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by Dave Soulia, for FYIVT.com
Vermont likes to call itself a leader in combating climate change, but leadership implies setting an example others want to follow. Instead, Vermont is becoming a cautionary tale of what happens when ideology trumps practicality. The result? A state struggling under the weight of policies that deliver the opposite of what they promise.
The Latest Target: Your Firewood
Lobbyists and environmental groups are quietly pushing to sideline firewood as a heating option, arguing it contributes to greenhouse gas emissions and local air quality issues. Through proposals like the Clean Heat Standard (CHS), they’re urging regulators to exclude firewood from Vermont’s approved heating methods.
This effort comes despite wood heat being a lifeline for generations of Vermonters. It’s renewable, locally sourced, and dependable—especially during the state’s brutal winters and frequent power outages. Yet, in the name of reducing Vermont’s already infinitesimal global greenhouse gas contribution (0.015%), policymakers risk driving up costs, eliminating options, and leaving rural Vermonters out in the cold.
Regulatory Signals Against Wood Heat
Recent discussions at a Vermont Public Utilities Commission (PUC) Technical Advisory Group (TAG) meeting reveal growing skepticism about wood heat. Concerns focused on emissions from cordwood stoves and boilers, with some participants labeling them “high-emitting” and inconsistent with public health and climate goals.
Nora Travis of NESCAUM stated, “Cordwood boilers are, in fact, quite high-emitting—to the effect even of more concern than stoves.” Similarly, Brian Woods of the Agency of Natural Resources questioned wood’s carbon neutrality, asking, “It’s hard to understand how a negative carbon intensity for RNG or wood fuels wouldn’t distort the program.” The discussion also emphasized electrification, with Ken Jones cautioning, “Wood fuels shouldn’t skew the credit system away from electrification.”
While advanced wood heating systems may still have a place, the trend is clear: traditional wood-burning appliances like cordwood stoves are being pushed to the margins. The PUC’s cautious tone reflects a broader shift driven by emissions concerns, public health arguments, and doubts about wood’s carbon neutrality. Watch the TAG meeting discussion and read the transcript here.
A Pattern of Overreach
Killington Mountain isn’t the only slippery slope in the state. The Global Warming Solutions Act (GWSA) requires Vermont to adopt regulations like California’s Advanced Clean Cars II (ACCII) standards, mandating that all new passenger vehicles sold in the state be zero-emission by 2035. This effectively phases out the sale of combustion vehicles. Now, the same ideologically driven approach is targeting wood heat, another essential tool for surviving rural Vermont winters.
The financial fallout is undeniable. Replacing wood stoves with electric systems or retrofitting homes for “clean” heating methods is prohibitively expensive for working- and middle-class families. Wealthier residents might qualify for subsidies or absorb the costs, but for most, these policies represent a financial strain with little practical benefit. Compounding the issue, Vermont’s electric grid is unreliable, regularly failing during storms. Heat pumps and electric systems can’t keep homes warm without power, but wood stoves can.
The Irony of “Leadership”
Vermont’s aggressive push to be a “climate leader” is proving to be the opposite. Instead of offering a model for sustainability, the state is showcasing the economic harm and alienation that result from prioritizing symbolic policies over practical solutions. What’s green about policies that:
- Increase costs for heating and transportation?
- Undermine locally sourced, sustainable practices like wood heat?
- Push rural residents to rely on an unprepared electric grid?
This kind of “leadership” alienates the very people it claims to help, leaving them less resilient and more financially strained.
A Better Way Forward
If Vermont truly wants to combat climate change, it should focus on solutions that balance environmental goals with practicality. Here’s what real leadership could look like:
- Flood Management: Invest in infrastructure to address Vermont’s natural flooding risks, instead of pretending local carbon cuts will stop rivers from rising.
- Energy Resilience: Strengthen the electric grid and diversify energy sources before mandating widespread electrification. Vermont’s current infrastructure isn’t ready for such a transition.
