When you work on introducing a new technology to a population
and region, you discover lots of intriguing impediments to that
introduction that you’d never have imagined. Yesterday (October
11, 2012) the Maine Fuel Board voted to allow Maine Energy
Systems to engage in an “Emerging Technologies” project with
them that might lead to elimination of one of those impediments
for the pellet central heating industry in the State of Maine.
Maine is unique in its licensure of technicians for “solid
fuels.” In Maine a person installing a boiler must have “solid
fuel” authority on his license to legally install a “solid fuel”
boiler in someone else’s building. (It’s a bit more complicated
than that, but let’s avoid the levels of license detail.) The
need for this rule apparently arose from three potential hazards
associated with “solid fuel” boilers: the possibility for a
thermal run-away during a power outage as combustion continues
on a load of fuel while circulation fails due to lack of power,
high chimney temperatu