I must take a real strong exception to your statement about the low
availability of wood in Europe. In the early 90's my wife and I went to
Germany to visit and go camping with our son who was stationed there in
the US Army. At one point, near Titisee in the Black Forest of Bavaria,
we went for a long hike into a large forested area. We found hundreds
of cords of wood stacked and rotting in the forest. It was left from
thining operations.

On another occation we were with son's girl friend and her mother near
Rottenberg. We saw a very large sawmill that had not been in operation
for some time. There were huge log decks there with fairly large trees
growing out of the rotting logs.

So, while there are lots of places in Europe with few trees and other
natural energy sources, it sure isn't true generally!

Paul

Chris wrote:
"William Wixon" wrote in message
...
i've always wondered about this too.
why is it not possible to use a wood chipper to chip up trees/branches,
put them in a wire hopper (like the way they used to do corn, a corn crib)
and maybe even possibly have an auger feed mechanism into a furnace. i'm
saying, so you don't have to buy pellets from corporation. it seems it
would facilitate much faster drying, be easier to store, transport, etc.
chipper technology is fully developed, chips would obviate the need for a
expensive pelletizer machine. no splitting, stacking firewood. less
dirty, no bugs, etc.

why don't people do this?!

b.w.

People do this. Jut not in the US.

I use to live in Europe (read high gas prices and low availability of wood).
Everything is burned. Chipping branches and other waste is almost a given
in Europe. Travel to Europe and take a gander through the woods, and wonder
why they are so clean of fallen branches, etc.

In Germany feeding furnaces with an auger of chipped wood is very common.
Whole factories and even municipalities use such as a fuel. Although the
chipped wood is not limited to branches and such, but whole trees.
Reasoning being the exact reasons you stated above, ease of transportation,
storage, etc. Plus it is a lot easier to send a whole tree through a
chipper than splitting it.

It is odd that Europe, given its limited resources of wood, are many times
more advanced at burning it than we are here in the US.

Chris