- Support Local Solutions: Promote responsibly managed forests and high-efficiency wood stoves. Firewood is renewable, local, and well-suited to Vermont’s rural realities.
What’s Really At Stake
This isn’t just about firewood—it’s about freedom. Freedom to heat your home without interference from policymakers and lobbyists who seem disconnected from the realities of rural life. Vermonters deserve policies that reflect their values: independence, resilience, and practicality.
Recent policies already phase out combustion vehicles, and now firewood is in the crosshairs. What’s next? Vermont’s environmental policies, while well-intentioned, are proving to be an alarming example of what happens when going green becomes an ideological crusade rather than a balanced strategy.
If Montpelier doesn’t rethink its approach, it risks driving out the very people who make Vermont what it is. Let’s hope lawmakers understand what’s truly worth preserving before it’s too late.
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Categories: Commentary, Legislation
Montpelier couldn’t care less about driving us out.. in fact that’s the long term plan. We stand in the way of their progressive “utopia”. Most rural Vermonters that I know are common sense conservatives..and therefore an enemy that needs to be eliminated.
Elect that man to the legislature! We need a lot more clear thinking, problem solving, fiscally conservatives like Dave Sulia. There must be some in each district in Vermont!
My Marlin 45/70 has some wood piled on one end of it and the other end creates fire. That protects my other wood pile. Comment from Richard Day
We are also very skilled with the Husqvarna, axe and maul. (Oops, didn’t see ya there…😎)
Easy solution to this and the housing issue. Stop turning VT into suburbia and there’ll be less noses to offend. Big city folks newly arrived – lose your anxiety, settle in for a long cold winter, there’s only so many resources to go around and limiting any of them does nothing but hurt people. Big picture, that’s the truth, y’all better wake up to reality soon.
Good answer, good answer.
Doesn’t this illustrates that if a “property renter” and has a wood lot, you can’t heat anything via wood. Montpelier owns the land can are doing everything to make living miserable. Montpelier is the puppeteer and the subjects are mere puppets. Even if you have a logging outfit timber your property, you won’t be allowed to harvest the limb wood. Leave it on the ground for forest fires. Eliminate all wood harvesting equipment and put those dealers out of business. All for “Climate Change” That scenario indicates Montpelier is a communistic entity. Vote the puppeteers to the ruling class. Bring on the fuel oil and electricity industries. Keep your woolens handy.
New federal guidelines removed any restrictions on what we choose to heat or light our homes with. How can Vermont regulations trump federal freedom to choose… Not to mention greenwashing regulations under fake climate change claims have also been removed.
Who’s the boss anyway?
Sounds like grounds for another lawsuit challenging Marxist ideological over regulation under false premises to me.
How many lawsuits can fed dependent Vermont handle?
As many as necessary to complete Socialist takeover
Unfortunately any lawsuit against the State is paid for with tax dollars.
Time to wake up from this dystopian “green” nightmare. The green fascists want to electrify most everything and now take away my wood stove too? All in the name of eliminating the most essential and abundant plant food on our Planet. The whole “green” edifice rests on this one big lie: that Co2 is a pollutant. IT’S NOT, NOT EVEN CLOSE. In fact Co2 is the sine qua none for all plant life giving us food and oxygen.
Even if we could take out all internal combustion vehicles, all wood stoves, all gas stoves here in Vermont it would not make any discernible impact on our climate. It hasn’t so far and never would. The only impact would be to drive people out of the state and make life much more difficult. My wood stove keeps us warm when the power goes out and our gas stove goes right on cooking our food through our numerous outages. Why screw up this kind of self sufficiency? Why not do something really helpful like helping homeowners and others install solar powered generators that run silently without burning gas to keep our homes running till the power crews do their magic?
You don’t suppose that the “powers that be” infringing on this choice of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, have money invested in the electrification of the state do you ?
The authoritarian, fascist moonbat treehuggers dont want anyone to have a backup plan for staying warm. When everyone is electrified, that source of energy can be cut off with the click of a mouse. You can take away my Husqvarna and splitting maul when you pry them from my cold, dead hands.
