EPA Makes Most Wood Stoves Illegal 1143
First time accepted submitter Jody Bruchon writes "The Environment Protection Agency has lowered the amount of fine-particle matter per cubic meter that new wood stoves are allowed to release into the atmosphere by 20%. Most wood stoves in use today are of the type that is now illegal to manufacture or sell, and old stoves traded in for credit towards new ones must be scrapped out. This shouldn't be much of a surprise since more and more local governments are banning wood-burning stoves and fireplaces entirely, citing smog and air pollution concerns."
Re:Good (Score:5, Informative)
I burn 6-8 cord of wood per year and have a very, very small natural gas bill. The stove at the moment is burning three or four logs and the house is nice and warm--it stays warm at night until about -15C if the wind is up or -20C if calm and is fed about every 4 hours.
I'm not old and burning wood efficiently is not horrible.
Wood burners are their own worst enemy (Score:5, Informative)
We have a wood stove. We haven't used it much for a couple years; but when we did, we did our best to let our wood dry out for a year before burning, and also to keep our fires hot and well oxygenated. As such, you generally wouldn't see smoke coming out of our chimney, just hot air. (That still releases some particulates, I realize)
But a lot of people around here burn wood that's been cut fairly recently, so it still contains a lot of moisture. On top of that, they often manage room temperature by damping - limiting the air flow to the fire . Both practices throw huge amounts of smoke/particulates into the air. I always cringe when I go by a house with smoke belching out the chimney as if it were an old coal-burning freight train.
People bitch and moan about the government meddling in their homes, but in this case it's their own fault. We all have to breathe that exhaust.
Re:Good (Score:5, Informative)
But isn't that what the EPA is saying? You can have your wood burning stove, so long as it isn't a crappy one.
Just like 10 SEER AC units used to be legal, now they are not, 13 is the minimum. Frankly it should be higher, the cost to go from a 13 SEER to a 16 SEER isn't that much, this past summer our downstairs AC unit went out, compressor failed. We replaced both units (upstairs and downstairs) with new 16 SEER dual stage units and our AC bill went down 30%.
The price difference between the 13 and 16 SEER units? Total of about $4000, that will be paid back in less than 2 years with the power savings (our old units were 13 SEER models).
Re:Scaremongering??? (Score:4, Informative)
The issue is that older models of wood burning stoves often burned at the wrong temp and of course the owners didn't allow the wood to dry out first.
Re: Good (Score:3, Informative)
Nope, its pressure and impurity dependent. For one example, see oceans. Troll better.
Re:Not that big of a deal... (Score:5, Informative)
Epa has a article on the site, it says you need heat, time, turbulence, air. At 1100 to 1500 f range with sufficient oxygen, for 3 seconds you should get only co2 and water. Or a secondary burn, that re lights the escaping smoke. http://www.epa.gov/burnwise/workshop2011/WoodCombustion-Curkeet.pdf [epa.gov]
Re:Horrible for the rural poor (Score:4, Informative)
nonsense, wood is biofuel, carbon neutral. Your coal adds carbon load to atmosphere.
Re:Which company bought this 'new' rule? (Score:2, Informative)
The reason we have these rules is that people literally were dying in the streets from air pollution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Smog [wikipedia.org]
I lived in a house with a wood-burning fireplace, and it was cool, but it got awfully smoky.
You are correct that wood stoves are a source of dangerous pollution. They're dangerous for the people outside the house, but they're even more dangerous for the people inside the house. It's about as dangerous as smoking a pack of cigarettes a day, which takes about 10 years off your life expectancy.
There are some diseases, like chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, that pretty much affect only people who smoke, live in homes with old-style stoves, or are exposed to pollutants at work. COPD is a fairly uncomfortable way to die, not being able to breathe. Probably worse, but not as obvious, is the increase in heart disease and strokes. I could accept a heart attack, but I wouldn't want to spend the last 10 years of my life with the result of a stroke.
From those articles, it seems that people who already have noncompliant stoves can continue to use them. These regulations only affect new stoves.
It also looks like this has become a minor right-wing cause. Jack-booted thugs coming to take away your wood-burning stoves, and all that.
Re:When are they going to weigh-in on (Score:2, Informative)
Shh. Don't let facts get in the way of teabagger fear and resentment.
Re:Good (Score:2, Informative)
I get warm four times from my stove/fireplace.
First is cutting the wood and hauling the wood.
Second is splitting the wood
Third is stacking the wood.
Fourth is burning the wood.
Re:Wow, even catalytic stoves? That's bad. (Score:5, Informative)
The reason I mention is is because valley communities in Alaska have some of the poorest air quality in all of the United States.
Have a look at the following link. There aren't any current advisories, but in an area the rest of us might assume is some sort of pristine wilderness, in terms of air quality, Alaska it is anything but pristine.
More here:
http://dec.alaska.gov/air/ [alaska.gov]
Re:I don't know how to feel about this. (Score:4, Informative)
Bull. Fucking. Shit.
"The two general approaches to meeting the EPA smoke emission limits are non-catalytic and catalytic combustion."
http://www.epa.gov/burnwise/woodstoves.html [epa.gov]
Your inability to READ casts a very different light on all your insane rantings on this story.
Re:Which company bought this 'new' rule? (Score:5, Informative)
I remember Los Angeles in 1980 and recently, The difference in pollution levels is stunning. I've also been to big Chinese cities and seen the pollution there. I don't know about each rule separately, but overall the emissions restrictions from the EPA have made a huge difference.
Re: Good (Score:5, Informative)
Frankly , Yes!
