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EPA Makes Most Wood Stoves Illegal
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."
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).
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
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.
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.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
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.
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.