6 ms·

> I personally think burning wood in housing areas should be banned entirely for health reasons ... Well yes, the entire point is that it's incredibly pollutin

> I personally think burning wood in housing areas should be banned entirely for health reasons ... Well yes, the entire point is that it's incredibly polluting, even more so than all the other fuels we're trying to supplant. Especially silly when countries simultaneously are trying to shut down nuclear, going from as green as we can practically do (fewest deaths and fewest resources per TWh) to as bad as it can realistically get (by same metrics). The only worse source of energy I can think of would be people burning their own trash as-is.

Retric 4y ago
Grid solar has both fewer deaths than Nuclear and uses fewer resources like water, thus the lower costs. Rooftop solar is dangerous because people are putting stuff on roofs and can fall off in the process, so rooftop solar probably shouldn’t be subsidized IMO.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- WHATDOESIT 4y ago
  To replace just a single nuclear reactor you need so many solar panels that the deaths caused by the transportation will be significant - accidents, pollution + you have to count the damaged roads that need to be replaced - again pollution and accidents. And high-voltage electricity is not exactly safe - you would need so much electrical work that there simply must be a lot of death from accidents too, on this scale we're getting into the area where it's statistics and not really something to simply prevent. Solar panels need to be replaced after 30 years max, but most probably will be replaced much earlier because the operators want to pocket the improved efficiency of newer panels. Reactors will need maintenance but it is normal to keep them running much longer. Also, what about the human labor? To maintain such large solar array you'd need hundreds of people. A modern nuclear powerplant with 5+ reactors is maintained by few dozens of people. I'm a huge proponent of solar energy - but on rooftops, not as a replacement of nature or nuclear power. It will never be possible to phase out fossil fuels in transport and industrial uses without nuclear power - solar just doesn't scale this much, it's perfect for individual houses but you just can't power thousands of large container ships with it, nor blast furnaces etc - and definitely not the uncountable amount of trucks and cars on roads.
  - mqus 4y ago
    >Solar panels need to be replaced after 30 years max, but most probably will be replaced much earlier because the operators want to pocket the improved efficiency of newer panels. Reactors will need maintenance but it is normal to keep them running much longer. Also, what about the human labor? To maintain such large solar array you'd need hundreds of people. A modern nuclear powerplant with 5+ reactors is maintained by few dozens of people. To just pick at one of your "statistics": E.g. Flamanville, a reactor plant with 2 reactors (and 1 being built) employed 670 people (not a "few dozens")[1]. I would argue the solar panels are the ones needing much less people. The ones I know don't need any kind of big servicing. But in those sizes this is pure speculation from my side. > To replace just a single nuclear reactor you need so many solar panels that the deaths caused by the transportation will be significant - accidents, pollution + you have to count the damaged roads that need to be replaced - again pollution and accidents. And high-voltage electricity is not exactly safe - you would need so much electrical work that there simply must be a lot of death from accidents too, on this scale we're getting into the area where it's statistics and not really something to simply prevent. Electronics-wise I don't see why there is so much more (and more dangerous) work involved in wiring up solar panels compared to constructing a nuclear plant. But I don't have statistics on that. I also wanted to know if your "deaths caused by the transportation will be significant" makes any sense. For that I tried to estimate the kind of size a solar park would have be to replace a reactor plant, e.g. Flamanville. Flamanville produces 14TWh per year. I took [2] as a reference(2.14km², 117GWh) and it came out to 256km² of area to produce the same amount of energy per year with solar in the flat part of germany. Storage is missing there. This is a huge amount of space, but also nothing that will produce "significant accidents" on its own. Constructing reactors and transporting fuel rods and nuclear waste is also a huge act with tons of material involved. > It will never be possible to phase out fossil fuels in transport and industrial uses without nuclear power - solar just doesn't scale this much, it's perfect for individual houses but you just can't power thousands of large container ships with it, nor blast furnaces etc - and definitely not the uncountable amount of trucks and cars on roads. Maybe direct batteries are not a solution for transport and industrial uses. But green h2 would be. This then has the fortunate aspect that it can be produced anywhere and independent of the need, e.g. in the Sahara and only when the sun shines. In that way solar can replace