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AIA. IA1v1 <br />FOR GREEN HEAT Home <br />low cabon,renerrable and Iota) <br />Issues Technology Policy Resources Blog About Q Search <br />Sustainability of Residential Wood <br />and Pellet Heating <br />The Alliance for Green Heat's mission is to promote cleaner and more efficient wood <br />and pellet heating. While our primary focus is on the technology and the regulatory <br />environment around combustion, the sustainable supply and use of firewood and <br />pellets is also paramount to our mission. <br />The most pressing sustainability issue is excessive wood smoke in many <br />neighborhoods and rural areas from wood stoves and wood boilers that <br />are not being used properly, or the technology is so poor that they <br />cannot be used without creating excessive smoke. Advanced <br />combustion wood and pellet stoves, furnaces and boilers can produce <br />renewable residential heat with minimal amounts of air pollution, <br />compared to the alternative environmental impacts caused by the <br />extraction, transport, refining and use of electricity, gas and oil heating <br />appliances. <br />Generally, there are not major sustainability issues facing the supply of <br />firewood and pellets for the U.S. domestic residential heating market. <br />Deforestation of the eastern and central US was rampant in the 1700 <br />and 1800's, peaking around 1900, due to clearing forest for agriculture, <br />building development, industrial energy, home heating, cooking, etc. <br />The advent of coal use and later oil and gas lead to dramatic <br />reductions in the use of wood for energy. Use of wood for heating <br />homes went from nearly 100% in the early 1800s, to 22% in 1940 when the <br />