Guardian article on wood smoke pollution

[mar13]

‘Eco’ wood stoves emit 750 times more pollution than an HGV, study shows

Only ecodesign stoves can be legally sold from 2022 – but experts say the standard is shockingly weak

amp.theguardian.com

That article was in my Android's Chrome browser feed this evening. An HGV truck is a Heavy Goods Vehicle which is just a truck weighing 3500kg (7700lbs) or more. The article was short on details about the testing methods of wood stoves in Europe.

 

[EbS-P]

Came up in my feed too. PM 2.5 is an issue. No way wood stoves can as clean as computer controlled injection with a DPF. really speaks to the high vehicle emission standards. I’m going to commit using the heatpump more. Keeping my wood drier running at a higher air setting to keep things cleaner.

Heating this winter in Europe will be much more expensive than in the past. Means more people just trying to get by. Heating with less than ideal wood in older less clean burning stoves. The interesting point was burning for ambiance. I’d like to see more data on that. How can you “tax” that?

 

[begreen]

This sounds like they are going in the right direction. The UK has been behind in setting clean wood stove standards in comparison the the US. You can still buy stoves with no more than a simple baffle system. Just coming up to our standards will make a huge improvement. In addition, they are getting ready to ban the sale of poorly seasoned firewood. That too will make a huge difference. Still, even without these two notable steps, the PM2.5 pollution levels are dropping at a notable -11% rate. With cleaner stoves and drier fuel, I think their key problem will be fireplaces. According to the EPA, these put out over 17g/kg of wood with a typical burn rate of about 3kg/hr.

In more regulated areas like New Zealand I've read that the primary smoke pollution issue is open fire burning in fireplaces and outdoors. The Guardian article seems to avoid doing a dive into that discussion yet the relatively low temp fires in a fireplace mean that the emissions of PM2.5 and toxic gases is much higher.

Note that locally, when the EPA surveyed urban pollution in 2014 they found that about 1/3 of PM2.5 pollution in King County was from wood smoke, so the issue is real. Even with strict regulations there a many smoke dragons and open fires still burning. Often they are burning poorly seasoned wood. The issue here and across the country is lax enforcement of regulations. You can visit craigslist on any day and see several pre-EPA stoves for sale (illegal in WA and OR). The wood that is sold typically is poorly seasoned and on most cold winter days I can point out many homes with densely smoking chimneys within a 5 mile radius.