There seems to be an increasing emphasis on the burning of biomass. Is this a sensible way to bearing in mind that it causes pollution, nuisance and smoke?

This is a repeat as the original thread was "lost".

Can we get the comments of the previous thread back anyhow?

Quite right Skywalker, as usual it boils down to our old friend common sense.

Biomass is not an answer, just a contribution in the right circumstance, bought locally burnt on efficient ap[pliances when dry etc etc.

No smoke from my 2 flues after a few minutes= no nuisanace no complaints in 3 years. My neighbours coal fire however,stinky!

Okay, I dont know much about Biomass at all - but some thoughts. If rolled out in a big way, to the masses at home say. Can we expect the average Jo to follow all of the guidelines regarding what is and is not burnt? whether it is wet or dry etc?. Also because we cannot see anything coming out of the chimney does that mean there is nothing harmful there?

Go to any village in England and nearly everyone has either an open fire or a stove of some kind. No-one complains about pollution. There is no problem with burning wood in rural areas and that is where the wood is. So given that supplies are not limitless (because of land use constraints) that is where is should be burnt. Also in CHP plants in market towns (or places near to sources of biomass).

Forget about trucking biomass into CHP plants in cites or delivering logs and pellets to city dwellers. There won't be enough (and so there would never be a pollution issue anyway) and they would be better making use of the mains gas or electricity supply which don't need trucks for delivery (lots of villages don't have mains gas and don't have this option). As I said on the other thread, I don't like to see badly insulated, drafty cottages with massive wood piles outside and the owners smugly declaring they are carbon neutral. With any resource which is for practical purposes limited, wasteful consumption denies others to opportunity to use the resource.

Hi, recently caught a cold with a scheme in London where the biomass gasification pellet burning boiler wasn't on the Clean Air Act exempted appliances list, the EHO slapped a stop notice on it stating that it's all Ken's fault and he's not having smokey biomass in his bourough!
The boiler in question goes for exemption in April, having looked at the other boilers on the list some are over 25years old and pretty smokey to boot, so not overly concerned that it won't get exemption.
Does anybody know much about the clean air act, as far as I can see it seems to be just a case of what you can see coming out of the chimney, there must be something more to it than that?

Funcrusher, if you say that burning wood produces dangerous carcinogens then I'm not going to argue with you. What I would say is that the risk involved with respect to human health (in the context of limited use in villages and less densely populated areas) must be very small, so long as you have proper flues which clear the roof tops etc. People say that nuclear power produces dangerous carcinogens, and I don't argue with them either, but the again the risk to human health is vanishingly small (even less than burning wood I should think).

To put all this in context, I heard on the news the other night that 6000 odd people last year went into hospital in the UK and never came out due to contracting C. difficile in filthy wards. I would argue it would be safer from a health point of view, and cheaper, for people to burn a bit of wood on an efficient stove and take out private health insurance than fork out for a GSHP.

I never said burning wood was healthy, I just don't believe that burning seasoned wood using efficient appliances with proper flues in areas of lowish population density (i.e. farms, village, small towns) will ever cause any measurable health problems.

Burning dung and firewood in mud huts with no flues, now that is a different matter. I've no doubt that shaves a good few years of the occupant's lifespan. Likewise, any great increase in wood burning in cities and large towns is bound to cause some health problems and should not be allowed (we have smoke controlled zones to prevent this and I think they should be enforced).

Fears about widespread burning of wood are unfounded in any case because we don't have the resource. This isn't Canada or Sweden. The price of firewood will be rocketing up with all other fuels over the next few years. We started burning coal because we had felled most of the forests and I don't see that much replanting has taken place since. We can increase supply by better management of what we have and as long as it is used sensibly close to where it is cut I don't see it becoming a problem.

Sorry folks, the previous thread got corrupted and had to be deleted. Who was the last to post onto it?

As with many things in life we are saying ok in moderation.

Chris you are right price of firewood is going up, unfortunately people dont buy responsibly, "kiln dried" firewood I see advertised is ridiculous it uses energy to dry it they then offer nationwide delivery at enormous cost? Buy local at the right time of year,save a fortune, season yourself and get some excercise to boot!

Would be nice but not practical methinks. A mix of all fules is needed unless we have much less people in the British Isles?? That debate is for an entirely different forum perhaps.

Yes if everyone was to burn wood at the same time there would be big problems especially in towns and cities would go back to having smogs.

Everyone in the UK will not be super-insulated as this policy crazily only applies to some new properties.

Perhaps large scale charcoal production with facilities to capture all the nasties would work for urban environments, along with passive house standards and a decrease of population, we might just survive
tom