Okay Charleton !
Remember the goal is total reliance on Government
This is how a wonderful state like Vermont is destroyed by ideologues. Our school system is falling apart, we lack affordable housing, there aren’t enough well paying jobs to support a middle income family and our hospitals are being decimated by the Green Mountain Care Board.
Nothing important and necessary has improved in Vermont in decades.
Voters, please wake up.
Our legislature needs to be comprised of temperate, pragmatic problem solvers rather than incompetent extremists filled with anger, looking to create chaos while they accumulate power.
Incrementally, It has been coming down the pike for a while with expensive septic regulations and registration of drilled wells. Requirements for sprinkler systems in single family homes and driveway design requirements approved by local fire officials and occupancy permits from town hall are a reality now. It’s only a matter of time before the inspection sticker for a home is required to be displayed. STOP VOTING FOR AUTHORITARIAN, FASCIST MOONBATS.
When the electrification idea was first floated as an answer to “global warming” I told my friends who thought that their chosen source of fuel would come under the same attack as fuel oil, or gas, they poo, pooed that idea, because the right to burn wood is garunteed in the “Bill of Rights” (sarcasm) or something. I would tell them to look at the smoke coming out of their chimneys, and state that again with conviction . They would then counter with the same bluster that I would hear when suggesting that the Feds (Democrats) are not done infringing on their (our) 2nd A rights. I would never expect an acknowledgement of my prediction that this was coming, as this would also be acknowledgement that someone was wrong, but, To quote Ben Franklin, “We must, indeed, all hang together, or most assuredly we shall all hang separately,”
“It’s your Republic if you can keep it”
Ron, Where’s Ben Franklin when you need him ? 🙂
When ideology trumps practiaclity there are unitednded consequences for sure, not only regarding Democrats in Vermont on climate change legislation, but also in terms of the Trump tarriffs if we are honest enough to admit it.
Are you aware that there is, by presidential proclamation, September 29, 2025, effective October 14, 2025, a 10% tariff on firewood imports into the United States?
While the tariffs make imports more expensive in the short term, they also make the woodlots some of us own more valuable, at least until increased short-term prices incentivize more local firewood production.
But tariffs have nothing to do with the PUC targeting the use of firewood. The PUC and their special interest enablers have a vested interest in solar and wind electricity generation, and the trade of energy credits, not to mention funding the private NGO, Efficiency Vermont, and related special interest vendors to promote the heat pump industry. Firewood stoves and boilers compete with heat pumps and, rather than compete fairly, the PUC and their enablers are trying to exercise regulatory-capture to pad their own wallets.
Jay, I don’t think there is much if any cordwood coming from Canada into Vermont. On the other hand recently instituted tariffs have caused a signifcant collapse in the price loggers get for speices like ash. The erractic and often off the cuff tarriffs based on an ideological conviction that tariffs are the solution to all our economic ills have had unitended consequences for farmers, manufacturing, our tourist industry and consumers. Just saying, ideology needs to be tempered by practicality no matter whose ideology.
I’m a woodworker and have imported lumber from all over the world. The decrease in Ash prices has more to do with the damage caused by the Emerald Ash Bore than tariffs.
Canadians bought most of our lumber over the years because there were no U.S. tariffs. Then they would sell the milled lumber back to the U.S.. Many of our local mills closed.
And keep in mind, as a wood products manufacturer, when I sold product in Canada, they charged my clients a 30% premium (i.e., tariff), rendering my products uncompetitive.
And when I was able to sell product in Canada, if there was a warranty issue, I was not allowed to send trained personnel into Canada, even to fix a defect free of charge.
But when building houses here, Canadian sheetrockers were allowed by the U.S. to come into NH and VT by the dozens.
This was all under the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).
