Hey there, I’m Andrew. I’m in alternative energy. Hell, I am an alternative energy. I could say that I sell wood fuel systems, but such a long drawn out title, along with the word “sell,” well it makes me feel like I should be wearing a plaid suit, and giving the wink-and-a-gun smile. While in Glasgow to see a client a few weeks back, someone tried to get my attention to donate money. Save the children, save the whales, stop overpopulation by feeding the children to the whales…I wasn’t sure. But to get out of it, I told her I was on my way to a meeting to “save the world.” If anything, it made her smile.
I was kind of serious, though. What I’m doing here is trying to change the way we look at energy. We’re on the cusp of having wireless electricity. Our air is already charged with countless radio waves, satellite beams, and countless other invisible threads of energy. Like my food, I wanted to deal with something tangible, real, that people could see with their eyes, feel with their hands, and hopefully understand the real impact on their society, without any fru-fru gimmicks, be it curly parsley sprig, fried leek garnishes, or “paint” on the plate. I know I’m supposed to talk about wood fuels here, maintain some linear-style writing, but seriously….who wants “paint” anything on their plate? It looks like a skid mark, doesn’t add flavor, and at best just looks like your dishwasher is broken.
Alternative energy though? When will it no longer become alternative? I understand that most people are content with writing a check to NStar, then waiting it out, grumbling when they hear about oil and gas prices rising, but for the most part remaining on their collective asses, without thinking about the other options out there. But when a Rhode Island-sized chunk of ice breaks from the Arctic shelf (sadly, the actual Rhode Island is still very much attached), you have to wonder what kind of profound steps we’ll all have to take, and more to the point, what steps we should take on our own.
It’s up to you to do something about it. It’s rare that someone just stumbles onto this blog…you’ve got to know what you’re looking for, and what you’re in for, when you come to this darkened page of random coolness. As such, I’ll retain the faith that my readers have eco-concerns coursing through their veins in the way that I do. Why else would you keep coming back to my writing if it weren’t for some belief that we share a passion or two?
Frankly, I like rooting for the underdog in this case, that “crazy, alternative” form of heating. I like being able to convince people that wood pellet burners can give you hot air AND hot water; that it won’t make your boiler room hotter than a Swedish sauna, complete with Swedes. It’s a beautiful thing, in fact. We’re streamlining wood heat. The same kind of wood heat that people use to get their sexy on, sitting on a polar bear skin rug, sipping their ’84 Haut Brion. But instead of a roaring log fire, we use a closed system of roaring wood pellets. A good number of us can probably attribute our conceptions to wood heat, then; isn’t it about time we gave it a chance? And you can even keep your crackling logs and polar bear rug. Give me the wine, though…it’s fantastic. What we use is something that takes all the leftover wood, the stuff that falls on floors, gets into corners, and is found alongside discarded peanut shells on either really cool or really sketchy bars, and turn it into energy.
Wood pellets look like a more approachable version of what your rabbit would leave behind after going house on a carrot or three. The “official” size is somewhere between 6 and 8mm in length (Andrew, you mean 7mm then. Yes I do. I just love when people try to generalize like that,) with almost no moisture content. They’re compressed sawdust, hopefully no bark, and held together only by their natural resin, and God’s will. But mostly resin. Sometimes they’re scraped together from the by-product of common wood production; everything that’s left over after the majestic 2 X 4’s are cut and put into play. They are, in terms of the movie Twins, the Danny DeVito of wood production. Or, at least, they were.
Now, they’ve gained some confidence on the playground of fuel sources. In both scientific and haberdashery terms, they beat the pants off oil, gas, and coal. They’re much more fun to play with, (though who doesn’t like rolling in a good vat of natural gas?) they’re the least environmentally hazardous, and they are the most easily replenish-able. They are also carbon neutral, as any emissions from burning are equal to those given off through the natural decomposition of the wood. Huge factories are producing wood pellets at an astonishing rate. They’re safe, and best of all, efficient. Wood pellets burn at 94% on a bad day, and can burn at nearly 98% on a good day. By comparison, nuclear power? Yeah, it’s running at an all-time high of 6%. SIX FREAKING PERCENT. They’d be better off giving fuel rods to the kids to wave around at raves than use them to power our cities. The only good thing to come from nuclear power is the cool radioactive symbol, in my opinion.
What that 98% means is that there’s almost no left-over. A tad of ash, perhaps, maybe a Tablespoon a week, but that stuff is pure calcium, which spells awesomeness for your garden when used as fertilizer. Or, in culinary terms, boil it in some water, and make yourself some lye to use in such awesome recipes as Cretan donuts. I’ll send you the recipe.
So I’ve (we, I should say, as there’s also a Finn, 2 Hungarians both named Zoltan, and a ruddy English plumber…not the opening line for a joke, just a serious list of characters) been installing one at this hotel, this quaint little place where they only get 15 meters of rain a year. Go ahead, figure that out in inches. Yep, exactly. That much rain. It’s absurd. And I like the rain. My hair likes the rain; it gets all curly and sexy. But waking up in that kind of weather, day after day, makes you yearn for the chance to Google “ark building.”
I’ve learned several things from the past months of time up there, and I’ll take a second to share them with you:
1. Rocks are like snowflakes. Dirty, heavy, painful snowflakes.
2. Metric is SO much easier than Imperial. Cooking school taught me that, but this confirms it.
3. Hungarians quickly tire of you waving food at them, asking them if they’re “Hungry?”
4. Hungarians never tire of making jokes about the sexual relations of Scots and sheep.
5. As an American, I’m deemed instantly intelligent by everyone, now that Obama’s been elected.
6. If, while digging, you uncover shiny liquid that easily ignites, it’s probably not groundwater.
7. Dealing with the occurrence of #6 helps with #5. A lot.
So I’ll keep you informed of my current life in wood pellets and wood pellet accessories. For all your timber burning needs. Stay tuned.
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