SO, your thinking of moving to Wyoming, probably should read this first. (Cheyenne: to rent, credit)

[YOU-CANT-EAT-SCENERY]

Seems there is lots of energy options, but none of them are cheap. Nice if the gubment would help alright.

[Kristynwy]

I was just browsing and reading the last few pages of this post.. My husband and I had a pellet stove when we were in OR we loved it, except when the power went out...

But.. they are really efficient..

I do know though that pellets are high right now, because there is a shortage across the nation right now for pellets..

I remember when they were 2.99 and 3.99 a bag a few years ago..

now they are like 5-6 dollars..

anyways just thought'd I share my 2 cents

[shadowwalker]

I never thought of steam out of the ground exactly. I worked on the steam fields in nothern Mexico and they used the steam to turn electric turbines, one cool by product was the salt brine. They collected it in pits and sold it to the cosmetics industry for makeup ingredients of some kind. I remember it was well depth of less than 2,700 feet mostly, some as shallow as 600 feet. And low working pressures. I will have to check into that. I have been to some of the wells at Fallon, Nevada When I was there they were just startin to work them online. Mostly just surprise! When drilling for something else. So not much activity with them, back then. Thanks

[sunsprit]

Wood pellet fuels are going up dramatically in cost due to the shutdown of many timber product mills being closed, which is the source of the raw material for the pellet process.

For example, in Colorado, there's only a few working mills left. Wyoming and New Mexico have the same problem.

The reason is that the Nat'l Forest Service has shut down logging roads, access, and permits to much of the forest areas that supported the timber industry in the USA. Mostly in the name of "environmentalism" and short-sighted thinking about a renewal resource, or protection of "endangered species" habitat. The Forest Service has allowed millions of acres of sustainable and harvestable standing timber to become nothing but standing died out forests, a forest fire waiting to happen.

Even where they had a large blow-down in Colorado, they refused to allow a timber harvest to clear the land for a new forest to start over to provide timber stands and habitat for the wildlife.

I repp'ed bedding pellets for the equine industry when the pellet sources were plentiful in the USA for softwood pine pellets. We're now down to 1 plant in Wyoming, and 1 in New Mexico that can produce the pellets, and their production is very intermittent.

With the popularity of pellet stoves East of the Mississippi for home heating, almost all of the domestic product is shipped to the Eastern USA. Similarly, if my area retailers don't place their winter season orders by June/July of a year, they cannot get delivery in the following winter season ... or if they can, it's at very high prices. Your local hardware store probably isn't making a dollar a bag anymore on spot delivery pellet fuel.

In our area, the retailers limit sales to one pallet of bags per shopping trip with no assurance that they'll have stock until when or if they get another semi-trailer load (22 pallets). At 1/2 to 1 bag of pellets per day, that's not a lot of days fuel supply for your stove.

The point of all this is that a couple thousand dollars spent on a wood pellet stove is probably not a good choice today for heating unless you have an assured and reasonable cost supply source (closer to Canadian imports where the total shipping costs are lower and the product itself is less expensive). Corn and wood pellet combination stoves are a possible alternative, but corn has gone way up due to demand from the ethanol industry.

[MHT]

We have a corn stove. Ours is pretty cheap to run but we live in Wheatland, surrounded by corn. We just by it by the truck and auger it into our grainery. I think the truckful we got last fall was about $100. The corn stove was the right choice for us because of the availability of the corn. My sister has one (CO) and it costs them much more for the corn as they have to buy it by the bag.

[sunsprit]

Recent Cheyenne area corn stove pellet fuel prices:

Murdoch's: $8.49 per 50 lb bag
Home Depot: $No Corn, Wood Pellets only, $4.99/40 lbs
Bulk, Pine Bluffs, local truck delivery, 2000 lb tote: $213.00

My friends who use corn stoves burn 50+ lbs per day; the ones in Colorado are burning about $260.00 per month for supplemental heating buying pallets of 50 lb bags which they store in their garage.

Buying in bulk tote means you must have the equipment to unload a one-ton tote bag from a flat-bed truck and a secure place to store the tote, which will last approx 5 weeks, or burning about $160.00 per month. A good savings over the bagged product.

MHT's truckload purchase last fall is an exceptional purchase in light of today's corn grain price of $4.00 bushel. Way to go, MHT, but not a common situation unless you live on a farm/ranch.

Unless you live in an area where corn is readily available cheaply in bulk and have the means (forklift, tractor/loader, etc.) to unload and (the space to) store a very large quantity, and aren't bothered by the daily maintenance chore of cleaning out the stove and re-supplying the hopper ... the corn stove savings aren't looking that good. Oh, and all the corn stoves I've seen in operation are pretty noisy, too ... with the circulation blower and the burner blower running (which means they must have electricity to run .... ) continuously.

IMO, most folks would be better off to invest in updating their conventional heating system to the latest high efficiency units and update the insulation in their homes.

[Kristynwy]

MHT I have heard of those corn stoves! how neat! I have never seen one, always curious what they were like..

Wow, sunsprit, I didn't realize the environmentalists had shut things down that bad, I thought most of those were stuck in OR and back east.. how crazy!!

They in my opinion are the ruination partially of this country!

[jdumars]

Can windmills be utilized to create energy here? I have thought of living off the grid and utilizing wind and solar to create the power I needed. Is that a possibility near Sheridan? I am used to electricity and but I have also considered the possibility of what ifs???!!! Wood stoves for heat as well as cooking?

[ElkHunter]

Originally Posted by jdumars

Can windmills be utilized to create energy here? I have thought of living off the grid and utilizing wind and solar to create the power I needed. Is that a possibility near Sheridan? I am used to electricity and but I have also considered the possibility of what ifs???!!! Wood stoves for heat as well as cooking?

Well, that's more complicated then it seems. The energy outfits have a deal with the government to produce power. They agreed to provide the bucks for reseach and developement and to set up the initial power grid. So in order for you to set up your own power, you have to dance to their fiddler. This can be good in that if you set up right, you can hook into the grid and provide them with additional power during good times, but be able to draw power from then during the non peak times. Bottom line is your going to connect to the grid.

Plus, there's not enough wind in Sheridan to keep a mill going constantly.

Solar power assist is the best thing you can do. Connect to the grid, then use solar to do things like run your hot water heater and hot water and pump to baseboard heat. But have a backup propane furnace for times when it's really cloudy for long period of times. You'll end up saving money and yet you'll have constant energy. There is one guy just outside of town that has a bank of solar panels on his property and he pretty much handles all his own power.

You combine those things with a nice wood or coal stove and your set for some much lower energy bills.

But, having said that. My house is 1600 sq ft. My gas and electric runs about $150 a month in the dead of winter. So is it cost effective to get into all that? For me, no.

[YOU-CANT-EAT-SCENERY]

I think photovoltaic (sp?) panels are real expensive. My neighbor here looked into outfitting his house with them, and it was like 45K