History

• People started burning pellet fuel hundreds of years ago. The first Western settlers burned grass and buffalo chips when they ran out of sources of wood and coal. Petroleum oil first gained widespread use in the 1850s when Samuel Keir isolated oil into kerosene.
  
  

Features

• Pellet fuel appliances generally emit much less pollution than oil burners. Pellet stoves can use a wide range of organic materials, such as sawdust, soybean, grass and paper. Oil heating is limited to fossil fuels such as kerosene, jet fuel and diesel fuel.
  
  

Significance

• Petroleum fuels generated 65,739 megawatt hours during 2007, according to the Energy Information Administration's energy statistics. Americans used 39,014 megawatt hours of pellet fuel during the same period.
  
  

Considerations

• Although pellet and oil prices vary greatly depending on where you live, in general you won't save much on fuel costs by choosing one or the other. However, pellet fuel is harder to find than oil, according to home improvement guru Bob Vila.
  
  

Prevention/Solution

• If pure cost is your concern, check out the Forest Products Laboratory's fuel value calculator to determine if switching fuels will save you money (see Resources).