Wood heat continues to be used in areas where firewood is abundant. For serious attempts at heating, rather than mere ambiance (open fireplaces), stoves, fireplace inserts, and furnaces are most commonly used today. In rural, forested parts of the U.S., freestanding boilers are increasingly common. They are installed outdoors, some distance from the house, and connected to a heat exchanger in the house using underground piping. The mess of wood, bark, smoke, and ashes is kept outside and the risk of fire is reduced. The boilers are large enough to hold a fire all night, and can burn larger pieces of wood, so that less cutting and splitting is required. There is no need to retrofit a chimney in the house. However, outdoor wood boilers emit more wood smoke and associated pollutants than other wood burning appliances. This is due to design characteristics such as the water-filled jacket surrounding the firebox, which acts to cool the fire and leads to incomplete combustion. Outdoor wood boilers also typically have short stack heights in comparison to other wood burning appliances, contributing to ambient levels of particulates at ground level.
Wood is still used today for cooking in many places, either in a stove or an open fire. It is also used as a fuel in many industrial processes, including smoking meat.
As a sustainable energy source, wood fuel also remains viable for generating electricity in areas with easy access to forest products and by-products.
Gas
The advent of incandescent gas lighting in factories, homes and in the streets, replacing oil lamps and candles with steady clear light, almost matching daylight in its colour, turned night into day for many making night shift work possible in industries where light was all important in spinning, weaving and making up garments etc. The social significance of this change is difficult for generations brought up with lighting after dark available at the touch of a switch to appreciate. Not only was industrial production accelerated, but streets were made safe, social intercourse facilitated and reading and writing made more widespread. Gas works were built in almost every town, main streets were brightly illuminated and gas was piped in the streets to the majority of urban households. The invention of the gas meter and the pre-payment meter in the late 1880s played an important role in selling town gas to domestic and commercial customers.
Oil
Oil has many uses. It heats homes and businesses and fuels trucks, ships and some cars. A small amount of electricity is produced by diesel, but it is more polluting and more expensive than natural gas. It is often used as a backup fuel for peaking power plants in case the supply of natural gas is interrupted or as the main fuel for small electrical generators. In Europe the use of diesel is generally restricted to cars (which have about 40% market share), SUVs (about 90% market share) and is used exclusively in trucks. The market for home heating is very small due to the widespread penetration of gas as an environmentally friendly and efficient fuel delivered to the point of use by pipeline.
Residual fuel oil is less useful because it is so viscous that it has to be heated with a special heating system before use and it contains relatively high amounts of pollutants, particularly sulfur, which forms sulfur dioxide upon combustion. However, its undesirable properties make it very cheap. In fact, it is the cheapest liquid fuel available. Since it requires heating before use, residual fuel oil cannot be used in road vehicles, boats or small ships, as the heating equipment takes up valuable space and makes the vehicle heavier. Heating the oil is also a delicate procedure, which is inappropriate to do on small, fast moving vehicles. However, power plants and large ships are able to use residual fuel oil.
Coal
Coal is primarily used as a solid fuel to produce electricity and heat through combustion. World coal consumption is about 5.3 billion tonnes annually, of which about 75% is used for the production of electricity. The region including the People's Republic of China and India uses about 1.7 billion tonnes annually, forecast to exceed 2.7 billion tonnes in 2025.[5] The USA consumes about 1.0 billion tons of coal each year, using 90% of it for generation of electricity. Coal is the fastest growing energy source in the world, with coal use increasing by 25% for the three-year period ending in December 2004 (BP Statistical Energy Review, June 2005).
Wood heat continues to be used in areas where firewood is abundant. For serious attempts at heating, rather than mere ambiance (open fireplaces), stoves, fireplace inserts, and furnaces are most commonly used today. In rural, forested parts of the U.S., freestanding boilers are increasingly common. They are installed outdoors, some distance from the house, and connected to a heat exchanger in the house using underground piping. The mess of wood, bark, smoke, and ashes is kept outside and the risk of fire is reduced. The boilers are large enough to hold a fire all night, and can burn larger pieces of wood, so that less cutting and splitting is required. There is no need to retrofit a chimney in the house. However, outdoor wood boilers emit more wood smoke and associated pollutants than other wood burning appliances. This is due to design characteristics such as the water-filled jacket surrounding the firebox, which acts to cool the fire and leads to incomplete combustion. Outdoor wood boilers also typically have short stack heights in comparison to other wood burning appliances, contributing to ambient levels of particulates at ground level.
The advent of incandescent gas lighting in factories, homes and in the streets, replacing oil lamps and candles with steady clear light, almost matching daylight in its colour, turned night into day for many making night shift work possible in industries where light was all important in spinning, weaving and making up garments etc. The social significance of this change is difficult for generations brought up with lighting after dark available at the touch of a switch to appreciate. Not only was industrial production accelerated, but streets were made safe, social intercourse facilitated and reading and writing made more widespread. Gas works were built in almost every town, main streets were brightly illuminated and gas was piped in the streets to the majority of urban households. The invention of the gas meter and the pre-payment meter in the late 1880s played an important role in selling town gas to domestic and commercial customers.
Oil has many uses. It heats homes and businesses and fuels trucks, ships and some cars. A small amount of electricity is produced by diesel, but it is more polluting and more expensive than natural gas. It is often used as a backup fuel for peaking power plants in case the supply of natural gas is interrupted or as the main fuel for small electrical generators. In Europe the use of diesel is generally restricted to cars (which have about 40% market share), SUVs (about 90% market share) and is used exclusively in trucks. The market for home heating is very small due to the widespread penetration of gas as an environmentally friendly and efficient fuel delivered to the point of use by pipeline.
Coal is primarily used as a solid fuel to produce electricity and heat through combustion. World coal consumption is about 5.3 billion tonnes annually, of which about 75% is used for the production of electricity. The region including the People's Republic of China and India uses about 1.7 billion tonnes annually, forecast to exceed 2.7 billion tonnes in 2025.[5] The USA consumes about 1.0 billion tons of coal each year, using 90% of it for generation of electricity. Coal is the fastest growing energy source in the world, with coal use increasing by 25% for the three-year period ending in December 2004 (BP Statistical Energy Review, June 2005).