The winter of 2024 – 2025 has had some very cold nights and days. Keeping warm in our homes can be expensive and create pollutants. However, there is always another way to do something, and since wood stoves remain popular as a heating appliance in the United States, Europe, Russia, and many other regions, we need some good humankind ingenuity.
For flexibility, as a primary or secondary home heater, how does this sound if the system can use free or low-cost fuel, have functionality during electric outages or when off-grid, and energy efficiency savings by heating just the core of the home? Well, that is the challenge of t
he project called: The 5th Wood Stove Design.
Brookhaven scientists and a team from Germany using a real-time particulate matter analyzer on a very clean wood stove design that employed gasification and combustion staging to achieve high efficiency and low emissions.
The Energy Information Agency estimates there are 12.5 million homes in the United States that use wood or pellets for space heating. In about 2.5 million homes, wood stoves serve as primary heaters, and in about 9 million, they serve as secondary heaters, according to the US Census. The 5th Wood Stove Design Challenge is funded by DOE’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy with support from the Osprey Foundation, and is managed by Brookhaven Lab, Berkeley Lab, and the Alliance for Green Heat, a Maryland based non-profit organization. End result, we have a new wood stove that is very clean, very efficient, and has very low emissions.
Bill Lauto, at GoingTrueGreen.com
Environmental Scientist
International Sustainability and Energy Consultant
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