David Peterson
Ben Jorgensen
English 2010
9 March 2015
Ban or Burn?
Driving in to work a large billboard read “One fireplace can emit as much particulate
pollution as 90 sport utility vehicles!” This was sponsored by Utah Clean Air Partnership
(UCAIR). On their website you can also find out more, such as how “wood burning creates fine
particulate matter that can cause health concerns especially for the young and elderly” and how
“The pollution from one wood-burning stove is equivalent to the amount emitted from 3,000 gas
furnaces producing the same amount of heat per unit (California Air Resource Board) (Utah
Department of Environmental Quality).
With these ads and more that are
circulating it is not shocking that the
Division of Air Quality (DAQ) is pushing
for a ban on burning wood for a heat
source in Utah. If this is the whole
picture, then why is there such great
Figure 1 : Depiction of four common sources of pollution. (Utah
Department of Environmental Quality)
opposition?
A recent hearing on the ban held in Provo had a good show with hundreds of concerned
citizens taking off work to attend the last wood-burning hearing with the Division of Air Quality.
One media group reporting on this event was Good4Utah. The article they wrote described a
heated controversy but the comments on the article, many made by citizens who attended, were
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united in their frustration of misrepresentation of the issue. Ninety-three of the 97 comments
were opposed to the proposed ban and two of the remaining four were for a 100% ban while the
other two favored a much looser ban than what was being presented to the legislature (Nguyen).
So, what are the concerns? Pollution that has come with modern advancements and
industrialization has brought pollution related health concerns to the public view. There are four
generally accepted categories of pollution sources: mobile sources – such as cars, buses, planes,
trucks, and trains; stationary sources – such as power plants, oil refineries, industrial facilities,
and factories; area sources – such as agricultural areas, cities, and wood burning fireplaces and
natural sources – such as wind-blown dust, wildfires, and volcanoes (Utah Department of
Environmental Quality).
Advocates of burning natural gas and oil as heating sources tout such comparisons as
those shown in diagram 2 (United States Environmental Protection Agency). UCAIR’s tax payer
sponsored ads, however, leave out the comparisons of different wood-burning types saying
nothing about high efficiency wood and pellet stoves and adding no additional comment to the
other pollution costs or the
unsustainable nature of fossil fuels.
Fine particle emissions are only part of
the picture; three major factors that
need to be considered are: net pollution
of an energy sources, sustainability of
those source, and the third that all
Figure 2 : Relative Emissions of Fine Particles contributing to air
quality concerns (United States Environmental Protection Agency)
wood-burning is not the same.
The first is overall pollutants
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produced, the sustainability and the unfair generalization that all wood-burning is equally
harmful. Referring back to the first illustration reminds us that fossil fuels such as gas and oil do
not come at a pollution free cost to start with. Extraction, refining and transportation of the fuel
are not accounted for in this comparison. Diesel trucks used to haul much of our raw crude oil
are one of the largest single sources of fine particulate organic matter. “There are about 300 to
400 overnight trucks in the Salt Lake Valley each night, contributing as much as 7 percent of the
daily nitrogen oxide, a highly reactive gas produced during combustion and a precursor of fine
particulate, or PM2.5 pollution” (O'Donoghue and Madsen). It is these trucks that carry the bulk
of crude oil and natural gas to refineries located in Salk Lake City, and this does not take into
account the pollutants produced in the refinement process nor those produced in the extraction
process. The final product clearly burns cleaner, but the over-all pollutant load and energy cost to
produce that fuel is much harder to compare and is simply not addressed. Wood on the other
hand has little to no processing needed and can be grown and cleared locally, thus drastically
limiting the need for its transportation.
