Posted on 12/30/2016 5:25:04 PM PST by Twotone
In Jack London’s famous short story, “To Build A Fire,” a man freezes to death because he underestimates the cold in America’s far north and cannot build a proper fire. The unnamed man—a chechaquo, what Alaska natives call newcomers—is accompanied by a wolf-dog that knows the danger of the cold and is wholly indifferent to the fate of the man. “This man did not know cold. Possibly, all the generations of his ancestry had been ignorant of cold, of real cold, of cold 107 degrees below freezing point. But the dog knew; all its ancestry knew, and it had inherited the knowledge.”
If only the bureaucrats in Washington DC knew what the wolf-dog knew. But alas, now comes the federal government to tell the inhabitants of Alaska’s interior that, really, they should not be building fires to keep themselves warm during the winter. The New York Times reports the Environmental Protection Agency could soon declare the Alaskan cities of Fairbanks and North Pole, which have a combined population of about 100,000, in “serious” noncompliance of the Clean Air Act early next year.
Like most people in Alaska, the residents of those frozen cities are burning wood to keep themselves warm this winter. Smoke from wood-burning stoves increases small-particle pollution, which settles in low-lying areas and can be breathed in. The EPA thinks this is a big problem. Eight years ago, the agency ruled that wide swaths of the most densely populated parts of the region were in “non-attainment” of federal air quality standards.
(Excerpt) Read more at thefederalist.com ...
We forget that woodstoves provide heat from “solar energy”.
GSHPs are now installed with horizontal “wells” that can be put in with a Ditching machine vs. verticle wells. Ours was put in when we built new in ‘02. There are four 200 foot wells under the driveway.
Works great.
“I am working on this project...I won’t get into too much detail, but we are working with the State to address EPA’s concerns about the PM issues in North Pole. The entire thing is very political...”
That’s good to hear! I hope you’ll post a vanity from time to time & let us know what’s going on. Is this Article V Convention-related? Or just acting with a State Gov’t to force the Fed’s hand?
Excellent post. I’m going to steal some of that for a letter to my senators. I hope that winning the WH, plus control of House & Senate doesn’t cause people to back off of an Article V Convention of the States. The only way to stop federal nonsense like this is to make language much clearer about what the feds can & can’t do. We have GOT to get the Feral Gov’t under control.
I bought an EPA compliant stove about 14 years ago. Based on your experience I suppose it is no longer compliant. The stove works well and is the right size for my 2000 sq ft house.
Some of the newer “clean burn” inserts and wood stoves work pretty well, actually. More heat, better burn. I couldn’t care less about emissions, but if they’re better then so be it, keep the b-tards off my back. I keep waiting for them to use those ceramic thermo-electric generators on the backside of the firebox to run blower fans. Not aware of any on the market yet, but it’s coming. They just hate it when “green” works for off grid independence, it’s meant to ensnare, not liberate, lol.
Cow patties? Would have to be bear patties in Alaska.
Well, I have to partially take that back, apparently there now are thermo-electric “Peltier Effect” blower fans for wood stoves on the market. Ecofan Airmax seems to be the most prominent, after a quick web search.
One of my best childhood memories was the smell of burning leaves in the fall......
The EPA thinks they should use solar to heat the igloos?
Moose Pucks.
I can get a decent burn with the fresh air input at the top lighting up the smoke. I can overdo it and waste heat. I can also smolder some wood and have smoke pouring out of my chimney. But I would rather burn as efficiently as possible. If that helps reduce particulates, that’s great but like you, I don’t care.
The downside of the newer clean burn stoves would be expense. They’re not cheap.
mine is a allen eternal wood cook stove and it’s burning right now.
It can almost be sung to the tune of Folsum prison tunes...or some other blues type tune....
Ours was a little older than that. It was in the house when we bought it.....before they made all the silly laws. The pellet stove did go non epa compliant after we bought it. If you find the model number and serial number on the stove there are places online you can check to see if they’re epa compliant.
Here you can’t sell your house with a non epa compliant stove in it. If you leave it in you have to fill it with cement where it’s non operable. Nazi bastards.
Since ours is an insert it’s just easier to restore the fireplace.
The house I grew up in was built onto my grandfather’s country general store, thus one of its walls was the concrete block walls of the store. The store had a potbellied stove that heated it and did a good job. We would burn our paper trash in it during the winter and then add coal to it for warmth during the day. Going back to my home town last year, I realized that the place where we use to buy coal was gone, like my childhood home.
During the 1970s wood was considered a renewable energy source and environmentalist types sported bumper stickers “ Split Wood Not Atoms”
During the 1970s wood was considered a renewable energy source and environmentalist types sported bumper stickers “ Split Wood Not Atoms”
I’ll burn wood until they come for me with guns blazing!
Then, I will still burn! Nothing like the savings of burning wood that you harvested yourself. Great exercise all around and then the payoff of the wonderful wood heat!
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