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July 24, 2008

Wood pellet stories in Bangor Daily News

Raise more questions than answers

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 on wood 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 at 13:49. Filed under: Energy

Comments

At work we talked about the articles. One co-worker needed to wait in line to get a pallet of pellets. He called several places and they were all out of pellets and would not take orders. People, including the co-worker wait in line as the pellets are off loaded from the trucks and priced by the store before they can be purchased. He told of one couple who bought two pallets and while the guy took the first pallet home, the woman sat in a chair with a book and the second pallet.

Sure sounds like there is a shortage of pellets to me.

It was interesting to read but not surprising that the oil dealers declined to participate in a Wood-to-Energy Task Force, but are now using selective information from the study to mislead people.

There is an article in todays BDN on heating this winter. The meeting was in Ellsworth, quotes a Tim King, executive director of WHCA (Washington Hancock Community Agency. He said heating problem not a crisis but a tsunami. BDN page B2.

People are hording, they're scared!

Posted by Gary on July 25, 2008 at 09:34

Hi Gary, thanks for dropping by with this interesting report.

I'm considering a thermal storage electric heater, as the electric rate for those beats oil by 25% now. I'm glad we didn't go the pellet route. I'll post more on my computations for these units. Our old landlords in Minn. have them in their home. Of course the electric rates in Minn. look just about like free energy compared to what we have here.

I can't find that heating "tsunami" story online. Could you clip it? (We stopped our paper for the trip.)

Posted by The Owl on July 25, 2008 at 10:05

RE: pollution. The carbon emitted from wood or pellet stoves was captured from the air by the growing tree, so it is at least close to carbon neutral. Not so with heating oil.

Posted by Gordon on July 25, 2008 at 15:11

Yep. The Oil Dealers are a curious bunch. They tend to acquire a bunker mentality when they see themselves under attack. They have quite a spin operation. Of course the situation is very painful for them, being uncompetitive on price versus an alternative after having the field for decades. Actually I had quite a run-in with them when I lived in Portland during the 90s. I pointed out an error of mathematical omission in one of their anti-natural-gas ads. Whew! I had the head guy ringing my phone ... Still, now is not easy times for them either, especially the smaller dealers.

Posted by The Owl on July 25, 2008 at 15:35

My youngest and I were at Sam's Club yesterday (Saturday)at 8:00 a.m. to gas up and there were 31 trucks in line for pellets. All but a couple had large trailers. There was a dump truck with a construction trailer and had 10 pallets loaded.

The store had off-loaded the pallets of pellets in the parking lot and there was 1 fork truck loading. Not sure if there was enough pellets for all in line.

Posted by Gary on July 27, 2008 at 09:22

More evidence that of craziness in the wood pellet scene. Thanks again, Gary, for the report.

Meanwhile, check out this:
http://mdislander.com/site/...

Maybe I would trust Les Otten for "guaranteed bulk fuel delivery."

Posted by The Owl on July 27, 2008 at 09:58

Plenty of wood pellets in Ottawa, Canada... I got 4.5 tons delivered in late Aug. 2008 after one call. The pellet stoves/furnaces are very popular though and the stores are busier. New wood pellet producers are opening up like golf courses. Just glad I won't be paying $750 per month this year but, rather, $1,000 for the whole winter season with wood pellets.

Posted by Frank on September 17, 2008 at 17:57

Thanks for all the comments on this thread. A new post on this subject is here:

http://maineowl.net/blog/it...

Posted by The Owl on October 02, 2008 at 13:41
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