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Smoke Pollution in Urban Areas

[Deleted User]

Our towns and cities are destroyed with smoke from solid fuel burning stoves, ranges and fireplaces.

On a cold, still night every second chimney has smoke billowing from it that just lingers for the night.

Go outside and you come home stinking of smoke.

The sale of stoves of stoves should be banned and active night-time enforcement with heavy fines for any household allowing smoke escape their chimney.

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grassylawn

The Tetrarch wrote: »

A bit of power and the Greens are running amok.

Last year their policy was that greyhound racing should be defunded. Huge amounts of money are pumped into it to support a handful of jobs and there are major concerns about the welfare of the animals involved.

Last week they voted to provide a large sum of money to fund greyhound racing.

No mention of a nationwide rollout of the smoky coal ban.

Not aware of any environmentalist measures that were enacted since they got into government.

magicbastarder

significant increase in funding for NPWS, and creation of a wildlife crime unit.
climate bill
€108m being channeled to repurposing bogs.

magicbastarder

anyway, that's OT.
what's the balance of suspected sources of particulate matter pollution in urban areas anyway? i.e. how much is from transport, how much from electricity generation, how much from solid fuel, etc?

Yellow_Fern

gozunda wrote: »

But don't heat pumps work by collecting ambient heat from soil and water? Wheres the gas come into it?

They are referring the electricity used to power them. In a badly insulated house some types of heat pump can require a lot of electricity.

suicide_circus

It's like being in a Dickens novel, love it.

Sonic the Shaghog

No problem with the banning of stoves and fireplaces as long everyone that uses them is given adequate grants to completely insulate their house and install heat pumps to standard, if it's too costly then social housing should be provided.

As you can see not a fan of just ban and let the poor freeze to death myself now

No doubt you'd moan at the tax hike/new charge to cover this tho.

Edgware

LuasSimon wrote: »

I’ll give up my fire when I get a nice social housing central heated apartment in Rathgar and I want gym membership as well !

Sorry P.A.Y.E. workers not acceptable

TheChizler

Stoves are far preferable to open fires too, better burn so less particulates, and more efficient so less fuel used for the same heat making it into the room. I'd love to know what the proportion of pollution of open fires to stoves is. The same question for coal and wood.

3d4life

3d4life wrote: »

Well I never !

Tell us now, how much smoke is produced when gas is burnt to produce electricity ?

magicbastarder wrote: »

have you ever seen smoke coming out of a gas boiler? burning natural gas (unless the boiler is malfunctioning) produces H20 and CO2.

MB, that is, of course, the answer.

My question was aimed at Ubbquittious.......... who ignored it

Ubbquittious wrote: »

Heat pumps are pretty much powered by burning gas off site.

SEPT 23 1989

I miss the smell of proper fires hanging in the air in Dublin on a still winters evening

COVID

I miss the smell of napalm in the morning.

highdef

I've two stoves. I also have a kerosene fed central heating boiler. Sometimes I run out of kerosene and it may be a few days before I can get a refill. Having two stoves in different parts of the house really does come in handy in those situations. Looking at the flames flicker in the stove is therapeutic to me plus the amount of heat that the stoves provide versus the amount of fuel burnt is pretty amazing.

Markcheese

magicbastarder wrote: »

why? what have they done?

Doesn't matter , they exist ..and and there both too green and not green enough at the same time ... Ggggrrrrrr ..

bluezulu49

Harry Palmr wrote: »

Interesting to a point - that point being the extent of the monitoring equipment in use which seems to be mainly around greater Dublin

This is a very good point. Anyone coming along the M11 from Arklow towards Dublin at this time of the year can see very bad air pollution hanging over Wicklow town and Rathnew, neither of which have monitoring stations.

grassylawn

magicbastarder wrote: »

significant increase in funding for NPWS, and creation of a wildlife crime unit.
climate bill
€108m being channeled to repurposing bogs.

That's all great to hear actually.

skooterblue2

LuasSimon wrote: »

I’ll give up my fire when I get a nice social housing central heated apartment in Rathgar and I want gym membership as well !

Peasant, you really sort changed yourself!! You should have gotten the Concierge service too with access to the rooftop garden. Get him to bring the Bentley round the front too.

John_Rambo

Our stove won't burn wet wood, got it from a Danish company a decade ago that was obviously ahead of it's time. It's got a clean burn system that produces barely any smoke and leaves barely any ash.

The bad air in Dublin is due to vehicular traffic. The coal ban was a complete success and the capital doesn't suffer from that heavy hanging winter smog from turf and coal burning that smaller towns suffer from.

Ubbquittious

3d4life wrote: »

MB, that is, of course, the answer.

My question was aimed at Ubbquittious.......... who ignored it

Ah jaysus, terribly sorry I'm not sitting around boardsing all day. Havn't the luxury of a salary paid to me for boardsing like some of the paid shill accounts on this site.

It was the no need to burn anything remark I was refering to.

Victor

magicbastarder wrote: »

have you ever seen smoke coming out of a gas boiler? burning natural gas (unless the boiler is malfunctioning) produces H20 and CO2.

Also NOx and possibly small amounts of other pollutants.

magicbastarder wrote: »

what's the balance of suspected sources of particulate matter pollution in urban areas anyway? i.e. how much is from transport, how much from electricity generation, how much from solid fuel, etc?

Electricity generation probably produces very little particulate matter, as the plants are big enough to allow easy removal. A fair chunk is from transport (leaning towards PM2.5) and in winter a fair chunk is from solid fuel (leaning towards PM10).

