Go Greener Tips

The history of pellets and briquettes.
Such words as pellets and fuel briquettes have come into our lexicon relatively recently. And I should say that there are certain historical reasons for this.
The matter is that ancient people could exist only if the continuous presence of fire was guaranteed. The fire gave them warmth and the whole tribe gathered around the fire in cold days and nights. The fire gave also light so even at night people could not be afraid of bloodthirsty predators. The fire gave food, that was why meals cooked by the fire gave more energy to everybody and it was suitable for feeding even the weakest members of the human pack. The fire was the source of all kinds of energy used by ancient people.

The Middle Ages brought the development of industry and the human mind invented various devices for converting natural materials to energy. As the result of that humans required more sources of energy for their needs. So from year to year the search for energy – rich substances occupied the minds of mankind.

Then our New time came with new energy sources of course. They gave us almost unlimited possibilities and they seemed to be completely inexhaustible, until it became clear that stocks of natural substances couldn’t be enough even for the near future and some sources of energy threatened us with big troubles. So the energetic catastrophe seemed to be inevitable. And the humanity started searching for new sources of energy both safe and highly effective. And then new words appeared such as pellets and fuel briquettes.

These sources of energy called alternative today. The energy of the sun and wind can be used to derive energy. This is also the energy of helium, hydrogen and other gases. We consider the use of alcohol as an energy source as well as crop waste, human waste. Among alternative sources of energy we can stress biofuels used for making heat and electricity.

Pellets are obtained from wood waste such as sawdust, wood chips and so on. Raw materials are crushed, pressed at a high temperature of 100 degrees of Celsius and at the same time this stuff is forced through a device resembling a meat grinder. As a result, we get thin circular cylinders with a length of about 2 cm.

Fuel briquettes are made quite differently. Their formation is also carried out at the same temperature of 100 degrees but the crushed fractions are placed in the mold in which the heating occurs. So after this thermal processing briquettes can be rounded – rectangular or cylindrical depending on the type of the mold. Certainly these two fuels have got much in common. They are environmentally friendly and easy to use. They will give you a real pleasure.

Among different energy saving alternatives, we highly recommend you to read more about wood pellets.

This is a short list of benefits of using wood pellets. They are not high-tech; they do not need huge investments into expensive equipment; they are ecological in the heart of it. Please invest part of your time into learning more about wood pellets – it is really important now.