From NoTricksZone

By P Gosselin on 20. May 2023

Oil and gas are already planned…

Since the Socialists and Greens took over power in Germany a year and half ago, the government has announced one ban after the other.

Wood heat may be the next heat source to be banned from homes in Germany as verbot-orgy expands. Image: P. Gosselin

It’s becoming clear that the climate movement is all about stripping citizens of choices, comfort and ability to move around. 

One of the boldest initiatives, introduced under the guise of independence from Russian energy, particularly natural gas, was the controversial plan to phase out oil and gas heating systems beginning already next year. In their place, Germans would be ordered to invest in heat pumps – a costly and for many an unfeasible measure.

The latest crackdown on human comfort is the German Socialist/Green federal government’s calling into question the future of wood stoves and pellet heating systems. As gas prices skyrocketed, many German households opted for wood heat using firewood or pellets. But that option for heat has since become environmentally controversial. Today a delivery time for a wood stove is over one year in many cases. Firewood prices have skyrocketed as well.

According to Blackout News here, “From 2024, it will no longer be permitted to heat new buildings with wood. If an existing system has to be retrofitted or replaced, buffer storage, fine dust filters and an alternative heat source such as a solar thermal system or photovoltaics must also be installed. This is provided for in the federal government’s draft for the new version of the Building Energy Act. There will be only a few exceptions.”

And, as expected, criticism has been immediate, for example from the opposition parties and groups like the German Association of Forest Owners, AGDW. But government authorities are saying the step is necessary because they claim more than 20 per cent of all fine dust emissions are due to the burning of wood, which is roughly equivalent to road traffic emissions. Fine dust has suddenly been reactivated as a major health issue again.

The proposed idea of banning wood stove, has however, run up against opposition from even within the government itself. For example, “The SPD parliamentary group has already announced that it wants to prevent the ban on wood and pellet heating in new buildings,” reports Blackout News.

However, controversy is swirling whether heating with wood is even  “climate-friendly” at all. The Federal Environment Ministry states that cheating with wood is not climate neutral. Trees are carbon sinks that store CO2. Mass forest clearing not only destroys biotope, but also leads to a premature release of CO2 into the atmosphere.

The German Greens, are against wood as a fuel, but supports using wood as a construction material.