution to ultimately replicate the distribution systems which have successfully provided us with liquid fossil fuels for years.

I applaud those who have advanced the constructive, forward-looking thinking represented by this effort.  New Hampshire citizens can be proud of those in their government who are pro-actively addressing energy sustainability issues.

Dutch Dresser

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Heating the Northeast

May 4th, 2010

Thanks to Charlie Niebling of New England Wood Pellets and his intrepid band of organizers at BTEC, Maine Pellet Fuels Association, Pellet Fuels Institute, New York Biomass Energy Alliance, and Alliance for Green Heat, among others, the second annual Heating the Northeast Conference held last week in Manchester, NH, was an energizing event to a sold-out house.

Business representatives from all corners of the “biomass thermal” world were present to show their wares, share information, and plan for the future of the fuel and paradigm switching that must come as petroleum products become increasingly scarce and quests for them carry ever higher environmental risks.

During the event NH Senator Jeanne Shaheen made a virtual appearance throwing her support behind the important transition and behind bills that are working their ways through the Senate to incentivize the installation of renewable resource technologies for space and water heating.  In addition, the State of New Hampshire made an announcement that it would provide incentives to home owners of 30% of the cost of newly installed qualifying biomass central heating systems up to $6,000.  Oh, that all State governments were as forward-looking.

I left this year’s event with a couple of very strong feelings.  First, in two ways, this conference felt a bit like preaching to the choir.  There were few in the room who weren’t fully subscribed to the importance of a switch away from fossil fuels and toward renewable biomass alternatives.  Several who weren’t fully subscribed stood up to worry out loud about over-harvesting of regional forests demonstrating both their philosophical perspectives and their need for understanding of actual harvest patterns and fiber availability in the northeastern U.S.

Unfortunately, several of those who had various podiums used their time for infomercials we all could have been spared.  This was a small problem to be sure but one which should be addressed as next year’s speaking forces are recruited.

Second, the vendor display area represented a remarkable opportunity for the general public to begin to understand this technology which is commonplace in Europe but new to us. The organizers would do well next year to schedule one day for the general public to see the vast array of products, to talk with knowledgeable vendors about them, and to hear a session or two on the benefits of biomass used as a thermal energy.

The culminating experience for the Conference was the distribution of “A Bold Vision for 2025,” the work of the five organizing groups listed above.  The glossy summary and the more developed white paper are both available on the Maine Pellet Fuels Association website.

Dutch Dresser

In the interest of full disclosure, the author is the Managing Director of Maine Energy Systems, in Bethel, Maine.  The sole regional distributor of OkoFEN boilers.

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Posted in Boiler training, Wood pellet boiler | No Comments »

Heating fuel prices

May 4th, 2010

There are all sorts of strategic, environmental, and regional economic reasons for large segments of the population in the Northeast to switch from fossil fuels to renewable wood pellet heating for their homes and businesses. Reasons like

  • reducing dependency on foreign oil,
  • reducing carbon footprints, and,
  • spending heating dollars for our own products.

    • In the world outside the heating industry, these are good, noble ideas that would be nice to embrace if there were ways to adopt them that made personal financial sense.

    The good news is the spread between pellet pricing and heating oil pricing is growing as oil in Maine rests somewhere near $2.80/gallon and bulk delivered pellet prices have been reduced to $220/ton delivered. $220/ton pellets are the cost equivalent of $1.83/gallon heating oil. At today’s prices, a home using 1,000 gallons of oil a year would save approximately $960/year on heating and domestic hot water.

    Maine Energy Systems, a regional distributor of bulk pellets, has reduced its delivered price to $220, and has reversed last year’s policy of setting prices for the year. Last year’s effort to assure users of pellet availability and price stability had MESys hold onto its $280/ton price into the spring. As mill prices dropped, it became clear to us that despite our intention to reassure the market about stable pellet pricing, this practice was not in the best interest of the market.

    Going forward, we plan to adjust prices periodically to reflect the mill prices we pay for the pellets. With ample production capability in the region and a somewhat depressed international pellet market, we don’t anticipate significant changes in bulk pellet prices over the coming months.

    The picture continues to improve for those who seek financial justification for doing the “right thing” on so many other fronts.