fossil fuels and nuclear power. Regarding cars and regular power use (btw germany covers ~40% of its energy with renewables already, taking this times two or three is not an issue of "scale"), lets just take the solar example from above and try to do 150% of germany's current power needs in full solar and see where that gets us. Germany needed 624 TWh in its peak year (2007, [3]), lets be generous and say we need 1000TWh in the future. This comes down to 18300 km². Germany has an area of 358000km². So our (very generous) solar capacity would need about an area of 5%. How much is 5%? According to [4], citys and streets (etc.) sum up to 14.5%, Agriculture has about 50%, Forests 30%. Since we can "simply" put the panels on top of the first category and don't have to replace existing areas most of the time, this looks pretty feasible to me, even with exaggerated demands in napkin calculations. So maybe it does not scale well, but it does scale. And all of this does not take into account that solar is not the only option. Power from wind is a great way to mix since wind is strong mostly when there is no/less sun. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flamanville_Nuclear_Power_Plant https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flamanville_Nuclear_Power_Plan... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Templin_Solar_Park https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Templin_Solar_Park (https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solarpark_Templin_%E2%80%93_Gro%C3%9F_D%C3%B6lln https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solarpark_Templin_%E2%80%93_Gr... has the energy statistics regarding GWh in 2017) [3] https://www.umweltbundesamt.de/daten/energie/stromverbrauch https://www.umweltbundesamt.de/daten/energie/stromverbrauch (german, but the graph should be readable) [4] https://www.umweltbundesamt.de/daten/flaeche-boden-land-oekosysteme/flaeche/struktur-der-flaechennutzung#die-wichtigsten-flachennutzungen https://www.umweltbundesamt.de/daten/flaeche-boden-land-oeko... (also german)
- WastingMyTime89 4y ago
  A nuclear power plan doesn’t “use” water. It takes fresh water in and reject it later a bit warmer. That’s pretty much it. Water usage must be one of the silliest metric used in ecology by the way. Water doesn’t magically disappear when it’s “used”. What’s important is the share of the potable water available in an area used by an activity and how much other pollutants are released in the water.
  - leereeves 4y ago
    > A nuclear power plan doesn’t “use” water. Some nuclear power plants have cooling towers that evaporate large quantities of water.
    - TheLoafOfBread 4y ago
      So it will flow away into universe...
      - leereeves 4y ago
        Water use doesn't mean destroying water. It means using some of the limited quantity of water that's available at a given time in a given place, using it for a given purpose and not some other purpose. Water that evaporates isn't available for drinking and showers and farming.
        WHATDOESIT 4y ago
        It is - it will rain down not too far away.
        leereeves 4y ago
        So it will be available again in the future, but it's not available right now anymore. I guess everyone here lives someplace with abundant water. When water supplies are actually limited, using water for one purpose means water isn't available for something else. Edit: I know nothing about European water supplies, but with a quick search I found news suggesting that is an issue even in Europe: https://www.euronews.com/2022/08/08/nothing-left-in-the-pipes-europe-tackles-unprecedented-water-shortages-as-heatwave-rages https://www.euronews.com/2022/08/08/nothing-left-in-the-pipe...
- billythemaniam 4y ago
  GAF Energy in the last year came out with nailable solar shingles so the installation process is similar to a normal roof. I think that's the future because it only adds a relatively small cost to the cost of replacing a roof or new one, doesn't require any structural changes to framing (sometimes needed), and the risk of "stuff falling" is the same. https://www.gaf.energy/timberline-solar/ https://www.gaf.energy/timberline-solar/
  - mindslight 4y ago
    Are these available to DIYers? I'm building a shed and would just as soon use these if I could. As it stands, I'm just going to overbuild the roof structure a bit and then add racked solar when I get around to it.
    - billythemaniam 4y ago
      I don't know, but I recommend reaching out. Sounds like a cool project!
  - Retric 4y ago
    It’s better, but I still expect some fool to climb up onto their roof in the winter to remove snow etc. When you start talking 100’s of millions of homes your end up dealing with vast numbers of really dumb people.
    - billythemaniam 4y ago
      Bold, wild claims require evidence for the rest of us to believe you. Got any?
      - Retric 4y ago