It is also a well-known fact that fossil fuels are a limited resource while wood is not only
a sustainable renewable resource, but the trees and forests grown to provide fuel later also serve
as a carbon dioxide sync allowing the burning of wood to actually be a carbon natural energy
option. In addition to being renewable there are also dozens of sources for wood that if not put to
use by burning will still have a cost. If dead wood is left in our woodlands they will either decay,
adding carbon dioxide to our air, or provide fuel for forest fires that don’t have the added
benefits of efficiency, catalytic converters, or providing a useful heat source. “Wildfires burning
within 50-100 miles of a city routinely caused air quality to be 5 to 15 times worse than normal,
and often 2-3 times worse than the worst non-fire day of the year.” (Cliamate Central).
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The last and most drastic piece of information ignored is the unfair lumping of fireplaces
and one hundred year old wood-burning stoves into the same category as energy efficient wood
burning stoves. Technology advances have made wood-burning stoves an ecofriendly and EPA
supported option. The addition of catalytic converters similar to those found in car exhaust
systems as well as huge advancements in energy efficient stove designs have allowed individuals
to affordably burn green (United States Environmental Protection Agency).
Solar panels are an excepted and embraced alternative ecofriendly solution but a much
less cost effective and practical one than that of a high efficiency stove. As James Meigs points
out in his comparison of two individuals, both of whom are trying to keep energy costs low and
energy sustainable, the one “installs an expensive solar-energy system to power his lights and
appliances, covering his roof with photovoltaic panels. (He uses natural gas for heat.)” The other
“invests in a clean-burning wood stove, cutting his consumption of heating oil by about 80
percent”. The first home owner “enjoys the virtuous glow of being seen as an alternative-energy
pioneer. He also enjoys something else: Under the Energy Policy Act of 2005, he is entitled to a
tax credit equal to 30 percent of the cost of his system, including installation. Let's say ‘the first
homeowner’ installed a 6-kilowatt photovoltaic system at a cost of about $23,000. His federal tax
credit works out to nearly $7000, and the state of California kicks in additional incentives.” The
second “homeowner isn't so lucky. The IRS offers only a 10 percent credit on biomass heating
systems like his stove. The credit doesn't include installation costs, and the total is capped at
$300.” When comparing these two systems in BTU’s (British Thermal Units) the first
homeowner saved about 30 million units per year what the second saved about 79 million units
(Meigs).
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The EPA and UCAIR are trying to promote improved air quality. Rather than a strategy
of banning wood burning and publicizing its detrimental effects, a better approach would be to
educate and replace the detrimental fireplaces and outdated wood-burning stoves with the
sustainable energy efficient wood-burning options. And invest in making our efficient wood and
pellet-burning stoves even more efficient.
Works Cited
California Air Resource Board. "Respitory Concerns and Air Quality." 2014. California Division
of Environmental Quality. 2 March 2015
<http://www.arb.ca.gov/research/health/healthres.htm>.
Cliamate Central. Wildfires and Air Pollution, A Hidden Hazard. Report. New York: NATURE,
2013.
Meigs, James B. "How Unheralded Wood Stoves Could Save the World." 21 February 2014.
Popular Mechanics. 2 March 2015 <http://www.popularmechanics.com/home/howto/a10192/how-unheralded-wood-stoves-could-save-the-world-16518907/>.
Nguyen, Jason. "Final wood burning hearing held in Provo." 2015. GOOD4Utah. 2 March 2015
<http://www.good4utah.com/story/d/story/final-wood-burning-hearing-held-inprovo/22135/Ph67q0sJ6EipHyGyODSaKg#comment-1825024212>.
O'Donoghue, Amy Joi and Candice Madsen. "KSL Study: Utahns can improve air quality by not
using fireplaces, wood-burning stoves." 23 January 2014. KSL.com. 2 3 2015 <
http://www.ksl.com/?sid=28466970 >.
United States Environmental Protection Agency. "Outdoor Air - Industry, Business, and Home:
Residential Wood Burning." 8 August 2011. EPA Website. 2 3 2015 <
http://www.epa.gov/oaqps001/community/details/woodstoves.html >.
Utah Department of Environmental Quality. UCAIR. 2015. 2 March 2015
<http://www.ucair.org/burn/>.