    The graph linked below has fascinated me for some time. Whether it’s precisely correct or only conceptually correct, we were born into the single period in world history when all of the petroleum will be consumed.

    longperiodgraph

    Dutch Dresser

    In the interest of disclosure, the author is the Managing Director of Maine Energy Systems, in Bethel, Maine


    Posted in Fuel consumption, Pellet fuel, Uncategorized, Wood pellet boiler | No Comments »

    Lessons along the way…

    February 3rd, 2010

    In the interest of full disclosure, the author is a Director of Maine Energy Systems, in Bethel, Maine.

    As one of the leading developers of the residential biomass heating industry in the United States, we’ve learned a lot of lessons along the way. As the owner and operator of a pellet-fired residential boiler system, I’ve learned a lot of lessons along the way as well. Following are a few of the lessons we’ve learned.

  • Sizing of boilers is still a bit mysterious, but the picture is clarifying somewhat. It is the American practice to oversize boilers because cost differentials between boiler sizes are relatively small and contractors don’t want to risk “I don’t have enough heat” phone calls. We have been told by Europeans since we began this venture to size boilers smaller than heat loss calculations would suggest are necessary. That’s a hard sell. However, we are routinely seeing boilers sized to match calculated heat loss running on shorter cycles than are ideal suggesting that smaller sizing was, in fact, in order. We will try to quantify the size reduction that would lead to most efficient use of this technology. In my own case, a purposefully undersized boiler (51,000 BTU/hr vs heat loss calculations of 106,000 BTU/hr) carries the house’s heat and DHW needs until the temperature gets down to 0 fahrenheit. When that point is reached, I can either accept a boost from my old oil boiler or accept the fact that 65 Fahrenheit is the best I can do in my kitchen. One of these days I’ll change my pellet boiler to a 25KW unit (85,000 BTU/hr)
  • Pellet durability is fundamentally important to the success of bulk pellet installations. The pellet mills with which we’ve worked along the way have been very good about ensuring durability of pellets in excess of 98%. This improvement has made a tremendous difference in fuel system dependability.
  • Ash removal cycles result from the complex relationship among boiler efficiency, pellet ash content, and quantity of pellets consumed. Different burner types also create different amounts of waste. Whether ashes are removed from the boiler directly, as with more basic systems, or from ash storage containers, as with more modern systems, the remove cycle calculus must include all of those elements to be at all predictive.
  • Burner system modulation results in reasonably stable boiler temperatures and reduces fuel consumption. The well-established pattern of having burner output follow heat demand provides the same efficiencies that “highway driving” affords automobiles. Cold starts are not part of the picture with modern pellet boilers.
  • Pellet deliveries smell good!

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    Growing interest

    January 15th, 2010

    On January 20 and 21, Maine Energy Systems will be conducting its monthly training session for installation and maintenance of its AutoPellet line of pellet-fired boilers. As is customary, Herbert Ortner, the founder and owner of OkoFEN Pelletsheizung of Niederkappel, Austria, will conduct the training as he does in ten Western European countries.

    However, the participant list in this session of training is indicative of a growing awareness in our region of biomass as a heating alternative for homes, businesses, and institutions. Typically held to 15 participants, this session has swelled to more than 20 participants because of growing interest from those outside the normal ranks of installing contractors.

    The coming session of training includes participants who are members of five separate heating engineering firms, two of them do project engineering only, two of them are installing engineering firms, and the fifth is a very large scale engineering, installation and service firm.

    In addition, four trainees represent a large oil distributor from western Massachusetts, one is from an established alternative energy company, and two are from the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority.

    Notably the Director of Technical Education for Maine Energy Markets Association, formerly Maine Oil Dealers’ Association, will also be among this month’s trainees. The group is rounded out by the traditional installing contractors who will make the products available to their customers.

    The remarkable and sudden growth in interest in learning about biomass heating for buildings of all sizes in our region is a strong indicator that people are concerned about growing our local economy through consumption of “homegrown” fuel, about substantially reducing the portion of our carbon footprint attributable to space heating and about preserving oil stocks for more critical applications.

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    Needing more heat

    January 7th, 2010

    As I’ve reported in earlier blogs, my large, old farm-style house in Bethel, Maine, was heated experimentally last winter with a four-section pellet-fred boiler. The Janfire-fired system is rated at 23 kilowatts, about 51,000BTU/hour. The system heated the house to our satisfaction pretty well last winter with the exception of a few “design days” when outside temperatures dropped below zero. On those days, we were faced with a house at, or below, 60 degrees F, or burning a bit of oil to support the pellet boiler.

