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Wood
Wood was the primary fuel for heating and cooking in homes and businesses, and was used for steam in industries, trains, and boats -
Coal
Coal replaced much of the wood used in steam generation -
Ethanol
Ethanol was competing with gasoline as the primary fuel for cars -
Wood/Coal
Most rural homes were still heated with wood. In towns, coal was displacing wood in homes -
Rural areas
Over half of all Americans lived in cities in buildings heated by coal. Rural Americans still heated and cooked with wood. Diesel and gasoline were firmly established as the fuel for trucks and automobiles. Street cars ran on electricity. -
Homes and commercial buildings
Electricity and natural gas had replaced wood heat in most homes and commercial buildings -
Energy Costs
Some Americans used more wood for heating because of higher energy costs. Some industries switched from coal to waste wood. The paper and pulp industry also began to install wood and black liquor boilers for steam and power, displacing fuel oil and coal -
Wood-Fired Plant
Burlington Electric (Vermont) built a 50-megawatt, wood-fired plant with electricity production as the primary purpose. This plant was the first of several built since 1984 -
Pilot Trials
Pilot trials of direct wood-fired gas turbine plants were conducted for the first time in Canada and in the United States -
Generating Electricity
The capacity to generate electricity from biomass (not including municipal solid waste) reached 6 gigawatts. Of 190 biomass-fired, electricity-generating facilities, 184 were nonutility generators, mostly wood and paper