The home heating oil industry has a long and proud history, and Fuel Oil News has been there supporting it since 1935. It is an industry that has faced many challenges during that time. In its 77th year, Fuel Oil News is doing more than just holding
Issue link: https://read.dmtmag.com/i/165267
SEPTEMBER VOL.78 NO.09 Editor's Note E D I T O R I A L ST A F F Editorial Office 1030 W. Higgins Road Suite 230 Park Ridge, IL 60068 847/720-5600 The wonder of combustion I Keith Reid n this issue we take a brief look at serving the wood pellet market. What's particularly interesting is how would pellet heating shows that "everything old is new again." Humanity's first killer application was the mastery of fire which allowed protection from predators, the ability to unlock added nutrition in food and, of course—the ability to keep warm and comfortable when previously you would have been cold, miserable and often dead from exposure. The initial fuel burned was wood, which remained the case for tens of thousands of years. In the 1800s coal displaced wood as the fuel of choice because, although wood was renewable, it was being used at a rate that challenged replenishment. Additionally, coal provided a notable boost in energy content over wood. Coal's dominance continued until it began to be supplanted by oil in the early 1900s and generally being phased out by the mid-1900s except in power generation. Oil and its refined products have even greater energy content and are far easier to handle. And, it should be noted that the transition was helped along to no small extent by some labor issues at the mines at a critical juncture which promoted the switch. Although coal has retained a foothold in power generation, that is under pressure from interlinked environmental and political forces at least in the United States – not so much in rapidly industrializing China and India. Similarly, such external pressure has pushed the adoption of a variety of new (at least in the market sense) renewable fuels such as ethanol, bio diesel, wind and solar. Nuclear energy, which provides the greatest energy content 8 and generally the least obvious environmental impact, has long been buffeted by political pressures and very real fears over what happens when things (rarely) go bad. Where heating oil is concerned, natural gas and propane have challenged oil's previous dominance. There are delivery "form factor" issues involved, though generally the issues for homeowners are not that extreme and a range of additional factors such as price have traditionally worked in oil's favor (though certainly not in recent years). Depending upon your outlook on what is setting prices you can look at the current imbalance as being more artificial and natural, and similarly you can see a variety of artificial political pressure being applied to force conversions. I suppose the take away from something that has rambled a bit, is that humanity has benefited greatly from combustion and that as technology evolves new and not so new opportunities present themselves almost continuously to the smart energy company. Politics also provides a continuous thread in these opportunities and challenges — benefiting some favored players at the expense of others. Keeping ahead of everything and making all the right decisions, particularly when decisions cost time and money, is certainly a significant challenge for the heating oil dealer or marketer. But with the pathway as an energy company, not only are you wellpositioned to meet the specific niche quality of life concerns of your customers, such as providing them with heating alternatives like wood pellets, but ultimately you support a need that is essential to human survival as far out as the foreseeable future runs. l F O N september 2013 | FUEL OIL NEWS | www.fueloilnews.com Editor Keith Reid 847/720-5615 kreid@specialtyim.com Managing Editor Debra Reschke Schug 847/720-5618 dschug@specialtyim.com Columnists Charles Bursey, Sr. Shane Sweet George Lanthier List Rentals/ Reprints – Cheryl Naughton 678/292-6054 Fax: 360/294-6054 cnaughton@specialtyim.com PR O D U C T I O N Production Manager – Karen Kalinyak Art Director – Brian Snook A d v e r t i s in g Sal e s East – Dave Campbell, Associate Publisher 413/528-2364 Fax: 413/528-8835 dcampbell@specialtyim.com Central & South Rich Alden 603/899-3010 Fax: 603/899-2343 ralden@specialtyim.com Barbara Reynolds 603/588-2086 breynolds@specialtyim.com West – Ken Jordan 972/540-2122 Fax: 972/540-2127 kjordan@specialtyim.com MAIN OFFICE 1030 W. Higgins Road Suite 230 Park Ridge, IL 60068 847/720-5600 • Fax: 847-720-5601 C u s t o m e r S e r v ic e 845/856-2229 • Fax: 845/856-5822 Fuel Oil News P.O. Box 4290, Port Jervis, NJ 12771