Cutting Carbon Emissions from Home Wood Heaters

By Mark Haley


For many countries, including the United States of America, England, Australia and China, pollution in large cities is a major problem. In the early 1990's, the Australian Federal Government were looking to solve the perceived problems with the wood heating industry, including:

1. The depletion of natural wood resources

2. Too much carbon dioxide released into the air from wood burning

3. Smoke from combustion heaters on slow overnight burn cycle causing unpleasant smoke in residential and commercial areas

4. Cooperating with the Wood Heating Industry to improve the situation

The Australian Wood Heating Industry commissioned a report to investigate the Government's perceived industry problems. Many specialists, including a professor from the University of Tasmania, were involved in the investigation, and the results of the report showed that the wood heating industry was not as problematic as first suggested. Firstly, the depletion of natural wood resources was proven to be a non-issue, as the wood used for combustion heaters was usually wasted in normal timber industry recovery. Also, the report found that the timber industry is the only natural resource that is self-replenishing.

Secondly, it was found that the expected "excessive" levels of carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere through the combustion of wood is no greater than that of wood rotting naturally on the forest floor. The report did find, however, a problem with nuisance smoke, caused by burning wood at reduced temperatures with limited air intake. Burning wood this way results in pungent, unsightly smoke that is laden with unburnt saps and tars (or "creosote"), and so cleaning up nuisance smoke from wood fire heating systems became a priority.

New Emissions Standards for Wood Combustion Heaters

The Australian Government along with the Wood Heating Industry have introduced legislation called AS4013/1993. This legislation sets a maximum standard on unpleasant smoke that contains particle emission. Standard AS4013/1993 states the standard as no more than 5.5 grams of particles in the air per kilogram of wood burnt. Now all fire wood heaters available in Australia no longer produce unpleasant smoke as the Wood Heating Industry has met this standard. It has now been updated to 4 grams per kilogram in 1999 and once again the Wood Heating Industry has agreed to lower emission standards again by December 2013 to 2.5 grams per kilogram.




About the Author:



0 comments:

Post a Comment

 

Holidays Copyright © 2011-2012 | Powered by Blogger