4 ms·

None of these are new or improved and they all have the same consequences because we are talking about chemistry (what happens to wood when it is burned). This

by lingben 13y ago

None of these are new or improved and they all have the same consequences because we are talking about chemistry (what happens to wood when it is burned). This pseudo argument is akin to those who, after some initial evidence came to light about the harmful effects of smoking 50-60 years ago, argued that with a filter, smoking was safe (because the filter would 'catch' the bad stuff). No matter what kind of technique or equipment you use, nothing will 100% prevent the escape of the carcinogenic compounds produced by the chemical reaction of burning wood. So the question becomes, do you want a little bit of carcinogens in your air? a lot of them? or none (produced by you in your enclosed space/home)?

DanBC 13y ago
> hey all have the same consequences because we are talking about chemistry (what happens to wood when it is burned). Inefficient fires don't get as hot and cause more smoke. efficient fires get much hotter, and have better airflow. These burn more "stuff", and it burns cleaner.
jdmichal 13y ago
Now, I am not familiar with temperature's effects on the reactions found in burning wood. However, your invocation of chemistry is misguided at best. Chemical reactions CAN and DO vary based on energy input into the system. Reactions can happen one way at normal wood fireplace temperature, but another way in an efficient burner at higher temperature. Not to mention that higher temperatures can also simply burn away compounds that lower temperatures cannot. They can also vary based on outside inputs; for instance, wood burned without oxygen becomes charcoal.
InclinedPlane 13y ago
The "chemistry" of wood burning only implies that CO2 and water will be produced. These are not particularly harmful compared to smoke.
- maxerickson 13y ago
  Plants are well known to contain elements other than carbon and hydrogen. So sure, if you stick to cartoon chemistry you just have those, if you try to actually characterize the reaction, not so much.
  - InclinedPlane 13y ago
    The hazardous chemical byproducts of incomplete wood combustion are primarily CHO compounds. With sufficient combustion wood burning can produce very little to none of those compounds. Not that such conditions are typical of wood burning, but the idea that burning wood must produce carcinogenic and hazardous products due to the fundamental chemistry involved is simply erroneous.
- lingben 13y ago
  Respectfully, you are simply wrong. http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/hl-vs/iyh-vsv/environ/wood-bois-eng.php http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/hl-vs/iyh-vsv/environ/wood-bois-eng.p...
  - InclinedPlane 13y ago
    I would ask you to look at that list again and re-evaluate whether those products are inevitably the consequence of wood burning in every situation due to the fundamental chemistry involved or whether instead they are due primarily to the conditions involved in that burning and will be produced in different amounts under different conditions.
adulau 13y ago
There are various techniques in order to approach a "Stoichiometric combustion" while burning woods. It's indeed very difficult to reach due to various factor (e.g. partially wet woods or mixed woods). The major risk when you have incomplete combustion is the generation of formaldehyde. That's indeed a critical risk but the combustion for "mass heating" is targeting a fast and quick combustion (the opposite of the common "recreational" fire place") where you can limit the risk. Regarding the "carcinogens" and especially the short particles, this is a shared issue among all combustion and the gasoline/fuel burning is also a major source of particles. So my point regarding this article, you cannot draw risk conclusion without comparing the various combustion techniques.
labawi 13y ago
I'm sure hydrofracking, coal power plants, cars, switching power supplies, paint etc.. all have absolutely no carcinogenic or other disease causing potential in your home. I have burned wood in a highly inefficient, toxic way to heat my home, as I only had an inappropriate furnace. To put things into perspective, in our town, the junkyard is essentially perpetually smoldering, giving off quite potent fumes. When burned properly, both wood and many types of garbage should not create carcinogens, I think. Burning typical coal releases uranium, which will be radioactive, unless you scrub it, put it in a nuclear reactor or so.
corresation 13y ago
So the question becomes, do you want a little bit of carcinogens in your air? a lot of them? or none (produced by you in your enclosed space/home)? An identical argument can be made about wireless radiation. Literally, do a search/replace of a lot of the quackery throughout this whole discussion and you've got a standard discussion about banning wifi. e.g. I have heard that standing close to a high power transmitter is dangerous. Therefore, I am in danger because of my neighbour's wifi transmitter. Now someone is going to argue about ionizing potential energy, but the same principals apply for carcinogenic compounds, which are literally all around us. The process of cooking almost invariably even creates new carcinogenic compounds -- do you eschew cooking? Reductionism is almost always garbage science if taken holistically (it has value within a context, however). Are there actual demonstrated correlative studies of recreational burn "advocates"? Of neighbours? Do wildfires lead to mass outbreaks of cancer (or even a statistically discernable incident rates)? No? Then it sounds like an enormous reach of extraterritorial offense.
- lingben 13y ago
  strawman argument - wireless signals are not dangerous or harmful, no study has shown this, whereas VOCs and other compounds which are a byproduct of wood smoke are carcinogenic.
  - corresation 13y ago
    Would you stand in front of an operational radar array? Would you give a good hug to a high power transmitter? In both cases you would quickly find yourself dead, despite it being just "wireless signals". They are high power variants of their low power cousins. The latter isn't dangerous simply as a factor of magnitude. But the same arguments apply. Further it's an interesting note that the classification of something as a carcinogen usually is arrived at via very large levels of exposure, and there are endless tables of "acceptable" exposure to such carcinogenic materials. This fireplace issue would seem to be something that would be studied to death, and strong correlative findings demonstrating a sound case (given how utterly dire and extreme the submission is). Instead you get things like this- http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3002194/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3002194/ I'll skip to the fun part -- wood burning homes did have more incidents of cancer, because they had a higher correlation with smokers (similar to how, for instance, blue jeans probably have a higher incidence of cancer than khakis). Among non-smokers the incident rates of cancer are absolutely identical with non wood burning homes. Isn't that incredible, and doesn't that simply destroy the submission? And this is for frequent users who use it as a primary source of fuel, so a level of exposure dramatically higher than such a recreational user.