Stihl waters

When they come up with an affordable alternative to burning timber, turf and coal I'll rip out my stove until then I'll keep the home fire burning

TheChizler

Stihl waters wrote: »

When they come up with an affordable alternative to burning timber, turf and coal I'll rip out my stove until then I'll keep the home fire burning

Is it affordable? I would have thought it was more economic to heat your home off electricity than solid fuel.

Ubbquittious

Victor wrote: »

Also NOx and possibly small amounts of other pollutants.

Electricity generation probably produces very little particulate matter, as the plants are big enough to allow easy removal. A fair chunk is from transport (leaning towards PM2.5) and in winter a fair chunk is from solid fuel (leaning towards PM10).

There is a yoke you can get on top of your chimney that will draw out nearly all the PMwhatever

But in most places in the country on most days of the year probably very little to be gained from installing it.

John_Rambo

Stihl waters wrote: »

When they come up with an affordable alternative to burning timber, turf and coal I'll rip out my stove until then I'll keep the home fire burning

Who's "they"?

Sometimes it's up to you to take personal responsibility for the greater good without compo culture or enforcement.

Can you upgrade your stove or use a cleaner fuel? Turf and coal are pretty bad for you, your family, your neighbours, your immediate environment and your community. Rather than relying on "them" to give you a hand out and rely on benefits would you consider taking personal actions to improve your air quality? If the answer is no. Fair enough. Enough said.

Ubbquittious

Stihl waters wrote: »

When they come up with an affordable alternative to burning timber, turf and coal I'll rip out my stove until then I'll keep the home fire burning

I won't. Too much enjoyment to be had from loading the fire up with logs and turf, putting a couple of sheepskins down infront of it. Light a few candles and tearing into a fine beour once it gets good and warm. The experience just wouldn't be the same with central heating or an ashoop. Best if this is on an absolutely miserable night with the wind howling. The ban stoves crowd can take a long walk off a short pier. Very suspicious that they would suddenly show up, air quality has been improving for years mostly due to the demise of the carburetted car engine, industry being outsourced to China and the end of smoky coal

beauf

Steyr 556 wrote: »

Wasn't there a ban on smoky fuels (coal etc) in Dublin in the 80s due to smog? It wasn't anything like Victorian era London but it was fairly dire at times.

In remember not being able to see 10-20ft.

Stihl waters

John_Rambo wrote: »

Who's "they"?

Sometimes it's up to you to take personal responsibility for the greater good without compo culture or enforcement.

Can you upgrade your stove or use a cleaner fuel? Turf and coal are pretty bad for you, your family, your neighbours, your immediate environment and your community. Rather than relying on "them" to give you a hand out and rely on benefits would you consider taking personal actions to improve your air quality? If the answer is no. Fair enough. Enough said.

"They" are the people who plead with us to stop burning fossil fuels without providing a viable affordable alternative, the cost to retrofit old homes to modern ways of heating is astronomical even when you include grants, I've priced solar recently and the cheapest price I've got came in around 10 grand, that's not affordable to me at the moment.

I got out of burning turf because of how much you actually need to heat even a small house, now I use a mixture of oil heating for the milder nights and coal and timber for colder weather. I'm all for a cleaner environment but until it's made affordable to people it's all just empty talk. When my current stove has reached the end of its life I'll research affordable clean burning stoves.

What on earth makes you think I rely on hand outs and benefits, I have never gotten any benefits apart from 7 payments of covid payment this year, quite a large assumption to make about someone you don't know. And compo culture? That's a head scratcher, can you explain what you mean by that.

Edit: I also only burn the smokeless coal

Graces7

highdef wrote: »

I've two stoves. I also have a kerosene fed central heating boiler. Sometimes I run out of kerosene and it may be a few days before I can get a refill. Having two stoves in different parts of the house really does come in handy in those situations. Looking at the flames flicker in the stove is therapeutic to me plus the amount of heat that the stoves provide versus the amount of fuel burnt is pretty amazing.

I have a solid fuel stove in the "kitchen" ( very small accommodation here) . It heats the water ( back boiler) very efficiently and will run radiators which I have never needed to use.

Burning smokeless " eggs" with some turf and a little driftwood.

I only need to use it a few hours a day

And yes, the living flame is more than just the heat it gives off.

Stihl waters

TheChizler wrote: »

Is it affordable? I would have thought it was more economic to heat your home off electricity than solid fuel.

Is there any system heats a home off electric that doesn't involve retrofitting and is affordable? I've worked out it costs approximately 1000 a year to heat my house, it's a mixture of coal timber and oil, i wouldn't see the point of spending 1000s on upgrading my heating system when it only costs a grand a year to heat my home

[Deleted User]

Maybe it's not as bad in Dublin but in regional towns where access to timber coal, turf and timber is more readily available. Someone already linked the Irish Times story where Letterkenny was worse than New Delhi. How is this not deserving of immediate action from the EPA?

Every year more and more houses are getting those solid fuel burning stoves installed and they are lit up at the same time on cold nights. The smoke just sits there. For those sitting cosily beside a lit stove, go out and take a look at your chimney to see the crap you are putting out into a dead still air.

Properly serviced oil boilers and internal combustion engines don't leave the place smothered in smoke.

[Deleted User]

Stihl waters wrote: »

When they come up with an affordable alternative to burning timber, turf and coal I'll rip out my stove until then I'll keep the home fire burning

See this here is exactly what I'm taking about. This attitude needs active night time enforcement with stiff penalties. It's the only way you'll hammer the selfishness out of people like this .