I do want to see more people use wood burning rocket mass heaters http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qSN0E87eKu4&list=PL5QAC2bkSOuIYuBObCP4bllBEFea_8uJ0 [youtube.com]
Because it takes a whole lot less wood and the output amounts to some steam, the heat from a few handfuls of wood can heat for a couple days at 30F in some cases.
A lot like dome architecture for tornado and hurricane states, local official morons need to be educated about the " cutting edge" antiquities at our disposal.
Rocket mass heaters would easily save loads over gas, coal oil, electricity, and have the advantage of not being a polluting, costly mess like the aforementioned.
Of course it doesn't drive commerce, so you get to pay for electing idiots or do some very hard convincing, because after all, we're talking about bureaucrats.
Re:Which company bought this 'new' rule? (Score:5, Informative)
In US politics, liberal means socialist or some weak form of socialism.
The term originally did mean freedom but the modern "liberal" parties are only liberal in their approach to SOME social issues. Homosexuality for example is something most "liberals" are liberal about. But when it comes to economic policy, environmental policy, health policy, safety policy, etc they are not actually liberal. If they were liberal then they'd let people make their own choices and not impose government restrictions and edicts on everything.
Do not confuse liberty with anarchy. Freedom does not mean no government at all. The difference is between consensual action and non-consensual action.
For example, if I point a gun at someone's head and tell them to give me something that is something the government has a right and responsibility to act upon. However, if I talk to someone and ask them for something and they consensually provide it, then the government has no right to influence that situation unless its willing to breach individual rights.
Political distinctions address... On the subject of wood burning stoves, I think it all boils down to population density and the frequency of use. Banning wood burning stoves indifferent to zoning, population density, and frequency of use is actually pretty irrational. Do you really care if some guy in the mountains is using a wood burning stove in his cabin? Its not an environmental problem. Furthermore, what if you have a city with 10 million people in it and five people use wood burning stoves. Also not an environmental problem. Etc.
So for this law to be rational it has to take all of that into consideration rather then just blanketly banning their use. Banning them entirely is actually a really bad idea for a few reasons. One, many people will simply not follow the law and there is no means to actually enforce it. You're not going to inspect kitchens in rural house holds. Which means you've created a law that will not be followed which will then undermine all other laws. You're making people feel comfortable breaking the law. Because once everyone breaks one law they become more comfortable breaking others. And the law increasingly loses moral authority. When that happens the law becomes not a matter of right or wrong but rather what you have the police to enforce. You lose community support. There is no moral stigma for violations. The second problem with this law is that it hurts people that aren't hurting anyone else. There are a lot of people in rural communities that need to use wood burning stoves. I have an uncle that lives in a cabin in the woods. The man heats his home and cooks his meals with a wood burning stove. He's in the middle of giant forest and has to keep brush clear of his property on a regular basis. That brush must be burned. Understand, if he doesn't burn it then nature will. The area goes through a burn phase as intervals naturally. And even if he didn't burn it, it would be impractical to mulch or dispose of otherwise. So its going to burn. If its going to burn one way or another, why not use the energy released to heat the home and cook food? Right?
Look, no one is arguing for wood burning stoves in Manhattan or something. But if you're in a rural community wood burning stoves are not a problem for the environment.
This is a big deal (Score:4, Informative)
I'm all for cleaner wood-burning stoves. But it has to be done in a cost-effective manner, lest you drive people to dirtier options like coal or oil.
here's some facts to chew on. (Score:5, Informative)
This is the worst summary ever. Here's the real situation:
* EPA is tightening existing standards for new wood stoves. Wood stove makers will adopt new control technology to meet these standards.
* these standards do NOT apply to stoves already in use
* they're NOT making it illegal to burn wood
nobody's trying to tear your wood stove from your cold dead hands. simmer down, internet.
Re:Burning down the house (Score:5, Informative)
Any carbon you release from burning wood is only there because the tree sequestered it when it was growing. For most trees that's probably somewhere in the region of 20-50 years. In geological & ecological terms that's nothing, and the net effect is no additional carbon dioxide.
The problem with burning fossil fuels is that it releases carbon that was sequestered millions of years ago over a period of hundreds of thousands of years; so what we're doing is very rapidly re-introducing a bunch of carbon dioxide that wasn't in the atmosphere for several million years. From a geological & ecological point of view, it looks like a net increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide.
Re:Good (Score:4, Informative)
The kinds of stoves and fireplaces that the EPA is banning are the bullcrap kinds that builders put in new homes. These are not serious devices for heating homes, they are purely entertainment, so people can watch the pretty flames. Some fireplaces are so poor that they actually have negative efficiency. The house would stay warmer if the fireplace was not used.
Even the best fireplaces are inefficient crap compared to a stove. Ben Franklin realized that. The German settlers mostly used stoves, but the English settlers stuck with fireplaces. He tried to get them to switch because the stoves were 2x as efficient.
Re:Which company bought this 'new' rule? (Score:4, Informative)
there were major fires south of the Bay Area, CA that resulted in some horrible air quality (sort of like a lot of people burning wood).
Except wildfires are nothing like people burning wood. The type of stove currently being banned produces far fewer particulates per kg of wood burned than a wildfire. Even Ben Franklin's stove of 1741 [wikipedia.org] produced fewer particulates than a wildfire.
I've experienced smoke from a wildfire 15 miles away entering my neighborhood; and I've experienced cold days when lots of neighbors were using woodstoves. There is no comparison. The former was a miserable experience. The latter was a pleasant experience.
Collective use of woodstoves never comes anywhere close to creating plumes that can easily be seen from space [es-static.us].