It is so bizarre to me that people are acting as if they've never heard that gas stoves are terrible for your health. I've known this for years! I've seen reports and anecdotes and buzzfeed-style articles a couple of times a year since at least before the pandemic. I assumed the things would be outlawed for new construction years ago, and phased out over time, except in the sense that some people still burn coal for heat in the northeastern US, so "phased out" clearly means little.
It's just weird to me that people seem shocked, and weirder still that people reject the idea as preposterous. I mean, we live in a country which had lead in paint and gasoline making a notable dent in the population for decades. We lay pipes to deliver a flammable gas to houses to which a noxious smell has been added so that we might notice if we're being poisoned by it.
What about this does not seem outlandish?
I grew up with gas stoves off and on, but I don't have one now. When I want to cook with fire, I use the propane grill on the patio. I'll be the first to admit it's not as nice to warm up tortillas on a flat electric surface as it was on either a gas burner or even an electric coil, but that's a minor thing.
There's journal articles going back 20 years that discuss indoor NO2, but from these comments you'd think that a cabal met last week to implement their new world order of a gas stove-less society.
And no one is even talking about outdoor gas grills or natural gas heaters, because those are ventilated. CPSC is asking, why not natural gas stoves? Why don't we require these to be safe? This seems completely logical to me.
There's even people who are asking if the feds are going to take their gas stoves by way of natural gas ban. Like, no one has busted down my grandparents' house to confiscate their lead paint walls in their basement. I feel like I'm going crazy.
Indeed, it's a bizarre over-politicization, and people don't seem to recognize how they're escalating rhetoric needlessly. Most of this seemingly because of a tweet by a member of the US Congress. Very strange.
As the article makes clear, there is not evidence that they are unsafe.
> no one has busted down my grandparents' house to confiscate their lead paint walls in their basement.
Can you not see that it is much easier to seize a stove than to seize lead paint on walls?
Cities have already begun outlawing gas appliances in new construction. People who are concerned about the CPSC rumblings are justifiably worried. If you don't like a city's rules, you can move. But if the CPSC takes action, you can't just move to another city.
While it's probably a good idea for most people to eventually switch over to electric induction, not least because it's much more energy efficient, I do think that banning gas ranges nation-wide is a big step that would require significantly more evidence that it was necessary.
Most of the problems with indoor pollution can almost certainly be more cheaply mediated by adding building codes requiring venting range hoods.
The fact that (as far as I have understood, can't find the link) the vast majority of US homes do not have a hood that vents to the outside is crazy. This should be the default for all new construction.
> Most of the problems with indoor pollution can almost certainly be more cheaply mediated by adding building codes requiring venting range hoods.
I would guess that adding range hoods is more expensive than switching everyone to electric stoves. Existing structures often have no provisions for venting to the outside and would often require very expensive retrofits. It would require opening up the ceiling to add ductwork, potentially building soffits if there isn't enough room in the ceiling, placing a vent in the exterior, etc. Range hoods above a certain CFM also require provisions for make-up air. In new construction, obviously the costs are different, but the cost difference between a gas and electric stove is also minimal.
Venting hoods would solve a lot more problems, though. Cooking on an electric stove or in an electric oven still generates a lot of particulates that I'd rather not subject everyone in the house to. Not to mention making everything smell like whatever I'm cooking for the next day. Personally, I'd rather have induction and a venting range hood.
> The fact that (as far as I have understood, can't find the link) the vast majority of US homes do not have a hood that vents to the outside is crazy. This should be the default for all new construction.
I agree and I think we are starting to see some areas move in this direction. But even if it was mandated today, most people wouldn't have venting range hoods for decades to come because they live in older buildings. I think we need incentives to retrofit buildings with better ventilation.
> I would guess that adding range hoods is more expensive than switching everyone to electric stoves.
Doesn't this depend critically on what percent of gas stove owners have hoods? If 75% do, then you'd have to "fix" 3x as many kitchens if your operation is replacing stoves versus adding ventilation. If only 20% have hoods, then it could make more sense to swap the stoves. But even this doesn't make sense if the article is correct and there is not evidence of gas being worse.
