来源：《新科学家》
原文刊登日期：2022年3月30日
Wood-burning appliances in people’s homes are a major source of damaging air pollution in the European Union and the UK, responsible for €17 billion a year in health-related costs, a study has found.
一项研究发现，在欧盟和英国，人们家中的烧柴设备是破坏性空气污染的主要来源，每年产生170亿欧元的健康相关费用。
Economist Marisa Korteland and her colleagues at the Netherlands-based consultancy firm CE Delft calculated how much air pollution is produced by heating and cooking in homes based on emissions data from Eurostat, the EU’s statistical office. They then estimated the health consequences based on a 2013 study by the World Health Organization. The health costs include both direct spending on healthcare and the social costs of higher illness rates and earlier deaths.
荷兰咨询公司CE-Delft的经济学家玛丽莎·科特兰和她的同事们根据欧盟统计局（Eurostat）的排放数据计算了家庭取暖和烹饪产生的空气污染量。然后，他们根据世界卫生组织2013年的一项研究估算了健康后果。健康成本既包括医疗保健方面的直接支出，也包括更高患病率和更早死亡的社会成本。
“It’s really important to take the health impacts of air pollution into account,” says Korteland. Policy-makers don’t usually do this because no economic value is placed on it, she says.
科特兰说：“把空气污染对健康的影响考虑在内真的很重要。”她说，政策制定者通常不会这样做，因为这样做没有经济价值。
According to the study, air pollution from fossil fuels and wood burned in homes for heating or cooking results in €27 billion of health-related costs a year in the EU and UK. That is nearly as much as air pollution from residential transport, which causes €36 billion in health-related costs a year.
根据这项研究，在欧盟和英国，每年因取暖或做饭而燃烧化石燃料和木材造成的空气污染导致270亿欧元的健康相关成本。这几乎与居民交通造成的空气污染相当，后者每年产生360亿欧元的健康相关费用。
Wood-based home appliances are responsible for 63 per cent of the €27 billion, because burning wood has high health costs relative to the energy it generates. In the UK, for instance, wood stoves provide just 11 per cent of the final energy used for heating and cooking, but cause 54 per cent of health-related costs, the study found.
家用烧柴设备产生的健康费用占270亿欧元中的63%，因为燃烧木材相对于其产生的能源而言，健康成本很高。例如，该研究发现，在英国，柴火炉仅提供加热和烹饪所需最终能源的11%，但却产生54%的健康相关成本。
The average health costs from using a wood stove for a year are €750 per household, says Korteland, compared with €210 from driving a diesel car and €30 from a gas boiler.
科特兰说，使用柴火炉一年的平均健康成本为每户750欧元，相比之下，驾驶柴油车的成本为210欧元，燃气锅炉的成本为30欧元。
If countries swapped stoves and boilers for heat pumps powered by electricity from non-biomass and non-fossil fuel sources, the health-related costs from air pollution from heating could be reduced to zero, the study says.
该研究说，如果各国将炉子和锅炉换成由非生物质和非化石燃料来源的电力驱动的热泵，供暖造成的空气污染造成的与健康相关的成本可能会降低到零。
What’s more, the calculated costs are a considerable underestimate, the team thinks, because they don’t consider indoor air pollution.
更重要的是，研究小组认为，计算得出的医疗成本被严重低估了，因为他们没有考虑室内空气污染。
Air pollution levels can be extremely high inside homes where wood or fossil fuel appliances are used. However, because levels vary considerably – depending on factors such as how well homes are ventilated, how often people cook and so on – the team decided there wasn’t enough data to come up with a reliable estimate.
在使用木材或化石燃料电器的家中，空气污染水平可能非常高。然而，由于水平差异很大——取决于诸如房屋通风状况、人们做饭的频率等因素——研究小组认为没有足够的数据来做出可靠的估计。
The EU has been encouraging wood burning as a way to reduce emissions, with more than 60 per cent of its renewable energy coming from biomass. Critics say biomass burning on this scale isn’t sustainable and is harming biodiversity globally.
欧盟一直在鼓励燃烧木材，将其作为一种减少排放的方式，欧盟60%以上的可再生能源来自生物质。批评人士说，这种规模的生物质燃烧是不可持续的，正在损害全球的生物多样性。