Wood Pellets
“the fuel of the future”
Wood pellets are convenient, small in size, highly dense and compact fuel, unlike other biomass fuels such as wood chips and logs. Wood pellets are made from the dry sawdust waste wood, natural and uncontaminated, a natural resin called lignin found in the wood itself serves along with high pressure to produce an extremely dense fuel of consistent quality, and have a very low moisture content. No chemicals or additives are used in manufacturing wood pellets. Together, these properties make wood pellets ideal for use in fully automatic small-scale heating systems. They are characterised by a high energy content, excellent calorific value and of course their environmental friendliness. Their ash can be used as a valuable garden fertilizer. In a home or business premise, they can directly replace oil or gas as a primary energy source for central heating and production of hot water and wood pellets much easier to transport and handle than other forms of wood fuel.
Sustainable and Clean
Wood is a renewable resource: the amount of carbon emitted as it burns is equivalent to the amount of carbon, which was absorbed as the tree grew, and also equivalent to the amount of carbon as if it were decaying ‘naturally’ on the forest floor. This means that the impact of the atmosphere is kept to a minimum. Additionally, wood pellets are normally manufactured from sawmill waste, which could otherwise become a landfill problem. Diverting it to provide a sustainable fuel source is therefore doubly advantageous from an environmental perspective. It is true that a small amount of energy is used in manufacturing wood pellet fuels, but this is less than the amount of energy used, for example, in refining crude oil. And as wood pellets are increasingly produced in the UK the environmental impacts of transporting this fuel are also lessened – and of course, the impact of transporting wood pellets is significantly less than the damage caused by obtaining foreign oil and transporting it literally half way around the world.
The advantages of pellets are:
- Indigenous and renewable product
- CO2-neutral
- Clean and easy to handle
- Convenient delivery by truck
- Unaffected by international/political crises
The first developments in wood pellet combustion took place in the early eighties, triggered by the worldwide oil crisis, when there was a heightened interest in alternative energy sources. In the USA the pellet oven was developed, and in Sweden heating systems for large capacities were implemented. But it is in the field of heating systems for small capacities such as household and commercial applications that the Austrian producers play an international leadership role. Austrian pellet heating systems are exported to countries across Europe as well as to the USA and Japan.
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