        Bold? Here’s a video of someone actually falling off their roof, but you can find plenty of videos where people are walking around their roof looking at their panels. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RA4HrMy9djk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RA4HrMy9djk Here’s an article actually recommending it for flat roofs. Using a Shovel Method Shoveling is the riskiest of the snow removal procedures from your roof. The reason for this is that it requires you to climb to the roof to remove the snow. There’s risk in climbing the ladder, the shoveling itself, and the risk of damaging the roof if you step in a weak spot or hit the shovel on a delicate part of the roof. However, it is the best especially on a flat surface/roof https://roofscour.com/how-to-remove-snow-off-roof/ https://roofscour.com/how-to-remove-snow-off-roof/
- goodpoint 4y ago
  > Rooftop solar is dangerous because people are putting stuff on roofs and can fall off in the process This is very misleading. Roofing is dangerous and deaths when installing panels are blamed on solar energy. Yet, people need to build and rebuild roofs anyways. If solar panels or shingles are installed when a house is built or refurbished accidents should not be blamed on solar energy. Additionally, some countries (especially US) have poorly enforced work safety regulations and that can be improved. Plus, houses can be built with safe roofs i.e. flat roofs.
  - Retric 4y ago
    It’s not just installing panels homeowners will climb up to remove snow, do maintenance, etc. On a house by house basis it’s not a significant risk, but when you start comparing it to the ~1/2 billion homes it would take to equal the worlds nuclear power plants low risks do add up.
    - goodpoint 4y ago
      > when you start comparing it to the ~1/2 billion homes it would take to equal the worlds nuclear power plants ...while also completely ignoring the systemic risks involving the latter.
      - Retric 4y ago
        Over grid solar? There are some edge case advantages to rooftop solar for individual homeowners, but when everyone is connecting to the grid anyway I don’t think it’s a good idea to subsidize the more expensive option. It’s simply a waste of public funds when we can hit a larger bank for the buck both economically and environmentally.
- spookie 4y ago
  There's not enough sunlight per day in the coming months in most of Europe. How's solar going to help?
retcore 4y ago
Pre pandemic, London air quality was returned to worse than before the Clean Air Act by wood burning for vanity hearths. Related earlier discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32765950 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32765950 and earlier NYT article with more information about European protected forest cutting, legal and illegal: https://archive.ph/7se1H https://archive.ph/7se1H
sam_lowry_ 4y ago
> I personally think burning wood in housing areas > should be banned entirely for health reasons Contemporary pellet burners and inserts are incredibly cost-effective and clean. Gosh, even heating with peat is ecologically sound if it is extracted nearby.
- mjhay 4y ago
  Peat is only arguably renewable though - it grows at something like half a mm a year in thickness. Vegetation takes a long time to come back in those environments, and there's also so many more high-value things the peat could be used for instead. We must leave our grandchildren a world with Laphroaig..
sschueller 4y ago
Pellets in Switzerland are all from local Forrest that are specifically used for this. The manufacturing of pellets requires no additives and if 4 or more homes are sharing a burner (recommended) the burner has to meet very strict emissions and needs to be inspected regularly. Because the resources are local and the burning only produces CO2 which is planted again, it is considered quite sustainable. If course a geo thermal heat pump and solar would be better but not every one has 100k extra to get that installed.
- nkurz 4y ago
  Here in the US I don't think I've ever heard of a shared burner between multiple homes. It seems like an interesting idea. How common are these? How does it typically work? Does one home owner sell heat to the neighbors, or is it jointly owned? Or is there no "typical", and it's always a custom arrangement?
  - sirfrankiecrisp 4y ago
    I don't know about typical, but I know a couple of people (here in Switzerland) using pellets and they jointly (that is, together with their neighbours) own the burner. They made the investment together and pay for all expenses together. I also heared that it makes most sense for a densly populated area like an old town (talking about european old towns) or big buildings like a school. Doesn't make too much sense if every one-family home has their own.
  - quickthrowman 4y ago
    It’s just a heat exchanger glycol loop that uses burning wood to generate the heat, very similar to a gas-fired boiler. With a large enough burner you can have multiple heat exchangers or multiple glycol loops with a large heat exchanger for multiple buildings, similar to how commercial buildings use a single boiler or chiller to heat/cool large buildings or multiple buildings that need multiple heating or cooling glycol loops. Most of the houses that burn wood for heat in the US are in sparsely populated rural areas where sharing a burner wouldn’t make sense due to the loop length and pumps needed to circulate the glycol. Densely populated areas in the US that need lots of winter heating generally have natural gas distribution networks.

