maybenosey

If one day your ambitions extend to becoming president.... are you going to reddit in office as much as Trump tweets?

Wow! Given that masonry stoves are usually considered to be >90% efficient, that means rocket stoves must be about 180% efficient and able to get way more heat out of the wood than there is chemical energy stored in the wood!

On a more serious note, it's a little disingenuous to ignore the carbon from wood unless you are harvesting only trees planted for the purpose of heating (and replant as many as you use), because it's still a disruption of the natural carbon cycle. You could make the same argument that oil is part of the natural carbon cycle, it's just been locked away somewhat longer (and it definitely isn't being replenished by nature at the rate that it's being used by humans).

Note that even standing dead and fallen trees absorb carbon for a while. Eventually they will stop absorbing and start emitting as they rot; if you picked them up at the point where they went from absorbing to emitting and burnt them then, it would be reasonably carbon neutral (although the emitting would happen a lot quicker), but it would likely be pretty poor quality firewood by then, and the soil wouldn't get the nutrients that it would if you left the biomass on the forest floor.

However, the life cycle for wood is a lot shorter than for peat, which is a lot shorter than for other fossil fuels, so it's still my fuel of choice. Waste fiber (especially if originated as wood, such as paper & cardboard) is better, if the alternative is to just to let it decompose and offgas anyway.

I use wood to heat, but I'm not fooling myself that it's as carbon neutral as, say, passive solar.

How does a rocket mass heater compare to a masonry heater, in terms of efficiency and carbon footprint?

I consider it a personal victory every time an accountant or insurance adjuster realizes their dream of making a living through their photography or writing

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So, I'm wondering, do you also consider it a personal failure every time someone tries and fails to realize their dream of making a living through their creativity? Or are you taking the credit without taking the blame?

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