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A Tale of Two Citiesby Matt ShudtzLast week, the New York Times ran two stories that present a fascinating dichotomy in people’s response to rising home-heating costs.
On Friday, Elisabeth Rosenthal reported from the central German town of Darmstadt about “passive houses” that employ high-tech designs to provide warm air and hot water using incredibly small amounts of energy – as little as might be used to power a hair dryer.
Rosenthal explains the design briefly:
The next day, Rosenthal’s colleagues, Tom Zeller, Jr. and Stefan Milkowski, reported on an entirely different trend that is developing here in America. Homeowners are rediscovering the age-old tradition of burning coal in home furnaces and boilers. After hitting its historical low in 2006, residential coal use increased 9 percent in 2007 and over 10 percent in the first 8 months of 2008.
Simply put, coal is cheap. According to the Times, one ton of high grade coal might cost as little as $120. To get equivalent heat from heating oil might cost $380, while natural gas could run up to $480.
But coal is also dirty. Lacking pollution controls, home installations emit carbon dioxide, particulate matter, mercury, and every other pollutant found in the coal. EPA has put restrictions on wood stoves and fireplace inserts to limit particulate matter emissions, but there are no such regulations governing residential coal burning.
A little more growth in the residential coal market will likely result in regulation to protect against exactly such problems.
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