Retric 4y ago

Grid solar has both fewer deaths than Nuclear and uses fewer resources like water, thus the lower costs. Rooftop solar is dangerous because people are putting stuff on roofs and can fall off in the process, so rooftop solar probably shouldn’t be subsidized IMO.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
WHATDOESIT 4y ago
To replace just a single nuclear reactor you need so many solar panels that the deaths caused by the transportation will be significant - accidents, pollution + you have to count the damaged roads that need to be replaced - again pollution and accidents. And high-voltage electricity is not exactly safe - you would need so much electrical work that there simply must be a lot of death from accidents too, on this scale we're getting into the area where it's statistics and not really something to simply prevent. Solar panels need to be replaced after 30 years max, but most probably will be replaced much earlier because the operators want to pocket the improved efficiency of newer panels. Reactors will need maintenance but it is normal to keep them running much longer. Also, what about the human labor? To maintain such large solar array you'd need hundreds of people. A modern nuclear powerplant with 5+ reactors is maintained by few dozens of people. I'm a huge proponent of solar energy - but on rooftops, not as a replacement of nature or nuclear power. It will never be possible to phase out fossil fuels in transport and industrial uses without nuclear power - solar just doesn't scale this much, it's perfect for individual houses but you just can't power thousands of large container ships with it, nor blast furnaces etc - and definitely not the uncountable amount of trucks and cars on roads.
- mqus 4y ago
  >Solar panels need to be replaced after 30 years max, but most probably will be replaced much earlier because the operators want to pocket the improved efficiency of newer panels. Reactors will need maintenance but it is normal to keep them running much longer. Also, what about the human labor? To maintain such large solar array you'd need hundreds of people. A modern nuclear powerplant with 5+ reactors is maintained by few dozens of people. To just pick at one of your "statistics": E.g. Flamanville, a reactor plant with 2 reactors (and 1 being built) employed 670 people (not a "few dozens")[1]. I would argue the solar panels are the ones needing much less people. The ones I know don't need any kind of big servicing. But in those sizes this is pure speculation from my side. > To replace just a single nuclear reactor you need so many solar panels that the deaths caused by the transportation will be significant - accidents, pollution + you have to count the damaged roads that need to be replaced - again pollution and accidents. And high-voltage electricity is not exactly safe - you would need so much electrical work that there simply must be a lot of death from accidents too, on this scale we're getting into the area where it's statistics and not really something to simply prevent. Electronics-wise I don't see why there is so much more (and more dangerous) work involved in wiring up solar panels compared to constructing a nuclear plant. But I don't have statistics on that. I also wanted to know if your "deaths caused by the transportation will be significant" makes any sense. For that I tried to estimate the kind of size a solar park would have be to replace a reactor plant, e.g. Flamanville. Flamanville produces 14TWh per year. I took [2] as a reference(2.14km², 117GWh) and it came out to 256km² of area to produce the same amount of energy per year with solar in the flat part of germany. Storage is missing there. This is a huge amount of space, but also nothing that will produce "significant accidents" on its own. Constructing reactors and transporting fuel rods and nuclear waste is also a huge act with tons of material involved. > It will never be possible to phase out fossil fuels in transport and industrial uses without nuclear power - solar just doesn't scale this much, it's perfect for individual houses but you just can't power thousands of large container ships with it, nor blast furnaces etc - and definitely not the uncountable amount of trucks and cars on roads. Maybe direct batteries are not a solution for transport and industrial uses. But green h2 would be. This then has the fortunate aspect that it can be produced anywhere and independent of the need, e.g. in the Sahara and only when the sun shines. In that way solar can replace fossil fuels and nuclear power. Regarding cars and regular power use (btw germany covers ~40% of its energy with renewables already, taking this times two or three is not an issue of "scale"), lets just take the solar example from above and try to do 150% of germany's current power needs in full solar and see where that gets us. Germany needed 624 TWh in its peak year (2007, [3]), lets be generous and say we need 1000TWh in the future. This comes down to 18300 km². Germany has an area of 358000km². So our (very generous) solar capacity would need about an area of 5%. How much is 5%? According to [4], citys and streets (etc.) sum up to 14.5%, Agriculture has about 50%, Forests 30%. Since we can "simply" put the panels on top of the first category and don't have to replace existing areas most of the time, this looks pretty feasible to me, even with exaggerated demands in napkin calculations. So maybe it does not scale well, but it does scale. And all of this does not take into account that solar is not the only option. Power from wind is a great way to mix since wind is strong mostly when there is no/less sun. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flamanville_Nuclear_Power_Plant https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flamanville_Nuclear_Power_Plan... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Templin_Solar_Park https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Templin_Solar_Park (https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solarpark_Templin_%E2%80%93_Gro%C3%9F_D%C3%B6lln https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solarpark_Templin_%E2%80%93_Gr... has the energy statistics regarding GWh in 2017) [3] https://www.umweltbundesamt.de/daten/energie/stromverbrauch https://www.umweltbundesamt.de/daten/energie/stromverbrauch (german, but the graph should be readable) [4] https://www.umweltbundesamt.de/daten/flaeche-boden-land-oekosysteme/flaeche/struktur-der-flaechennutzung#die-wichtigsten-flachennutzungen https://www.umweltbundesamt.de/daten/flaeche-boden-land-oeko... (also german)
