Demand for wood pellets could be on the rise as more Americans turn to burning wood to heat their homes in winter, according to National Geographic.
The rise in prices for traditional home heating fuels like heating oil, natural gas and electricity is driving demand for wood fuel. The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) reported recently in its annual "Winter Fuels Outlook" report that, after declining in use throughout the '80s and '90s, wood use has been on the rise for the past decade. It noted that households using wood as a main source of heat increased from 1.87 million in 2005 to 2.47 million in 2011.
As wood experiences a resurgence in use, more Americans are turning to wood pellets to heat their homes. "Pellets are much cleaner in terms of emissions," John Ackerly of the Alliance for Green Heat, a nonprofit organization that advocates the use of high-efficiency wood for home heating, told National Geographic. "They are a low-moisture, consistent, dense wood product. Wood can be variable, and when people burn wet wood in a stove they produce a lot of emissions. Wood can be very operator-dependent."
Photo credit: D-Kuru/Wikimedia Commons.
