In many western cities, the air is heavily polluted with wood smoke. Walking around suburbs of Seattle I see many of the older homes emitting thick white woodsmoke from their chimneys. This is very bad for everyone's health. If it's not raining or windy, the air is bad most of the cooler days during the year. It seems absurd to me living in the very wet pacific northwest that more homes are not using renewable hydro power to efficiently warm their homes with heat pumps.