by lingben 13y ago

DanBC 13y ago

> hey all have the same consequences because we are talking about chemistry (what happens to wood when it is burned). Inefficient fires don't get as hot and cause more smoke. efficient fires get much hotter, and have better airflow. These burn more "stuff", and it burns cleaner.

jdmichal 13y ago

Now, I am not familiar with temperature's effects on the reactions found in burning wood. However, your invocation of chemistry is misguided at best. Chemical reactions CAN and DO vary based on energy input into the system. Reactions can happen one way at normal wood fireplace temperature, but another way in an efficient burner at higher temperature. Not to mention that higher temperatures can also simply burn away compounds that lower temperatures cannot. They can also vary based on outside inputs; for instance, wood burned without oxygen becomes charcoal.

InclinedPlane 13y ago

The "chemistry" of wood burning only implies that CO2 and water will be produced. These are not particularly harmful compared to smoke.

maxerickson 13y ago
Plants are well known to contain elements other than carbon and hydrogen. So sure, if you stick to cartoon chemistry you just have those, if you try to actually characterize the reaction, not so much.
- InclinedPlane 13y ago
  The hazardous chemical byproducts of incomplete wood combustion are primarily CHO compounds. With sufficient combustion wood burning can produce very little to none of those compounds. Not that such conditions are typical of wood burning, but the idea that burning wood must produce carcinogenic and hazardous products due to the fundamental chemistry involved is simply erroneous.
lingben 13y ago
Respectfully, you are simply wrong. http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/hl-vs/iyh-vsv/environ/wood-bois-eng.php http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/hl-vs/iyh-vsv/environ/wood-bois-eng.p...
- InclinedPlane 13y ago
  I would ask you to look at that list again and re-evaluate whether those products are inevitably the consequence of wood burning in every situation due to the fundamental chemistry involved or whether instead they are due primarily to the conditions involved in that burning and will be produced in different amounts under different conditions.

adulau 13y ago

There are various techniques in order to approach a "Stoichiometric combustion" while burning woods. It's indeed very difficult to reach due to various factor (e.g. partially wet woods or mixed woods). The major risk when you have incomplete combustion is the generation of formaldehyde. That's indeed a critical risk but the combustion for "mass heating" is targeting a fast and quick combustion (the opposite of the common "recreational" fire place") where you can limit the risk. Regarding the "carcinogens" and especially the short particles, this is a shared issue among all combustion and the gasoline/fuel burning is also a major source of particles. So my point regarding this article, you cannot draw risk conclusion without comparing the various combustion techniques.

labawi 13y ago

I'm sure hydrofracking, coal power plants, cars, switching power supplies, paint etc.. all have absolutely no carcinogenic or other disease causing potential in your home. I have burned wood in a highly inefficient, toxic way to heat my home, as I only had an inappropriate furnace. To put things into perspective, in our town, the junkyard is essentially perpetually smoldering, giving off quite potent fumes. When burned properly, both wood and many types of garbage should not create carcinogens, I think. Burning typical coal releases uranium, which will be radioactive, unless you scrub it, put it in a nuclear reactor or so.

corresation 13y ago

So the question becomes, do you want a little bit of carcinogens in your air? a lot of them? or none (produced by you in your enclosed space/home)? An identical argument can be made about wireless radiation. Literally, do a search/replace of a lot of the quackery throughout this whole discussion and you've got a standard discussion about banning wifi. e.g. I have heard that standing close to a high power transmitter is dangerous. Therefore, I am in danger because of my neighbour's wifi transmitter. Now someone is going to argue about ionizing potential energy, but the same principals apply for carcinogenic compounds, which are literally all around us. The process of cooking almost invariably even creates new carcinogenic compounds -- do you eschew cooking? Reductionism is almost always garbage science if taken holistically (it has value within a context, however). Are there actual demonstrated correlative studies of recreational burn "advocates"? Of neighbours? Do wildfires lead to mass outbreaks of cancer (or even a statistically discernable incident rates)? No? Then it sounds like an enormous reach of extraterritorial offense.

lingben 13y ago
strawman argument - wireless signals are not dangerous or harmful, no study has shown this, whereas VOCs and other compounds which are a byproduct of wood smoke are carcinogenic.
- corresation 13y ago
  Would you stand in front of an operational radar array? Would you give a good hug to a high power transmitter? In both cases you would quickly find yourself dead, despite it being just "wireless signals". They are high power variants of their low power cousins. The latter isn't dangerous simply as a factor of magnitude. But the same arguments apply. Further it's an interesting note that the classification of something as a carcinogen usually is arrived at via very large levels of exposure, and there are endless tables of "acceptable" exposure to such carcinogenic materials. This fireplace issue would seem to be something that would be studied to death, and strong correlative findings demonstrating a sound case (given how utterly dire and extreme the submission is). Instead you get things like this- http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3002194/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3002194/ I'll skip to the fun part -- wood burning homes did have more incidents of cancer, because they had a higher correlation with smokers (similar to how, for instance, blue jeans probably have a higher incidence of cancer than khakis). Among non-smokers the incident rates of cancer are absolutely identical with non wood burning homes. Isn't that incredible, and doesn't that simply destroy the submission? And this is for frequent users who use it as a primary source of fuel, so a level of exposure dramatically higher than such a recreational user.