wood is wood is wood
The confusion over value of wood is because we tend to think in terms of cubic volume, the cord. However, scientifically, by *weight*, wood is wood is wood. Absolute zero moisture lab grade dried wood from any species is 8660 Btu/lb. At around normal 20% moisture remaining "seasoned" wood it is therefore 6930 Btu/pound. I just looked this stuff up. By *dried weight*, ain't much difference at all by species. By *cubic volume*, sure, a difference.
So now it gets to practicality. If it is all you can get, it works fine. If you are handling it anyway, like I do sometimes, it's still fine, I have no probs stacking more, nor does it bother more to feed the stove a little more often.
What is nice about using all your easy pickins species is you can better control heat output to match your needs. I don't need to use high work on my and the machinery's part top notch hickory when it is merely 40 something out and just want a little fire. This is where the lighter *by volume* woods shine. Conversely, like in our last cold snap, I want that oak and hickory and so in in the stove once the fire is established, but I might still get it going with the willow or any other lighter chunks. And if you need a higher heat output per volume, and all you have is the lighter wood, you just split it finer and give it more air, or to mangle a saying here "tune your stove in the cut".
It all has its place. Willow is just fine if ya got it handy and have to deal with it anyway.
And frankly, being a true conservationist (as opposed to a clueless urban greenie), I simply can't waste wood and pollute and so on by discarding what is harvested or needs to be harvested and dealt with. I have yet to run a big "burn pile" here on this farm with so called "trash wood", I have no need and won't do it. Smaller branches get used to help control washes, and/or are cut small enough in the fields edges that once dried, I have no probs running over it with the bushhog, then they contribute back to soil tilth.
It, anything "it" as per cut wood I have to handle, it gets burned in the stove, or say if sections are too rotten, it gets used for berming on the hillsides to reduce erosion and to hold back soil tilth to help improve the stands (yes I drag them into position to create natural terraces), or back when the big chipper was working, branches and chunks that weren't too dirty got chipped and used for all the purposes you use wood chips for.
The Amount of Energy in Wood
G5450 Wood Fuel for Heating | University of Missouri Extension
I do wish though that this nation had a wider distribution of multi fuel electric generation facilities so that a better industry could be developed (mo job$ for us cutters and haulers and so on) to burn the grade C and D stuff, rather than running "burn piles" at random here and there that don't pay us back much if anything. Facilities that could take whole stumps, loads of branches, that sort of thing. We shouldn't be wasting all the BTUs out there that we do waste now. that's just my opinion, but like with liquid petroleum fuels, I want the next buncha generations to still have affordable access..this is why I don't run gas engine "toys", I want that fuel available for people not even born yet instead. Ya, kinda altrustic, I seem to have been inflicted with that notion since birth, so be it. I think of it as community sharing, just across time.
