Hacker News Reader

We have a fireplace. It's our primary source of heat. It's efficient, however - an EPA approved catalytic model. The smoke from the chimney is very light, and once it's burning dissipates very quickly. Plenty of stoves/fireplaces produce a blue pall of smoke that hangs over the entire area for days, and it's not one of those.

I'd be curious to know if studies included modern and correctly-installed stoves as well.

View on HN

This is the 21th century, but I'm afraid the message hasn't quite arrived yet: no, your generation of (heat|power|motion) through combustion or burning of things is not ever going to be healthy, efficient or sane.

I think I disagree. For energy density, gasoline is hard to beat. And I'm not convinced that catalytic wood stoves are that bad, without doing more research.

Nahh - they can't, because there is no body of exposure, lack of study power and no control (due to the shortness of time of the technology use and the vast set of confounding factors). It's rubbish.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com