Wood pellets
Hands-On Guy Makes Pellets Burn Efficiently in Airtight Woodstove
Mother Earth News / Steve Maxwell / 18 November 2011
Wood pellets offer an inexpensive, environmentally responsible way to heat your home, but there’s a problem. Pellets won’t burn in an ordinary woodstove and dedicated pellet stoves are much more expensive than regular woodstoves. Pellet stoves are also more technically complicated, more trouble-prone, they need electricity and you can’t burn regular logs in them. But in the true spirit of self-sufficient problem solving, all these facts got a handy guy named Brad Palmer going.
Working in his own home workshop, he created a simple and effective device that allows pellets to be burned safely and efficiently in any woodstove. I’ve used his “Bradley Burner” myself and it works perfectly. But what’s even more interesting to me is how Brad came to create his invention, and how this is an outstanding example of self-reliance for all of us.
Brad is frugal by nature, and that stopped him from forking out thousands of dollars to buy a pellet stove when he and his wife decided that burning their airtight woodstove was too troublesome and messy in their suburban home. Brad tried burning pellets in this stove, but found that a heap of pellets only smolders uselessly -- burning about as well as a phone book or pile of magazines. The problem was air. It couldn’t get into the heart of the pile, so pellets simply sat there and smoldered. At least they did until he invented an elegant and simple solution.
German farmer touts wind co-ops in rural Ontario
Ottawa Citizen / Tom Spears / 28 June 2011
Farmers in Hans-Detlef Feddersen's neighbourhood in northern Germany make $2.5 million in a good year growing wheat. They make $15 million harvesting the wind.
The first wind turbines came to his area 20 years ago. Local residents watched them go up, did the math, and founded their own co-op to build more.
Feddersen, who farms grain, canola and sugar beets, is the co-op's manager.
This week he is touring rural Ontario with two Canadian groups promoting green energy, the Pembina Institute and Climate Action Network Canada.
He'll speak with farmers, townspeople, and politicians, with the message that wind, solar power, biomass (burning agricultural waste) and biogas (gas from manure) are good investments in farming communities.
He says it's more profitable to own the turbines, spreading the initial cost over many investors in a co-op, than to rent out land and let someone else get the dividends.
In his district, there are 600 turbines spread over 1,800 square kilometres, "and 95 per cent of them are owned by rural area co-operatives in our community. Most of the people living in our area own, or partly own, these turbines."
Ingleside: New Wood Pellet Company Will Create Jobs
Government of Ontario / Press Release / 19 January 2010
A new wood pellet company in Ingleside will create about 90 mill jobs and provide local economic spin-off benefits to the community.
Scheduled to open in spring 2011, Canadian Bio Pellet's facility will turn wood chips, sawdust and shavings into biomass wood pellets for North American and European markets. Wood pellets can be used for heating and electricity generation. The company is expected to add about $60 million annually to the local and regional economy.
CN growing “green” wood pellet traffic at double-digit rates
CN / Press Release / 05 November 2009
North America's largest mover of forest products – is on track to haul more than 800,000 tons of wood pellets this year and sees more opportunities in the future for this “green” source of heating energy.
“Since 2005, we have experienced a 16 per cent compounded annual growth in our wood pellet traffic, and we see growing potential for this business in domestic and international markets,” said James Foote, executive vice-president, Sales and Marketing.
