I don't think we can expect a FF replacement to be better in *all* aspects: we might have to be content with *most* on a balance of benefits and costs.

Rgds

Damon

I suspect that we will work to the lowest common denominator rather than a higher standard. What Cost Benefit Analysis does best. But then it all hinges on the relative weightings of each component, and we will never all agree to a common standard there

Damon- My belief is children deserve clean air, if you consider this absolutist then I plead guilty. Any action we take to deliberately degrade air quality must be questioned and fully scrutinised to ensure all clean alternatives have been embraced.
Why allow children to be exposed to a known hazard ?
Rgds
Brian

S.T.- Sadly the reality is in the UK we recognise inability to comply with current EU air quality regulations and resort to pleading for special dispensation in order to avoid serious financial penalties. Our planned investment in dirty renewables technology will add to the problems with serious implications for NHS costings.
It does raise the question of CBA applicable to investment in technologies that will reduce life expectation.
Rgds
Brian

I have as you all know similar concerns about the use of Biomass especially in towns and cities and dont like the direction in which things are headding

Thank you Brian for putting forward such well presented facts and for opening up the debate in such a nice way.

They didnt live so long back then, there were smogs and there were a lot of bronchial problems.

I would not want to ga back to that.

So we need some real quantitative measures of harm rather than just "no way, Jose".

BW has raised an important point that needs dealing with.

But we can't really get any further on the basis of dogma rather than numbers.

Rgds

Damon

I think that we all want less pollution and Brian is doing an excellent job of targetting the large industrial plants planned to counter one target of green energy at the expense of polluting our air. However Brian is also targetting any biomass burning as illogical. As Damon points out almost everything has its dangers. Parents are more irresponsible for sending their kids to school on public roads than if they dont contest the insallation of a biomass burner in their school. Surely they are more likely to die or suffer injury from an accident than suffer premature death from the combustion of biomass. Google road stats and they will make far more concerning stats than Brians.

Could the biomass burner run at night when school is empty?

Fossil fuels cause a significant number of deaths - Iraq? Kuwait? Or does it not count when they are foriegn? Admittedly Brian would also not want these burnt, but that is our alternative. We are not yet in Utopia so cannot rule out current practices.

We have done this argument to death. We need more regulation, more efficiency and politicans to become squeaky clean and stop pandering to ridiculous targets at expense of other factors.

I do more than sustain a woodland with my management, I improve it. The wood gathered is burned efficiently and it is only my family within some hundreds of yards. Frankly I put wildlife benefits on at least an equal footing to our own existence. My circumstances prohibit a bottomless pocket to spend on new alternative energys.

Posted By: adwindrumI do more than sustain a woodland with my management, I improve it

Adam, think that should really read 'change it', not 'improve it', it is hardly going back to wilderness if one takes the purest line of thinking. Teasing a bit there, but every second the world changes, some things are better for people, others are better for flora and fauna. I do not think that a change can really be considered a net improvement.

We could, if we were bothered do some research ourselves and try and create our own standard for biomass burning. The purpose of a standard is to minimise damage while still allowing economic and social issues to be included. I am not sure how it could be administrated over the interweb, but I am sure it could be. It must be set on evidence based science otherwise we end up with unachievable targets. But that is only if we can be bothered, the response to the survey I set up for Tony was pretty poor.

Adam
No was about winter cooling things.

I know a man who was a government inspector on fishing boats, generally the large Spanish ones, and he thinks that generally the fishermen play fair (and work very hard). The bi-catch issue is a nonsense but hard to get around, but in his few years at sea he never saw a dolphin caught as bi-catch, and I see loads washed up on the beaches down here. When it comes to cod fishing there is well documented research about water temperature in the spawning grounds and future population sizes, so not as clear cut as people first think.

But this is digressing from the thread and it is a too good a thread to let that happen.

Any standard should be easy to understand and interpret other wise it is useless. This is where numbers come in. If a standard says less that 10 (somethings) for 90% of the time and never more than 12, that is easy to understand but could still lead to fudging because time has not be specified.
Now if it said 10 for 90% for any period of 8766 hours per year over a 4 year period and never more than 12, it starts to become clearer. And I am sure someone will find a way around that

I note report - EU delays tackling air pollutionto 2012 or later http://www.ecolinks.org/
Research report concludes Residential combustion of biomass can often be a major local emissions source of volatile organic compunds (VOC), polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH) and particulate matter (PM). In many residential areas and small communities there are serious problems during wintertime.
Another report details inappropriate use of biomass may impact significantly on air quality. I would add that personal experience and research indicates proximity of trees or structures greater than 50% chimney height adds significantly to emissions inversion problems. I understand min spacing is 5 times exit height. I mention this because not seen any recommendations in postings on woodburner installation.
Rgds
Brian

a lot of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons are carcinogens

one of the worst is benzene which is a VOC

Further apology I note Ecolincs site is currently throwing wobbly.

Summary p 4, precis pp 63/64.

Certainly contentious, and flies in the face of other evidence to the contrary (in terms of particulate harm). But as ST is always insisting, you have to know what the base-line is. Perhaps it's in the Swedish bit.

I appear to have failed again on link- On google It is headed Particulate Emissions for Biomass Combustion in IEA Countries (2008) www.energytech.at/biomass/result.html?id=5532
Rgds
Brian