    During this past Christmas seasons, my 86 year old mother joined us for two weeks. Our standards for suitable heating (67F, or so) didn’t work for her, so we needed to try to keep the house at 70F at a minimum. The little boiler fired at capacity much of the season to meet the demand and was generally successful. However, on days when single digit to sub-zero temperatures struck, there was no way. The boiler is just too small to fill that demand largely due to heating time lost to the ashscraping cycle of the top-fed burner. To meet the need, I set the oil boiler to fire when water temperatures dropped to 160F. All worked well; the boiler fired occasionally, generally following an ashscrape cycle when water temps would drop below the target level. My mother was warm and little supplemental oil was burned. During the past heating season, I used a total of 40 gallons of supplemental oil.

    It is my assumption that a small boiler of the same capacity of an underfed burner design that did not require lost time to ashscraping would meet my demand without support from the oil boiler. It would be fun to test the assumption.

    Because I’ve been able to use an extended ashscrape cycle due to the improvements in pellet quality, I haven’t been cleaning my boiler as often as I did last year. That’s been a mistake. In this particular Bosch/Janfire system there is ample opportunity in the cast iron boiler for ash to reduce boiler efficiency. I’ve returned to a two week cleaning cycle for this boiler to keep efficiency up and pellet consumption down.

    In the interest of full disclosure, Dutch Dresser is the Managing Director of Maine Energy Systems which sells both the Bosch/Janfire system referenced here and the more advanced AutoPellet systems made under license from OkoFEN of Niederkappel, Austria.

    Posted in Fuel consumption, Pellet boiler maintenance, Small boiler experiment, Wood pellet boiler | No Comments »

    Janfire ashscraping and pellets

    October 5th, 2009

    I have been using a Janfire NH burner in my pellet-fired central heating system for just about a year, now. During that year, I have burned pellets with varying attributes. The burner has been “happy” to burn most pellets, except one batch containing foreign silica, which created debilitating clinkering. No other pellets have fazed the burner.

    Several weeks ago, as one of the owners of Maine Energy Systems, I got to “burn up” some pellets that we wouldn’t sell to our customers because they weren’t burning cleanly. During that burn, I made plenty of hot water over the summer, but had to reduce my ashscrape interval to 15 pounds to prevent burner pot fouling.

    I was delighted to get through with the questionable pellets and add a new load of the pellets we send to customers. When I got the new pellets, I increased my ashscrape cycle to the 40 pounds common in Europe and am enjoying troublefree performance.

    Maine Energy Systems and the University of Maine are testing regionally produced pellets each season to ensure that we understand many of the attributes of those pellets before we make them available to our boiler customers. We are measuring for the concentrations of many elements which become active during combustion, which is common in Europe but not in the U.S. Understanding these attributes helps us ensure good performance for pellet boiler users.

    Dutch Dresser

    Dutch Dresser is a partner and Director of Maine Energy Systems in Bethel, Maine

    Posted in Pellet burners, Pellet fuel, Wood pellet boiler | No Comments »

    Domestic hot water from summer pellet burning

    September 14th, 2009

    In the interest of full disclosure the author is a Director of Maine Energy Systems.

    I am often asked what I do about domestic hot water in the summer since my house is heated with a MESys pellet-fired boiler system. The answer is, “I burn some pellets” just as I have burned some oil to create hot water for decades.

    The follow-on question is always, “how many pellets does it take?” In a single case sample, my own, I have found an answer. Three adults live in my house full-time, one a college-aged son who loves long showers. We have frequent overnight company, including the families of four of our older son and our daughter. We use a washing machine and dishwasher as anyone does, and we’ve made no particular water reduction modifications to our house so our hot water consumption is probably typical for Americans like us.

    My system contains an indirect hot water tank, which I keep adjusted to 180F during the heating months. During the non-heating months, I’ve reduced that setting to 120F, so the boiler fires at low level or in “keep alive” mode most of the time.

    This summer, since the end of the heating season, I have averaged 20 pounds of pellets/day for the heating of water using my MESys 4000/Janfire system. At $270/ton that places my average daily hot water costs at $2.70, or the cost of a bit more than a gallon of #2 heating oil.

    Ideally, I would have solar panels on my barn roof to further reduce combustion of any sort for the production of domestic hot water, but that will have to wait a bit.

    Dutch Dresser

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    Posted in Domestic hot water, Small boiler experiment, Wood pellet boiler | No Comments »

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