EPA Mandated Smoke Quality Area in Juneau, AK

[navyinak]

I am planning a gasifier system with at least 1000 gallons of storage for my new home here in Juneau, AK. I am also the facility planner for the Coast Guard here in Alaska, and one of our engineers launched a feasibility study for biomass fueled boilers in four sites in Southeast Alaska. One of those sites just happens to be Juneau.

One of the things I am dealing with is an actual EPA defined smoke hazard area here in Juneau, AK. If the air quality drops, all wood burning appliances, with the exception of pellet stoves, are banned from operation. It is my understanding that the local authorities are responsible for enforcing the ban, and that the EPA did not define what type of stoves are banned from operation. I have read numerous threads on the new guidelines for EPA certification of stoves. The ban does apply to EPA certified stoves. Only pellet stoves are exempt.

I have to believe that we are not unique from this type of legislation, and that this is an issue that some of you have dealt with before. Have any of you successfully gotten permission to operate your system when air quality restrictions were in place?

And for the dealer/manufacturer's out there, It is my understanding that pellet stoves are excluded from the ban by our local borough, because they are inherently clean burning. How do the particulate emmissions from a properly adjusted gasifire stove compare to a properly operating pellet stove? Do you think I could build a case for an exception for them, or have any of you seen a community that has allowed an exception for gasifier stoves?

Obviously this puts a damper on any designs for using the stove as the sole source of heat for the home. The local building codes state that in fact. I will be installing electric elements in my storage tank for heat when and if I am unable to burn wood. The silver lining here is that there is a program with the local electric utility for off peak electric rates specifically designed for heat storage systems. I will be able to get electricity at a significantly reduced rate in the evenings.

 

[Nofossil]

Here's a link to independent European test results for the EKO 80 gasifier. Unit conversion is an exercise left to the reader....
Link to document

 

[navyinak]

Thanks Nofossil,

Nice monitoring software btw.

Does anyone else live in or near a federally mandated air quality control area? I see a lot of threads related to local bans on outdoor wood boilers, but not much on federally mandated bans on wood burning appliances.

Thanks,

John

 

[navyinak]

With all the discussion of banning of outdoor wood stoves, I thought I would include the provision within the code for Juneau, Alaska.

The first is the definition of a solid fuel-fired heating device:

Solid fuel-fired heating device and device mean a device designed for solid fuel combustion so that usable heat is derived for the interior of a building, and includes solid fuel-fired stoves, fireplaces, solid fuel fired cooking stoves and combination fuel furnaces or boilers which burn solid fuel, but does not include stoves, fireplaces, furnaces, or boilers designed and used exclusively for the combustion of wood pellets having a maximum length of one inch in any dimension. (Serial No. 85-79, § 2, 1985; Serial No. 91-52, § 2, 1992)

The second is this interesting provision that would seem to make smoldering non-gassifying outdoor wood stoves hard to operate.

No person may operate a solid fuel-fired heating device in such a manner that visible emissions reduce visibility through the exhaust effluent by 50 percent or greater for more than 15 minutes in any one hour as determined by a test conducted in substantial compliance with the regulations applicable to the visual determination of stationary source emission opacity promulgated at 40 CFR 60, Appendix A, by the United States Environmental Protection Agency; provided, and notwithstanding any contrary provisions in the regulation, opacity observation shall be made at the point of greatest opacity in any portion of the emissions plume without regard to the presence or absence of condensed water vapor. The provisions of section 36.40.040 shall apply to the operation of Class I devices during air pollution alerts.
(Serial No. 85-79, § 2, 1985; Serial No. 91-52, § 5, 1992)