WastingMyTime89 4y ago
A nuclear power plan doesn’t “use” water. It takes fresh water in and reject it later a bit warmer. That’s pretty much it. Water usage must be one of the silliest metric used in ecology by the way. Water doesn’t magically disappear when it’s “used”. What’s important is the share of the potable water available in an area used by an activity and how much other pollutants are released in the water.
- leereeves 4y ago
  > A nuclear power plan doesn’t “use” water. Some nuclear power plants have cooling towers that evaporate large quantities of water.
  - TheLoafOfBread 4y ago
    So it will flow away into universe...
    - leereeves 4y ago
      Water use doesn't mean destroying water. It means using some of the limited quantity of water that's available at a given time in a given place, using it for a given purpose and not some other purpose. Water that evaporates isn't available for drinking and showers and farming.
      - WHATDOESIT 4y ago
        It is - it will rain down not too far away.
        leereeves 4y ago
        So it will be available again in the future, but it's not available right now anymore. I guess everyone here lives someplace with abundant water. When water supplies are actually limited, using water for one purpose means water isn't available for something else. Edit: I know nothing about European water supplies, but with a quick search I found news suggesting that is an issue even in Europe: https://www.euronews.com/2022/08/08/nothing-left-in-the-pipes-europe-tackles-unprecedented-water-shortages-as-heatwave-rages https://www.euronews.com/2022/08/08/nothing-left-in-the-pipe...
billythemaniam 4y ago
GAF Energy in the last year came out with nailable solar shingles so the installation process is similar to a normal roof. I think that's the future because it only adds a relatively small cost to the cost of replacing a roof or new one, doesn't require any structural changes to framing (sometimes needed), and the risk of "stuff falling" is the same. https://www.gaf.energy/timberline-solar/ https://www.gaf.energy/timberline-solar/
- mindslight 4y ago
  Are these available to DIYers? I'm building a shed and would just as soon use these if I could. As it stands, I'm just going to overbuild the roof structure a bit and then add racked solar when I get around to it.
  - billythemaniam 4y ago
    I don't know, but I recommend reaching out. Sounds like a cool project!
- Retric 4y ago
  It’s better, but I still expect some fool to climb up onto their roof in the winter to remove snow etc. When you start talking 100’s of millions of homes your end up dealing with vast numbers of really dumb people.
  - billythemaniam 4y ago
    Bold, wild claims require evidence for the rest of us to believe you. Got any?
    - Retric 4y ago
      Bold? Here’s a video of someone actually falling off their roof, but you can find plenty of videos where people are walking around their roof looking at their panels. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RA4HrMy9djk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RA4HrMy9djk Here’s an article actually recommending it for flat roofs. Using a Shovel Method Shoveling is the riskiest of the snow removal procedures from your roof. The reason for this is that it requires you to climb to the roof to remove the snow. There’s risk in climbing the ladder, the shoveling itself, and the risk of damaging the roof if you step in a weak spot or hit the shovel on a delicate part of the roof. However, it is the best especially on a flat surface/roof https://roofscour.com/how-to-remove-snow-off-roof/ https://roofscour.com/how-to-remove-snow-off-roof/
goodpoint 4y ago
> Rooftop solar is dangerous because people are putting stuff on roofs and can fall off in the process This is very misleading. Roofing is dangerous and deaths when installing panels are blamed on solar energy. Yet, people need to build and rebuild roofs anyways. If solar panels or shingles are installed when a house is built or refurbished accidents should not be blamed on solar energy. Additionally, some countries (especially US) have poorly enforced work safety regulations and that can be improved. Plus, houses can be built with safe roofs i.e. flat roofs.
- Retric 4y ago
  It’s not just installing panels homeowners will climb up to remove snow, do maintenance, etc. On a house by house basis it’s not a significant risk, but when you start comparing it to the ~1/2 billion homes it would take to equal the worlds nuclear power plants low risks do add up.
  - goodpoint 4y ago
    > when you start comparing it to the ~1/2 billion homes it would take to equal the worlds nuclear power plants ...while also completely ignoring the systemic risks involving the latter.
    - Retric 4y ago
      Over grid solar? There are some edge case advantages to rooftop solar for individual homeowners, but when everyone is connecting to the grid anyway I don’t think it’s a good idea to subsidize the more expensive option. It’s simply a waste of public funds when we can hit a larger bank for the buck both economically and environmentally.
spookie 4y ago
There's not enough sunlight per day in the coming months in most of Europe. How's solar going to help?

