I use an electric bbq. Infrared lamp bbqs are also available

I collect branches from the neighbors after storms. Put them in my "dry set" brick barbeque (1950's style) and cook away. Barbecue night is campfire night. Fuel is free and it otherwise would go to landfill of some megamansions mulch heap.

From the impression I get reading this post and remembering some other posts on BBQing here at TH, it seems that this issue has been quite confused. First, what exactly is the difference between cooking indoors and cooking outdoors? I don't see an inherent difference. I mean, if you have an old-fashioned wood-burning stove inside and a BBQ that burns wood outside and they both use about the same amount of wood, then what exactly is the inherent difference? Sure, there are some wood-burning stoves for kitchens that are very efficient and clean, but I am sure that if I really looked I could find some very efficient and clean wood-burning BBQs too. And if some people are using electric stovetops powered by coal-fired energy plants, I don't see much difference in cooking outside with coal briquettes. Sure, one may be a bit more efficient than the other but the possible differences can probably go either way - you could be getting electricity from the diriest coal-fired power plant in the world.

Second, there a large variety of cooking methods for both indoors and outdoors. If someone uses an old-style electric oven (with electricity coming from a coal plant) to cook some food, as opposed to using local sustainably-harvested wood or vegetable charcoal (or even dried animal dung ;) ) for an outdoor grill to cook the same or similar food, it is clear to me that the BBQing will be the much greener option.

Third, I think some people keep forgetting that carbon-dioxide emissions from wood-burning are part of a carbon-neutral cycle (if the wood is sustainably harvested). It's not contributing to global warming.

Fourth, there are times when it might be convenient for other environmental reasons to cook outside. If it is somewhat hot inside the house and you start to do some massive frying or oven-cooking in the kitchen, the extra heat may be enough to cause you to unnecessarily turn on some energy-guzzling AC device. Whereas one could simply have gone out to the shaded patio to BBQ and enjoy a breeze.

Lastly, there are several types of 'barbecuing' that have been omitted which are inherently green, or with the potential to be green. Solar ovens and solar concentrators (e.g. Fresnel lens concentrator). Concentrators are especially good at mimicking both the cooking effects and cooking experience of wood-fired barbecues. And then there is hydrogen BBQs. These could be powered by hydrogen created through renewable energy.

I don't see anything inherently ungreen about barbecuing. It is some of the technologies and fuels used that are inherently ungreen. And ungreen technologies can be both inside the kitchen and in the patio. I hope nobody thinks me a BBQ fanatic for what I say because I tends to dislike barbecuing. I prefer the quick, easy, clean cooking of a microwave and the comfort and bug-free status of my dining room.

If you use propane or natural gas, you're using a fossil fuel, and putting carbon dioxide into the air that came out of the ground; if you use charcoal, it is carbon neutral if it came from harvested wood (Mesquite hardwood charcoal) or sawdust of farmed wood, because the carbon emissions are balanced by the wood grown from which the sawdust came from.

Gas and propane have fewer particulate emissions, but in light of the importance of being carbon neutral, I'd say that I still prefer charcoal over fossil fuel barbecues.