During the last year of my undergraduate studies, when I was fortunate enough to live in a run-down 100-year old fraternity house with 9 of my friends, and all of their respective girlfriends, bar-sluts, drinking-buddies, teammates, study-partners, etc., it was not uncommon for our heating bill in the winter months to exceed $900. We had no insulation, 50-year old radiator pipes, old, unsealed windows, and no less than six doors permitting ingress and egress, one of which, at any given point, was open. You better believe I’d have used a wood-stove, or the fireplace (if it hadn’t been plugged) if possible. According to this article in today’s Detroit Free Press, there seems to be an increased demand for wood-burning stoves and other non-traditional (or would that be traditional) heating appliances, in response to last years crippling energy price increases.
Despite my experience with heating bills, which is far from typical, it doesn’t suprise me that people are looking into cheaper alternatives – even if those alternatives were previously less desireable than gas or electricity. This is what economists mean when we say things like “we’ll never run out of crude oil” (or pistachio nuts, for that matter)
The human condition is such that we’re constantly endeavouring to find better, cheaper, faster, safer means to the satisfy our basically unlimited wants. And although wood-burning stoves and fireplaces might seem like a “throwback” to years passed, today’s fireplaces and wood-pellet burning stoves are undoubtedly much more efficient, safer, and cheaper than those available to our ancestors. The price of gas cannot increase without bound – which is precisely what would begin to happen as we approach exhaustion of the world’s reserves. At some point, there will be cheaper or better alternatives, some of which have never hitherto been profitable, and some of which were only recently called into existence by someone with a better idea than all those who came before him.