Good Morning Strawman Will.
(or, Will the Strawman)
I haven’t been following this straw topic as I decided by experiences of “all Biomass” using a while back that tree to direct use fuel wood was the shortest, directest route for Individual/Family making of shaft and electric powers.
I am really responding now that you have in detail lined out your experiences and goals in the “What’s Your Motivation” topic. All observations, goals, and desires that I pretty much agree with.
This is your started topic so you more or less act as the first moderator here.
Going back to your originating post here, you say that you actually do have some of your own site trees/wood that could be available? (or,maybe someone else new here?)
On your Why Woodgas post you say you also carrot on a stick, donkey-like followed bought out fuels for heat trends . . . and always found “they” would change the game on you.
Us too . . . in my family’s. One branch: fuel oil → to propane → to electric heat → to wood pellets → now back to electric heat.
Another branch: railed in coal (anthracite) → to fuel oil ->to electric heat → to wood pellets.
Only us branches insisting on remaining living out Rural with out own, owned, wood lots have every had stable, reliable heating insisting on continuing using “old” 19th/20th century woodstoving.
We’ve been the ones with the far least fuel tax burdens. The only ones with actual heating energy FREEDOM. And we actually overall live longer, healthier, annual sweating in our fuel woods. Our kids grow up more responsible always having a wood-heating work ethic demand. Learn to young-muscles responsibly help the family elderly with their woodstoving needs.
Yeah. Yeah. Each of us woodstoving branches have progressively been insulating, upgrading, Then windows replacing in our old houses. Upgrading wood stoves to modern secondary, even quad-zone clean-burn engineered types. Upgrading chimneys to coded/insurable modern doublewall insulated SS types. Earhquake contry and I am glad to see the 1940’s brick chimney gone now.
We burning up to 60% less wood by volume per household annually now. And burning cleaner.
Even owing your own wood lots at lowest tax’s/gov’mint interference; wood-for-power is not exactly cheap. Certainly NOT free. Wears out chainsaws, wood trucks. Lots of splitting maul handles broken. Grinding shells and files worn out, sharpening. Fuels for the wood splitter, saws, tractors and trucks.
The energy control and freedom is the priceless part of it.
Buying discard hay/straw from a field growing neighbor is no different from buying out any other fuel-enegy. A start cheap - goes up. Become then demand driven up, unavailable. Demand bid-for.
Here, Washington State this “sale-exchange” is taxable at a 7-8% rate.
Even, YOU, sell your firewood out requires you to report, collect and send in taxes on these sales.
Then in other adjacent states and US Federal gov’mint you are supposed to report “income” and pay social-obligation taxes on all sale/BARTER incomes.
So beyond the technical problems, the more equipment steps to process and use, AG “wastes” as fuels . . . . they will carry a much higher tax exposure risk versus just more directly using your own site-grown wood-for-fuel.
Wood-for-fuel IS the ordinary mans only true freedom fuel.
All else cannot be no-till site produced like tree-woods and therefore you always end up back playing their same games. For their same gains. You experience the loss’s. Loss of Freedom. Loss of Independence. Loss of personal control over your life for yourself and yours.
Over and above the challenge “fun” of forcing some system to work in some fashion;
why many, many here will say “wood does it better, and easier”.
The real splitting point I find is whether a fellow is doing alternative energy for himself/his family . . . .or out world saving.
The first is direct, doable, achievable.
The second is Cyrano-like, windmills tipping. Windmills have a reluctance to give-in, give-up. And react bite you back.
Best regards
J-I-C Steve Unruh
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