First I should tell you that the thought of winter scares me to death this year. Our little house uses 650 gallons of heating oil even with the significant conservation measures we took last year. I considered purchasing a wood pellet stove a few weeks ago, but decided against it when it appeared that both the equipment and pellet supply had evaporated due to a mad rush from people in the same fix.
Today the BDN ran three interesting pieces onwood pellets. One contained news of an oil-dealer-sponsored study concluding that wood pellets are "more polluting" than oil heating systems. (I guess the wood pellets have frightened our friendly oil dealers.)
I'll set the pollution issue aside for now, and just give a couple of thoughts about the story headlined "Don't panic: Popular pellets plentiful." This is an interesting headline, because just about every quote in the actual story suggests exactly the opposite:
In the short term, the demand for pellets is like a gold rush
we could sell more pellets than we are making
people are panicking and hoarding both stoves and pellets
people are unnecessarily buying enough pellets for two to three years
The retailers are panicked and are overbuying
We can?t even begin to scratch the surface of the demand
Firms in the United Kingdom are already sourcing wood pellets in Maine
homeowners are unable to obtain pellet stoves because manufacturers did not increase production fast enough
Bell said his company sells only to retailers and "we are very, very busy. We aren?t taking on any new customers."
If you have a pellet stove and you don't have pellets, maybe you should think about panicking?
I would only consider putting in a pellet unit if I could at the same time stockpile about 5 tons, enough for perhaps a bit more than a year.
UPDATE (Fri., noon): Please post your wood pellet reports below in comments. One very interesting item on supply experience is already there. ...
Posted by The Owl on Jul 24 at 13:49. Filed under: Energy
Imagine my surprise at about 7:50 am when the power winked off. As far as I can remember, we haven't had a significant outage for 18 months. I come to find out this one was a doozy:
Power Restored To Most Of Bangor Area
Strong Storms Knocked Power Out
POSTED: 10:56 am EDT July 24, 2008
UPDATED: 11:13 am EDT July 24, 2008
BANGOR, Maine -- Power is restored to most of Bangor Hydro-Electric's service area after eastern Maine was left in the dark Thursday morning due to a suspected lightning strike as strong thunderstorms rumbled across the state.
More severe thunderstorms were predicted for later in the day in much of Maine.
More than 118,000 customers lost their electricity shortly before 8 a.m., but Bangor Hydro spokeswoman Susan Faloon said the total was trimmed to just under 1,300 in scattered areas within two hours. ...
What I want to know is how storm effects caused such a widespread outage. This recalls the August 14, 2003 East Coast blackout: a relatively small storm effect cascades through an entire grid.
People should understand that our energy systems are more fragile than they appear to be.
Posted by The Owl on Jul 24 at 13:12. Filed under: Energy
He's right. "The future of human civilization is at stake." We must think big on energy.
I wrote this in a private list a few days ago:
The Owl: The oil price is inflating at a 100% rate. That can't go on for long before a lot of people really start getting hurt. It's a F---ING EMERGENCY! Big, bold, massive solutions are needed, both short and long term.
FOR GOD SAKE, the DEMOCRATS just passed $165 billion for war. How much do you think it would take to give 4 kilowatts of photovoltaics to every household in America? $3 trillion. You could probably do that with plenty of extra money left to jumpstart a plug-in hybrid industry. In 20 years the transport fleet could run 40-60% on solar energy and only need a gallon of gas for every 200 vehicle-miles. Sounds expensive, but that's the overall cost of just Iraq and they're doing that.
The Democrats still aren't thinking big enough. But that might change.
I hope so, but I remain skeptical despite some signs that Obama may be starting to "get it." I cited THIS recent swing state ad attacking the Republican drilling bromide, released by the Obama campaign ten days ago.
My problem with Obama is stuff like these quotes from his energy issue page:
Foreign Oil: America's 20-million-barrel-a-day oil habit costs our economy $1.4 billion a day, and $500 billion in 2006 alone. Every single hour, we spend $41 million on foreign oil. ...
[Obama would] Invest in a Clean Energy Future
Invest $150 Billion over 10 Years in Clean Energy: Obama will invest $150 billion over 10 years to advance the next generation of biofuels and fuel infrastructure, accelerate the commercialization of plug-in hybrids, promote development of commercial-scale renewable energy, invest in low-emissions coal plants, and begin the transition to a new digital electricity grid. A principal focus of this fund will be devoted to ensuring that technologies that are developed in the U.S. are rapidly commercialized in the U.S. and deployed around the globe. ...
Sounds good, eh? WELL LOOK AT THE NUMBERS! Obama is a PIKER! He correctly gives the scale of the current foreign oil bill (inflating at a 100% rate), then gives and absolutely puny number for alternatives investment in response, $15 billion per year, not even ten days of the nation's gasoline bill, now almost $2 billion per day.
Al Gore's figure, on the other hand, "$3 TRILLION", well, that's my idea too of the scale of investment needed. (Note- I'm extremely wary of "biofuels" and "low-emissions coal plants", but those critiques will be for other posts.)
So, thanks, Al Gore, for giving some profile to the "energy tsunami" that a recent letter from of "27 former Cabinet members, White House aides and lawmakers" called the situation. I hate to agree with any panel that had Henry Kissinger as a member. But I do have to. It IS that serious.
Posted by The Owl on Jul 18 at 15:17. Filed under: Energy
Maine Owl is always glad to hear from readers. Recently, this comment came in,
Could you do more on the local front like you said when you started The Owl? Maybe instead of so much national, more state/local area issues, Dirigo insurance stuff, energy issues (ie solar, wood, pellets), what the state (our elected officials) are doing or not doing to help the people of Maine for the coming winter.
Also, "more photos".
Thanks so much, reader, for these excellent suggestions. I especially like the note about asking how we are going to deal as a state with the coming winter. There is a paralyzing gloom sinking in already. We know that there will be an emergency.
Our local newspaper, the Bangor Daily News, has had a few stories concerning government response to the fuel crisis and other energy-related matters. From reading them, I'm not sure how hopeful I should be. Here are some of the links:
June 28: A growing passion for pellets (Note: We've heard anecdotal evidence that wood pellet availability is now poor and prices will skyrocket. This story says there are long waits for stoves. This will be investigated in future posts.)
So, thanks reader. Local energy issues have always been a significant interest for me and your request for more coverage is appreciated.
Posted by The Owl on Jul 10 at 22:52. Filed under: Energy
Maine Owl is a news, comment & nature photography blog. The Owl is proprietor. He is a long-time peace & justice activist now residing in the Bangor, Maine area. Ms. Owl occasionally blogs here as Tammy. Our team also is enhanced by Gerald, formerly of Turn Maine Blue and now of the smashing blog Dirigo Blue.
