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In cold Northeast, officials consider limiting furnace emissions
Info from proprietary newsletter, so link goes to report that spawned this crap (7/17/09 report presently at top of page: "Introducing a Low Carbon Fuel Standard in the Northeast -- Technical and Policy Considerations") (PDF file).

Eleven Eastern governors
(Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, and Maryland)
are expected to approve a blueprint for slashing carbon dioxide emissions from cars -- and perhaps home furnaces -- before January, according to state officials, potentially sparking a widespread shift to residential heaters that burn wood pellets.

Officials in states from Maine to Maryland are preparing the outlines of a regional plan that would limit the amount of greenhouse gases a unit of fuel, like a gallon of gasoline, could emit. That's meant to prompt oil companies, refiners and motorists to use cleaner fuels made from trash and plants and renewable electricity.

Emission reduction targets are not yet established, but officials are basing preliminary calculations on a goal of cutting carbon 10 percent by 2020. That's identical to California's pioneering low-carbon fuel standard.
And look where they are now. And they're a mostly-warm-in-winter state.

"We are looking at whether we would be able to meet our goals without including home heating oil," said Rebecca Ohler, a supervisor with the New Hampshire Department of Environmental Services and a participant in the plan's design. "I do think it would be difficult."

Another contributor, Ellen Pierce, an analyst with Connecticut's Department of Environmental Protection, said heating oil is "a significant contributor to air emissions."

"It's something we should look at," she added.

The use of woody biomass and electricity as substitutes, combined with increased natural gas use for space heating, provides near-term low carbon fuel options for the Northeast, according to a 233-page analysis released last month by the Northeast States for Coordinated Air Use Management.
They mention making people switch to wood pellet stoves. My grandparents heated their house with coal & wood. I don't EVER want to do anything to get heat again except adjust the thermostat. Anyway, doesn't burning wood give off the dreaded CO2?

You political clowns think people are up in arms about the health care debate debacle? Try telling them they have to replace their furnaces and pay probably triple the amount for heat they're paying now - and in the COLD states, too. Try it, and I think more than a few politicians and unelected "regulators" will get introduced to the concept of tar and feathers. Are you people all insane?
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut 2009-08-10
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=276281