The local hardware store here in my Maine town says people are "panic buying" pellets. They can't keep enough bags in stock.

I expect he'll have a fire sale in the Spring (as it were).

Pellet manufacturing is not an energy creation process.

Neither is drilling for oil. We still talk about energy return there. I'm particularly curious about how much energy goes into the drying.

the input form the sun counts for free.

And as usual, nature never gets paid. Not for the oil, not for the wood. But even solar energy is not free; it's being diverted from some other use. What was the number from the BBC recently, approx $7T per year "cost" to nature for what we are stripping from the forests? We're living off the built-up, stored concentrations of resources - stored by that solar energy and the forces it drives. It may only be a very small fraction, but we need to start thinking much more holistically.

cfm in Gray, ME

All Swedish forestry and related transports could be run with fishcer-tropsch diesel from gasified biomass from a fraction of the yearly yield of renewable forest resource.

Or partly by train like here in sweden http://www.branschnyheter.se/article23869.php For the people how do not understand swedish, It is a terminal for transporting timber by train and they expect it to be profitable in three to four years.

The rail is electrified so it could be run on almost anything. Will it save energy? Probably not now! where was two sawmills in the small village until just a few years ago but they are both closed now.
But it could be used to produce energy from wood with good eroei, they just have to use it in another way.

I looked seriously about setting up A wood pellet plant 2 years ago using wet wood chip from a log mill. Pulled out about a month before ordering equipment. Due to the supply chain being totaly dependant on fossil fuel and high power requirment to run the Plant. Grinding dry 20mm softwood wood chip to >3mm and pelleting into 6mm takes about 85-100Kwh of electricity. Chipping logs this goes up to 120-140Kwh Drying 50% humidity wood down to 10% using waste wood/bark uses up approx 20-30% of orignal energy in wood. This does not include energy used in loging/forwarding/trucking.
Pelleting ony works as a way for sawmills to get rid of ther waste sawdust if the previously were dumping it.It is a good substatution for oil burners, saves oil for better uses.
Fitting a wood Gassifacation boilet to new house. 91% efficient, air dryed wood (no need for all the processing add can cut the wood myself With chainsaw,an axe if things get bad)

This government? BS I have seen US governments in action for the last 50 years and they are ALL beholding to business and special interests (farming etc.). The talk may differ but the walk is the same.

Why haven't we had an energy policy for 50 years? We knew of peak oil in 1968. This is nothing new.

Gov't is not gov't. Gov't can be used to promote interests -- either private or public, common interests. There is no such thing as no gov't, or less gov't. That's not possible anymore, and has not been for a long time. What is possible is to have a gov't that tries to look ahead, tries to foresee and uses its power to protect the interests of the majority and ios responsive to that majority. That's not what we have -- but it is what we need. People should oppose THE gov't, but not oppose gov't in general -- they need to take it back from the private interests that control it now. To disavow gov't is too walk away from that and guarantee that gov't will continue to remain in the hands of those who control it now -- continuing disaster.

It's funny how on a site like this - which predicts that nothing will help except returning America to what it was in 1905 (although there are articles here stating more like 1800 or even 300.000 BC* ie without any humans) comments like these are to be found.

The intrest of the majority has the problem that there's a fucking lot of majority. The only thing the majority's interested in is watchin tv on the new 500 inch plasma, a new cell phone every week and daily restaurant visits.

In other words, let's reduce energy to 1930 levels is nice. And the current "oh-no-co2" campaign is convincing people it's wise. However me (and you), and the majority are going to scream bloody murder once supplies are cut.

Lots of people will realise that a 50% cut in petroleum supply is going to fucking hurt, and they will lynch whoever's in the white house (if this guy isn't hurt by it himself, both barack's and maccain's heating bills are enormous on a warm summer's eve), for that last second of delay.

We all know "increasing efficiency" has yielded it's greatest fruits already. It can maybe cut our usage 10%, perhaps even 20%. But no more. So that type of policies is out. So you need the government to force people to "save energy".

What would "mandatory saving" policies entail ? Letting people starve ? Letting poeple freeze ? Letting people be left behind in the dark ?

That's exactly what "saving" policies entail. How exactly is cutting energy supply, even partly, better than the engineered famines comitted by the Soviets ?