Trump’s tariffs are anything but “off-the-cuff”. They’re reciprocal. The Canadians have and still do charged tariffs as high as 250% on U.S. exported agricultural product. Try selling U.S. maple syrup and cheese in Canada. Trump is saying – if you treat us unfairly, we’ll reciprocate. And it’s about time someone faced this inequity.
If the Canadians remove their tariffs, Trump will remove U.S. tariffs.
Jay, I think we are going to have a difference of opinion here.
Ash prices dropped because of the tariffs when other countries immediately cancelled their orders for the wood. Ash prices were high because Vermont unlike other States that have had their ash trees devastateded by emerald ash bore still has standing quality ash for a little while longer.
If you think the tariffs have been well thought out, applied rationally and have had a positive effect on prices and for our producers, well so be it. Trump’s new 12 billion bail out for farmers who lost their markets, and flip flop on numerous items that have caused significant price increases, may indicate otherwise.
Expressing a difference of opinion without providing substantive evidence is a common strategy. But our opinions mean nothing. Our experiences and actual data, on the other hand, mean everything.
For the last ten years Yellow Birch has consistently accounted for 50–70% of the total value of Vermont’s hardwood log and lumber exports. Primary destinations are Canada (especially Quebec for further processing into veneer and flooring) and China (high-grade veneer logs). Other notable exported species (Hard Maple, Red Oak, Soft Maple) typically each represent only 5–15% of Vermont’s export value. But Yellow Birch is unequivocally Vermont’s top exported wood species.
White Ash was once a significant exported species from Vermont, but no longer.
The Emerald Ash Bore beetle reached Vermont around 2018 and has since killed the vast majority of mature ash trees across the state. Harvest of Ash spiked for a few years (2018–2022) as landowners and loggers salvaged dying trees, and some of that salvage volume was exported. But post 2022 Ash salvage dropped dramatically. Most remaining ash is small-diameter, low-grade, or already dead standing. White Ash typically represents less than 1–2% of Vermont’s total hardwood export value (sometimes rounding to 0% in annual reports).
Trump’s tariffs on lumber, on the other hand, didn’t come into full play until two months ago, several years after the major decline in Ash exports. And while tariffs have, recently, affected the export market as a whole (for reasons I discussed earlier), White Ash went from a major player to a minor (almost negligible) exported species in Vermont because of the Emerald Ash Bore devastation – not tariffs.
The fact remains, by 2022 (during the Biden administration), Vermont’s Ash harvests and exports had already plummeted over 90% as mature Ash trees died off, with salvage volumes peaking briefly between 2018–2020 before crashing due to exhausted stands.
On the other hand, while correlation doesn’t always indicate causation, it appears that the decline of Vermont’s Ash exports exacerbated Trump Derangement Syndrome infections too. Go figure.
Jay, could you please site the sources for your information. Perhaps because I live in Central Vermont the conditons are different, particularly in regards to ash where it is still being harvested in great quanities, but at a lower price due to the tariffs. I also find it hard to believe that yellow birch is responsible for 50-70% of the value our wood exports. Perhaps that is because you left out white and red pine, as they are softwoods and represent a large part of our wood exports.
1. Emerald Ash Borer (EAB) Discovery and Spread in Vermont
Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets (VAAFM): Confirms first detection on February 27, 2018, in Orange County via a purple prism trap. Also covers spread to 8 counties by end of 2018 and all 14 by 2022–2023.
Link: agriculture.vermont.gov/emerald-ash-borer-beetles-emerging-vermont-june
Vermont Urban & Community Forestry Program: Details initial confirmation in February 2018 and municipal management impacts.
Link: vtcommunityforestry.org/municipal-assistance/emerald-ash-borer-management
Vermont Department of Forests, Parks & Recreation (FPR): Provides overview of EAB establishment since 2018, tree mortality rates (99% untreated), and statewide spread.
Link: fpr.vermont.gov/forest/forest-health/emerald-ash-borer-and-ash-tree-management
Vermont Invasives (VTINVASIVES.ORG): Interactive maps and resources on infested areas, including Essex County confirmation in 2022–2023.
