Alternative Fuel Sources From Biomass to Solar Energy

When I was growing up, my family used an alternative fuel source but we didn't know it. We heated the house, cooked, and heated water with wood, a very plentiful fuel source in this mountain lumber town. Everyone else in town burned wood also and every so often a live coal would ignite a shingle and a wooden house would burn down. My mother was thrilled when she was able to switch from wooden stove cooking to propane and my parents, tired of hauling, chopping, carrying wood, stoking the fire, and shivering in the morning switched to natural gas heat as soon as it was available. To them, this was the alternative fuel.

Now the trend is in the other direction, pushed by rising fuel costs and a desire to "live off the grid." Many people would also like their energy use to be more "green." For these and other reasons people are looking at alternative fuels again. They are looking at various kinds of biomass and at solar, wind, and hydro energy.

Biomass includes vegetation and trees, waste material such as municipal solid waste, sewage, and animal wastes, forestry and agricultural residue and certain types of industrial waste. Biomass is renewable.

An example would be a stove that can burn corn, biomass, or wood pellets. The air is compressed and driven separately into the burn pits, developing higher temperatures and a more efficient burn. The cost of operation is about $6.00 per million Btu. The cost of heating oil is at least $18 per million Btu and rising fast. This stove is a far cry from the old Kalamazoo that I grew up with. In addition to being much more efficient, these stoves must meet strict emission standards. There are also new coal burning stoves that are virtually maintenance free. They don't create kind of mess and pollution the old soft coal stoves did.

In some areas of the country, especially in the northeast, you can buy biodiesal. Its use is very common in Italy. Here it is usually mixed with number 2 heating oil. It is renewable, cleaner burning, and emits no sulfurs.