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Wood fuel (or fuelwood) is a fuel, such as firewood, charcoal, chips, sheets, pellets, and sawdust. The particular form used depends upon factors such as source, quantity, quality and application. In many areas, wood is the most easily available form of fuel, requiring no tools in the case of picking up dead wood, or few tools, although as in any industry, specialized tools, such as skidders and hydraulic wood splitters, have been developed to mechanize production. Sawmill waste and construction industry by-products also include various forms of lumber tailings. The discovery of how to make fire for the purpose of burning wood is regarded as one of humanity's most important advances. The use of wood as a fuel source for heating is much older than civilization and is assumed to have been used by Neanderthals. Today, burning of wood is the largest use of energy derived from a solid fuel biomass. Wood fuel can be used for cooking and heating, and occasionally for fueling steam engines and steam turbines that generate electricity. Wood may be used indoors in a furnace, stove, or fireplace, or outdoors in a furnace, campfire, or bonfire. ==Historical development== Wood has been used as fuel for millennia. Historically, it was limited in use only by the distribution of technology required to make a spark. Heat derived from wood is still common throughout much of the world. Early examples included a fire constructed inside a tent. Fires were constructed on the ground, and a smoke hole in the top of the tent allowed the smoke to escape by convection. In permanent structures and in caves, hearths were constructed or established—surfaces of stone or another noncombustible material upon which a fire could be built. Smoke escaped through a smoke hole in the roof. In contrast to civilizations in relatively arid regions (such as Mesopotamia and Egypt), the Greeks, Romans, Celts, Britons, and Gauls all had access to forests suitable for using as fuel. Over the centuries there was a partial deforestation of climax forests and the evolution of the remainder to coppice with standards woodland as the primary source of wood fuel. These woodlands involved a continuous cycle of new stems harvested from old stumps, on rotations between seven and thirty years. One of the earliest printed books on woodland management, in English, was John Evelyn's "Sylva, or a discourse on forest trees" (1664) advising landowners on the proper management of forest estates. H.L.Edlin, in "Woodland Crafts in Britain", 1949 outlines the extraordinary techniques employed, and range of wood products that have been produced from these managed forests since pre-Roman times. And throughout this time the preferred form of wood fuel was the branches of cut coppice stems bundled into faggots. Larger, bent or deformed stems that were of no other use to the woodland craftsmen were converted to charcoal. As with most of Europe, these managed woodlands continued to supply their markets right up to the end of World War two. Since then much of these woodlands have been converted to broadscale agriculture. Total demand for fuel increased considerably with the industrial revolution but most of this increased demand was met by the new fuel source coal, which was more compact and more suited to the larger scale of the new industries. During the Edo period of Japan, wood was used for many purposes, and the consumption of wood led Japan to develop a forest management policy during that era.〔Diamond, Jared. 2005 Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed. Penguin Books. New York. 294-304 pp. ISBN 0-14-303655-6〕 Demand for timber resources was on the rise not only for fuel, but also for construction of ships and buildings, and consequently deforestation was widespread. As a result, forest fires occurred, along with floods and soil erosion. Around 1666, the shogun made it a policy to reduce logging and increase the planting of trees. This policy decreed that only the shogun, and/or a daimyo, could authorize the use of wood. By the 18th century, Japan had developed detailed scientific knowledge about silviculture and plantation forestry. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「wood fuel」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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