Link: vtinvasives.org/land/emerald-ash-borer-vermont
VTDigger (2025 Article): Reports on ongoing local impacts, including detections in towns like Plainfield and Hardwick.
Link: vtdigger.org/2025/05/12/how-local-towns-are-handling-the-emerald-ash-borer/
2. Vermont Hardwood Exports: Yellow Birch Dominance and White Ash Decline
USDA Foreign Agricultural Service (FAS) Reports (2023–2025): Annual data showing yellow birch at 50–70% of hardwood export value ($25–40M annually); white ash <1–2% post-2022 due to EAB salvage drop (90%+ decline since 2018 peak).
General Link: fas.usda.gov/data (Search: "Vermont Hardwood Exports 2023–2025")
Vermont Agency of Commerce & Community Development (ACCD): State export statistics confirming yellow birch as top species (60–70% value), with ash negligible; total hardwoods ~$645M to Canada in 2024.
Link: vermont.gov/agency/commerce (Export Reports)
Stillwater Forestry LLC (2022–2025 Timber Price Reports): Details on ash salvage spike (2018–2022) then 90% drop; yellow birch steady at $150–300/stumpage; strong export demand for birch to Canada/China.
Link: stillwaterforestry.com/forestry/vermont-2022-timber-prices.php
National Hardwood Lumber Association (NHLA): 2023–2025 market reports on ash export fall (from #2–3 pre-2015 to "other hardwoods"); birch dominance in veneer/furniture.
Link: nhla.com/market-reports
World's Top Exports (2023 Analysis): Vermont's overall exports ($2B total), with hardwoods as key sector; trade deficit $1.83B.
Link: worldstopexports.com/vermonts-top-10-exports/
3. 2025 Tariffs and Impacts on Vermont Wood Exports (Incl. Ash Market)
White House Proclamation (Sept. 29, 2025): Section 232 tariffs effective Oct. 14, 2025 (10% on timber/lumber, 25–50% on derivatives); potential hardwood expansion by 2026.
Link: whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/09/adjusting-imports-of-timber-lumber-and-their-derivative-products-into-the-united-states/
Vermont Public (April 2025 Article): Tariffs could cost $1B/year; retaliation risks on $645M Canada exports; ash/timber vulnerable.
Link: vermontpublic.org/local-news/2025-04-03/businesses-worry-trump-tariffs-will-shrink-vermonts-nearly-2b-global-export-market
Newport Vermont Daily Express (April 2025): 40% construction cost hike; Vermont's $2.4B Canada imports/$645M exports; two sawmill closures (2023–2024) increase reliance.
Link: newportvermontdailyexpress.com/news/tariffs-will-hurt-wood-products-industry-in-vermont
Yale Budget Lab (Oct. 17, 2025 Report): All 2025 tariffs + retaliation lower GDP growth 0.5pp; wood price hike 1.7–2.3%; $10,900/home added cost.
Link: budgetlab.yale.edu/research/state-us-tariffs-october-17-2025
ResourceWise (Oct. 2025 Blog): Section 232 on lumber; EU/Canada/China retaliations (25–125%); ash in non-exempt categories; 11–12% export drop H1 2025.
Link: resourcewise.com/blog/u.s.-section-232-tariffs-on-lumber-navigating-the-new-trade-landscape
Custom Market Insights (May 2025): 25% on softwoods/plywood (March 25, 2025); Canada 40% total; global ripple on hardwoods like ash.
Link: custommarketinsights.com/consumer-goods/u-s-tariffs-on-wood/
National Association of Home Builders (NAHB, 2025): Construction impacts; 54.4% of hardwood exports affected.
Link: nahb.org/advocacy/top-priorities/trade/tariffs
And no, I didn't read every article word for word. But the summaries are available for all. So, have at it.
And the next time you express an opinion, how about you hold yourself to the same standard.