retcore 4y ago

Pre pandemic, London air quality was returned to worse than before the Clean Air Act by wood burning for vanity hearths. Related earlier discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32765950 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32765950 and earlier NYT article with more information about European protected forest cutting, legal and illegal: https://archive.ph/7se1H https://archive.ph/7se1H

sam_lowry_ 4y ago

> I personally think burning wood in housing areas > should be banned entirely for health reasons Contemporary pellet burners and inserts are incredibly cost-effective and clean. Gosh, even heating with peat is ecologically sound if it is extracted nearby.

mjhay 4y ago
Peat is only arguably renewable though - it grows at something like half a mm a year in thickness. Vegetation takes a long time to come back in those environments, and there's also so many more high-value things the peat could be used for instead. We must leave our grandchildren a world with Laphroaig..

sschueller 4y ago

Pellets in Switzerland are all from local Forrest that are specifically used for this. The manufacturing of pellets requires no additives and if 4 or more homes are sharing a burner (recommended) the burner has to meet very strict emissions and needs to be inspected regularly. Because the resources are local and the burning only produces CO2 which is planted again, it is considered quite sustainable. If course a geo thermal heat pump and solar would be better but not every one has 100k extra to get that installed.

nkurz 4y ago
Here in the US I don't think I've ever heard of a shared burner between multiple homes. It seems like an interesting idea. How common are these? How does it typically work? Does one home owner sell heat to the neighbors, or is it jointly owned? Or is there no "typical", and it's always a custom arrangement?
- sirfrankiecrisp 4y ago
  I don't know about typical, but I know a couple of people (here in Switzerland) using pellets and they jointly (that is, together with their neighbours) own the burner. They made the investment together and pay for all expenses together. I also heared that it makes most sense for a densly populated area like an old town (talking about european old towns) or big buildings like a school. Doesn't make too much sense if every one-family home has their own.
- quickthrowman 4y ago
  It’s just a heat exchanger glycol loop that uses burning wood to generate the heat, very similar to a gas-fired boiler. With a large enough burner you can have multiple heat exchangers or multiple glycol loops with a large heat exchanger for multiple buildings, similar to how commercial buildings use a single boiler or chiller to heat/cool large buildings or multiple buildings that need multiple heating or cooling glycol loops. Most of the houses that burn wood for heat in the US are in sparsely populated rural areas where sharing a burner wouldn’t make sense due to the loop length and pumps needed to circulate the glycol. Densely populated areas in the US that need lots of winter heating generally have natural gas distribution networks.