Thinking about a wood stove?

Why should you think about a wood stove? Keeping warm in the winters to come and saving the planet are both good reasons.  Our country has decided to go for green power in a big way. I am sure Detroit can provide everyone, in the USA, with a 100% battery electric vehicle by 2035. I am not sure our electric grid will keep up. The current plan is to shut down the nuclear plants that provide 20 percent of our electricity (a far greater percent of carbon free energy) within the next five years. 
Replacing nuclear plants will require three times the peak power capacity with wind and solar because wind doesn't blow all the time and the sun goes down at night. We will also need tons of batteries and about three times as much wire in the grid to power cars and heat homes.  While the output of solar panels fairly matches current peak demand for summer air conditioning, my temperate California climate requires 3,000 heating degree days versus 1,000 cooling degree days. Most states have a far higher heating requirement. California has banned natural gas piping for new homes. The United States is already raiding the emergency oil reserves, just to keep gasoline prices under $5/gallon through Christmas.   
Winter is fast coming and I am busy stacking stove wood for the colder nights. The Bear Fire killed all the trees on my property so cutting to length and splitting will keep me warm even before I burn it. Pine wood is free for the asking in much of the burn scar areas.
If you live in the city, you might look at a pellet stove.  While most have electric screw feeds, you can find some with gravity feed that will stay working in a power outage. Our next gravity outage will be the first.
Burning wood in stoves saves the planet because wood grows back, pulling carbon from the atmosphere. Even if you are skeptical about human caused global warming, you may want to preserve some fossil fuels for our grandchildren.
Burning wood in stoves also provides a market for loggers to harvest both timber and brush. The houses of our six nearest neighbors burned to the ground in the same Bear Fire that killed our trees. I may be a bit biased in believing it is better to heat our homes with wood from the forest rather than have forest fires burn the same wood without any pollution controls. Best regards, Rick
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