Kicking off the new focus of my blog and with Christmas just around the corner, I thought I'd take a look at fireplaces.  For myself, there will probably never be a more cozy fire than the roaring blazes I experienced at Lodge Pole in the Sequoia National Park as a kid.  The mouth of the fireplace was large enough to walk into, the brick surround radiated heat and we all dripped and defrosted from our hiking and snowball fights.

We've got a lot of air issues involved with fireplaces and are now being forced to give up our wood fires.  (Personally, I'd rather see lawn mowers fitted with catalytic converters but I'll leave that for now.)  So what does the fireplace of the future look like?  For most of us, we'll probably make the transition to newer, cleaner fuels in the next 10 years and there are some cool things happening in the field.  Small wall mounted fireplaces, old reproduction stoves, even some pretty far out designs coming to a restaurant or bar near you. 

Here are a few of my favorite heating devices:

First up is Ecosmart out of Australia, who have put together a portable fireplace that burns alcohol.  I like environmentally friendly, I like portable and if you're going modern, go modern.  Basically, they sell a burn pot and frames that hold it.  Pretty nice if you just want to add a bit of flash to a space and get some heat as well.  Bonus here is that they say you don't need a chimney. 

http://www.ecosmartfire.com...

On the antique front, you can get reproduction fireplace inserts that burn gas and look like wood or coal fires.  Most of these companies are pretty strict on reposting their images though, so y'all can hunt them down yourselves. 

Heat and Glo is doing some cool things including these ultramodern bad boys: http://www.heatnglo.com/pro...

Spires of flame rising in the middle of a glass tube has to be worth tacking an extra buck or two onto every dinner or drink.

There is also a hydrogen fireplace developed by Heat and Glo called the Aqueon.  Basically, you run power and water to the device, the power converts the water into hydrogen and oxygen and burns the hydrogen creating water vapor, and the oxygen is released into the room, no chimney needed.  As cool is the idea seems, it has some major issues, like taking a high level form of energy and wasting it to convert the water and then wasting more in the burning process.  A better use of the power would be to hook up a bunch of light bulbs, which are 95% percent efficient at creating heat (only 5% of the power turns into light).  Of course, that would be less cool to look at.  Heat and Glow has pulled the $50,000 dollar hydrogen fireplace from the market for now, but I assume it will make a return. 

http://www.heatnglo.com/pro...

picture: http://www.bookofjoe.com/20...

All of these fireplaces should be installed by professionals or at least by people who have a vested interest in the lives of the people using them.  How are you planning on staying warm this winter?