subject: Are Woodburners The Heating Technology Of The Future? [print this page] At first sight, a 200 year old technology that even its original inventor would still readily recognize is not something you might suppose had much of a future before of it. The log burner doesn't after all spring immediately to mind where modern preoccupations such as eco-friendly and efficient are concerned.
But take a deeper look and you'll discover that the old-style exterior design is simply there to impart aesthetic appeal. Most contemporary wood burners are capable of combustion performance comparable to a regular gas boiler. Modern regulations have compelled manufacturers to radically improve the internal technology in order to comply with increasingly strict standards.
But even so, many people balk at the idea of burning wood. After all it involves chopping down a tree and setting light to it, which obviously sends carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. But in fact burning logs, if done properly, is almost totally carbon neutral.
In order to be viable as a sustainable fuel source, you need to grow new trees to replace the ones you fell for firewood. In fact you need quite a lot of trees growing at the same time because they take time to reach maturity. Each of these trees in fact soaks up from the atmosphere pretty much the same quantity of CO2 as will be released again when it is burnt.
In contrast to fossil fuels such as coal, oil and gas whereby CO2 is released to the air but never reclaimed, growing woody biomass (as trees are termed) ensures that the levels of CO2 remain in balance.
Obviously, any technology that is both proven and beneficial in helping control carbon dioxide levels can expect a warm reception now and for the foreseeable future. And you can assume its popularity will only increase as time goes on.
You can already see how wood burning is shaping up for a comfortable future in both the number of people adopting it as either a primary of supplemental source of heating, and the shift in regulations to encourage it.
Clearly though, the wood burning stove is no cure-all for all the problems of the modern world, not least because it cannot scale up sufficiently. But for the many that are able to take advantage, it provides a good solution. The fact that it also highly cost effective, when compared against gas and oil further, helps ensure that this is one old technology that's not quite ready to roll over just yet.
