Wood stove vs. Pellet Stove

[hierony]

If it were somewhere near the Arctic, getting some natural gas from relatively-close oil fields might be better :P

I would consider a kerosene heater in such a situation. The ships run off diesel, the generators likely run off diesel, etc--use the fuel that's already there (penguin guano?). Diesel is pretty similar to kerosene and can usually be burned as a heating oil--I'm reading up on adding isopropyl alcohol for a cleaner burn tonight though. Of course, depends on the diesel (older stuff had higher sulfur & would stink nasty from my reading) and the particular heater. Given that yurts are generally drafty a non-vented version might be alright, but an arctic yurt might be a bit better sealed.

By SeaCan do you mean an insulated shipping container? Just the container usually isn't expensive (2-3k USD used), but shipping (ironically) might be spendy and insulating it would cost some. A yurt setup for the arctic might be around 20-30k USD...