Wood pellets

About wood pellets

Lumber by-products such as sawdust and shavings are the ingredients used to make wood pellets.

Such pellets are manufactured at over twenty production sites which together produce almost one million tons of wood pellets per year. Wood pellets can be used in burners, stoves or boilers at private residences. When burned, wood pellets emit very little pollutant into the surrounding air. The low emissions of wood pellets has been proven both in scientific laboratories as well as by examining chimneys of wood pellet burning burners and stoves.
While currently lumber by-products such as shavings and chips are used to make pellets, as demand for pellets increases, so to will the range of raw materials used to create pellets. For instance, energy crop byproducts, waste left behind after logging, agricultural waste, and organic waste from households could all be used to make fuel pellets. While it is possible to create fuel pellets from these sources, these fuels may be chemically complex and emit pollutants.

Unpredictable combustion of pellets made from these alternative sources could result in unmanaged emissions of compounds hazardous to the environment as well as to people’s health. For these reasons, it is important to study the burning properties and emissions of pellets made with innovative raw materials prior to introducing their use to the residential or mainstream markets.
Any pellet fuel with substantial emissions will require large-scale combustion sites employing technologically appropriate ventilation and advanced gas neutralization mechanisms. However, it does appear environmentally and toxicologically safe to increase residential use of pellets composed of pure trunk wood.

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