Are pizza ovens a major source of pollution? Newbie Forum Discuss Are pizza ovens a major source of pollution? in the Good Background Information forums; The new ovens out that I've seen are Wood and Gas temperature regulated. Meaning (GAS) holds your oven at a ...

[THICKCRUST]

The new ovens out that I've seen are Wood and Gas temperature regulated.

Meaning (GAS) holds your oven at a constant temperature, not a true wood fire pizza, but proof that wood burning ovens are here to stay.....check out Maccoroni Grill...if any nearby

[oventhusiast]

OH Well,... I guess my two years + of research and planning (where to build my oven,what type, what size etc.) has just gone up in smoke!!! I guess I'll just have to get used to that 'fake cheese-stuffed frozen dough product with the artifical tomato like gel and the freeze dried cardboard flavored mushroom speckles because I can't burn a bundle of wood now and then. On second thought.......NNNAAAAHHHH!!!! Hey!, maybe I'll take the catalytic converter off of my truck and mount it on the oven chimney? PROBLEM SOLVED!!!Duh C'mon people.... go after the real culprits responsible for our planets demise. (you know whose responsible) BUILD ON!!!
Rick

[Xabia Jim]

I think the key here is "major".....so no way compared to the millions of gallons of fuel burned daily for transport and the millions of tons of coal for power plants....in fact, China will soon be the largest user of coal fired power plants!

Whatever you use to cook uses something for energy with a waste byproduct....unless you're using solar or geothermal heat to cook.

I love the smell of wood smoke....enjoy your pizzas!

[james]

I just read that China puts more electricity on the grid every year than is used by the entire UK. I need to think about that for a minute.
James

[Xabia Jim]

(excerpts from a New York Times article...June 11, 2006)

One of China's lesser-known exports is a dangerous brew of soot, toxic chemicals and climate-changing gases from the smokestacks of coal-burning power plants. Researchers in California, Oregon and Washington noticed specks of sulfur compounds, carbon and other byproducts of coal combustion coating the silvery surfaces of their mountaintop detectors.

Already, China uses more coal than the United States, the European Union and Japan combined. And it has increased coal consumption 14 percent in each of the past two years in the broadest industrialization ever. Every week to 10 days, another coal-fired power plant opens somewhere in China that is big enough to serve all the households in Dallas or San Diego.

To make matters worse, India is right behind China in stepping up its construction of coal-fired power plants — and has a population expected to outstrip China's by 2030.

Unless China finds a way to clean up its coal plants and the thousands of factories that burn coal, pollution will soar both at home and abroad. The increase in global-warming gases from China's coal use will probably exceed that for all industrialized countries combined over the next 25 years, surpassing by five times the reduction in such emissions that the Kyoto Protocol seeks.


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[DaveHI]

Wood stoves with very limited draft for high efficiency can produce some pretty ugly molecules hence the modern designs with catalytic afterburners. But a pizza oven with the door open will have gobs of excess air so you should mostly be putting up C02 and some small amount of soot. In a bowl like LA you might not want to add more pollution into the soup but for most of us not a big issue. Buy a hybrid and come out ahead??

Dmun is right on one count, if the wood was just going to rot away, probably less greenhouse gas effect from burning it.

[CSWolffe]

I head a report to day on NPR about carbom scrubbers. the chemistry was too advanced for me, but things look hopefull.
Has anyone found any information on small scale scrubbers or carbon filters for home oven use? I know wood fired ovens can be efficient, but we could do better, and BBQers like be would relish the infor for our smokers.

[Dutchoven]

I altough not a scientist by any stretch of the word researched wood burning as heat sources as well as for ovens. Living in the Mid south heating is generally not an expensive issue but I was hoping to reduce my necessity on natural gas. While looking into the issues of wood burning stoves and masonry heaters I stumbled upon a catalytic converter for wood burning stoves. It creates a secondary combustion of nearly all exhaust gases from a slower burning wood burning stove. In reading the description of the reaction it is virtually identical to the reaction that happens when the oven is burning at higher temperatures. If you look in while you are firing and see strange colored gases dancing along the ceiling of the oven towards the door, that is the secondary combustion. At the same time you will notice no smoke exiting the chimney. If you use well seasoned wood, don't load the oven to much to start you will reach this level quickly. Then it is important to maintain the same schedule of not overloading you will not create much more to the atmosphere than the rotting of the same in the forest.
Best
Dutch

[wg_bent]

Looking at how oven's burn compared to how masonry heaters burn, the issue is really one of burn temps. I'm not sure how hot a temp an oven burns at, but they need to be over 900, more like 1200 to burn off the nasties, and masonry heaters burn more like 1800, so really are hot enough to do the job. It seems to me that an oven probably sends more heat up the chimney than a masonry heater does, so it might be less efficient, but the goal is very different. Heaters job is to distribute heat, an oven's is to contain heat.

I'd bet an oven pollutes a lot on startup, but may not be more than a heater.