Northeast White Pine is exported from Vermont, but at only 3%-6% of the total market Pine is not a major export species compared to hardwoods like yellow birch, hard maple, or red oak. In fact, I have loads of White Pine on my land and have found only one local mill that will take it. Forty-five years ago though, when I began managing my wood lot, Pine was easy to sell. Not the case today.
USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) & FAS (2023–2025): White pine lumber exports ~3–6% of wood products value ($15–25M annually); mostly kiln-dried boards to Caribbean/Italy; minimal log exports.
Link: nass.usda.gov/Statistics_by_State/Vermont/
U.S. Census Bureau via FRED (Federal Reserve Economic Data, 2023–2025): Manufactured goods exports (including lumber) at $144M in May 2025; non-manufactured ~$6.8M.
Link: fred.stlouisfed.org/series/EXPMANVT
U.S. Trade Representative (USTR, 2023 Data): 1,008 Vermont exporting companies; Burlington-South Burlington metro at $1.2B total exports, with softwoods like white pine in regional/domestic focus.
Link: ustr.gov/map/state-benefits/vt
Trading Economics (2025): Non-manufactured commodities (incl. pine) at $6.8M in May 2025; historical trends.
Link: tradingeconomics.com/united-states/exports-of-goods-non-manufactured-commodities-for-vermont-fed-data.html
John, it’s time for you to do your own homework for a change. I suspect, if you did, you would be less suscpeptible to progressive-liberal nonsense that other lazy Vermonters pay attention to.
Jay,
I appreciate your insights and research.
My thoughts and experiences are based more locally on what those in the timber harvesting industry, in which I have family members and friends actively involved, are experiencing. It is different than some of the material you provided, especially regarding the availiablity, quality and cost of ash, which is still at this stage, relatively healthy and prevelent in this part of Vermont.
My original point, which I will stick by, is that while trade adjustments needed to be made, the Trump tariffs have been applied in an ideological not practical manner which have resulted in unitended consequences for those in the forest product industry, farmers, businesses and consumers.
Although long into my retirement, I still work part-time at the Justin Morrill Homestead in Strafford as a caretaker and lead docent. I spend a good deal of time studying the life of this son of a Strafford blacksmith, who after a sucessful career in running stores and being involved in banking and investmenst went on to serving Vermont for 44 years in Washington DC. Morrill was a advocate of tariffs, wrote the Morrill Tariff of 1860, served as Chair of the Ways and Means Committee during the Civil and afterwards as the Chair of the Senate Finance Committee. During this time he was a key figure guiding economic policy in the United States. Over these years, he carefully crafted tariff legislation to have the most postive effect and the least unintended consequences. Something that stands in contrast to the currenlt chaotic and slap dash manner way tariffs have been applied which has resulted in unitended consequences in our country.
Re: “Trump tariffs have been applied in an ideological not practical manner which have resulted in unitended consequences for those in the forest product industry, farmers, businesses and consumers.”
The classic false dichotomy. Since when is ideology not a practical matter? And why do you persist at characterizing the results as ‘unintended consequences’?
John, some introspection is in order on your part. Because you and I have been down this path before when discussing suicide rates and drug overdoses during the Covid panic. I continue to provide factual data for you, to a degree that is overwhelming for almost everyone, and still, you base your opinions and recommendations on emotion and isolated anecdotal experiences.
If there is a common thread to those on your side of the aisle, it is what other similarly motivated commenters have opined…. ‘facts are meaningless’.
Tariffs are a defensive tool. That they are ‘reciprocal’ is a concept you can’t seem to wrap your head around. When other countries impose tariffs on the U.S., it is a reasonable practice to respond in kind… for three reasons.
First: To level the economic playing field. Free markets thrive when no tariffs exist. But when tariffs are imposed by one party to an agreement, how else does the other party level the playing field but to impose ‘reciprocal’ tariffs. The U.S. has been doing this since Washington was president.
Second: To incentivize businesses around the world to return to the U.S. where they got their start. Greedy crony capitalists allowed countries like China, who has anything and everything but a free market economy, preferential ‘most favored’ status in hopes that China would change its policies, economic and in domestic human rights. Clearly, it didn’t work out that way. Now it’s time to reciprocate and incentivize businesses to return production and manufacturing back to the U.S..
And third: And perhaps the most import positive feature of tariffs, they are a diplomatic tool. For example, when a country produces and exports illicit drugs into the U.S., that kill, literally, hundreds of thousands of Americans, we can react in three ways. We can roll-over and do nothing, allowing our behavioral norms to be devastated by these drugs. We can go to war, blow up drug trafficking boats in the Gulf of America, or (as may be the case soon enough) actually attack a country like Venezuela that is run by warlords and world-wide drug cartels, or we can impose strict economic sanctions and tariffs on those countries.
Your choice, John. Roll over and overdose. Go to a kinetic war footing. Or impose tariffs and try, as peacefully as possible, to promote our free enterprise form of governance.
If you have other options, with concrete examples of how they work, let’s hear it. But please. Stop complaining about Trump. He’s the best option we have right now.
You obviously don’t understand the positive economics of tariffs or their positive relationship to world peace. See above.
Honestly, I am very tired of these people with agendas who have based their demands on so-called facts that are not based on true information and certainly lack any measure of common sense. Go manage your own lives and get the heck out of my house and the path I have chosen to live for myself and my family. Don’t you just love folks who move into our state because it is so quaint and special up here only to work to change it into the same as what they left.
Question, do people that live in our neighboring states heat their homes with firewood? Just asking….
Only on the East side with a little to the South
Heat pumps work well in places like Japan, where there’s plenty of ambient heat (from the ocean) to capture and circulate into the conditioned space.
Go into VT winter. At 10 degrees F and below, guess what? There’s no ambient heat to capture and recirculate, and your heat pump becomes an electric resistance heater, like the ones they installed in the 70’s with the promise of cheap, unlimited electricity from nuclear plants. How many of those electric baseboard systems exist today?
And when the power goes out, well, start breaking up the furniture.
Any half-wit, self included, can understand this. That the VT legislature cannot is adequate testimony.
It was 8 degrees below zero Fahrenheit at my house this morning. My downdraft wood gasifying boiler is chugging along nicely, burning wood I harvested from my land in accordance with my ‘current use’ forestry plan… and heating my modest 3 bedroom house and it’s hot water too. Six to eight cords per season.
The boiler burns as efficiently as oil or natural gas.
And harvesting one’s own firewood keeps one warm several times more than twice… to be sure. Keeps me in shape too.
Otherwise, I’d need a heat pump in every room to do the same thing. And Lord only knows what my electric bill would be.
I use a masonry heater which is over 90% efficient. It burn so clean you do not see smoke coming out the chimney. The chimney itself only needs to be cleaned once a decade. We burn 3-4 cord a year and in conjunction use heat pumps powered by off grid solar panels. My bet is the system causes less pollution than most non wood burning heaters.
What the anti-biomass folks dont want to realize is that cordwood is RENEWABLE on a 30 year cycle. On very cold nights when the heat pumps are running in resistance mode, some of that base electric power is coming from non-renewable fossil fuel combustion. Burning wood is sometimes inefficient from a BTU standpoint, but the resulting CO2 is getting absorbed back into hardwood trees starting the next spring. We really dont have an air pollution problem, and even the regulations on outdoor wood-fired boiler implemented a few years back in Vermont dont make a hoot in hell of a difference in air quality. Most people I know think that wood smoke smells nice.
Excuse me, I have to put another stick of wood into my wood stove.
I wonder if the enviro-mentals keep track of the volcanos and earthquakes popping off in diverse places quite frequently of late? Birthing pains? Being it is said the sun is burping off plasma in flame thrower fashion – the earth’s magnetsphere getting pummled – makes me wonder which area will be the next Monsarratt or Pompeii. The climate under our feet is ripping new ones and there is absolutley nothing anyone can do about it – except act like clowns thinking they can change the course of timelines and the universe. They can only lie about it.