I briefly lived in a place with a gas range and no venting range hood (just a fan that... exhausted inwards?) and I effectively never use the range.
Now I have a large gas range and a large exhaust range hood which is always on whenever the gas is, and for some time after the gas is off. I keep a CO2 monitor next to the stovetop to help indicate general air quality. The air quality is often better than normal (~100ppm above outdoor levels) when I'm cooking (outdoor levels) because the range hood is so efficient.
It would certainly be more effective to not use gas at all, but gas powers a lot of utilities in my home and here it's much cheaper. I'd consider induction if I were on the market for a new range and oven but I'm not. I'd also have to get new cookware and figure out how to keep my coffee warm.
There exists counter top induction ranges, with for example one or two elements, that are very good and everyone should probably own.
The problem with changing the building code is that the response would be much slower than banning the devices. Landlords notoriously don’t update their properties. But when the stove breaks, which it will, they would be forced to buying something that is healthier and more efficient.
That's crazy! Aren't most U.S. homes single family units? Adding a range vent is just a matter of making a 3x10 hole in an exterior wall and sticking a $40 external vent through it.
I just moved mine to the middle of the bottom floor of a 2 storey home. It took some work and there is lots of fire safety code to adhere to but it wasn’t a difficult job if you can do basic jobs around the house. Mine was a 160mm circular steel vent which is typical here.
With an external vent it’s also easy to put the fan on the roof or attic instead of in the hood, to reduce noise inside.
An indoor-only hood with a charcoal filter is the alternative but only reduces odor. I couldn’t imagine not having an external vent from the kitchen. Super cheap but massive quality of life improvement.
The last two places I lived in the US, neither had an exterior wall near the range. The lack of regulation creates quite a bit of debt and makes change even more challenging.
Its a standard contractor job, when you are talking about installing a stove the difference between price in gas stove and induction may just offset the cost. I'd even assert you should have a vent regardless of range type: a lot of cooking methods necessarily create smoke, oily air, extreme steam, spicy air, on and on.
It depends. In my 100 year old home it involved cut a hole in the side of the house, run 2 foot of duct, add hooded vent cover, caulk, done. It was certainly cheaper than the extractor hood/microwave the previous owners installed and foolishly didn’t vent. But it can vary, and some might care about hiding the duct with a little box or something, or painting, which I didn’t bother with.
In most single-family dwellings, it'll probably be cheaper to add a range hood, even if some duct work is necessary, than to get a 240 volt 40-50 amp dedicated line for an induction stove that's as powerful as a gas range. Electric work is not cheap.
That seems reasonable and likely, but it is worth pointing out that there is very little evidence collected about this. And what study has been done of indoor air quality seems to indicate that there are problems, though eliminating natural gas fixtures may not be the best response. What might be a good option would be to study the issue in more detail then come up with possible responses and study those also in order to formulate a response that is effective.
Sorry, thermodynamics would not agree with you. There are very few losses when converting natural gas to high entropy heat. Many losses when converting natural gas to high entropy heat, then to low entropy electricity, transmitting it and finally converting back to high entropy heat.
Of course the carbon footprint of an electric stove could be lower if powered by nuclear, wind or solar.
What kills the efficiency of gas stoves is not converting gas to heat, it's getting the heat into the pan. Induction stoves heat the pan directly. Gas stoves heat the air, which then has to heat the pan. Inductions stoves can be 90% efficient while gas is more like 40% [1]. Even if your electric company is using gas to generate electricity, generation and transmission losses can be low enough that you'd actually use less gas to power an induction stove than a gas stove.
What complicates things somewhat is that the extra energy goes into heating your house (if it is not effectively removed by a venting range hood). In the winter you may not be concerned about that, but in the summer it means you would spend more on air conditioning.
I thought the benefit was in transferring said energy to cookware. Induction just heats up the cookware, while gas heats up the surrounding area as well.
> Most of the problems with indoor pollution can almost certainly be more cheaply mediated by adding building codes requiring venting range hoods.
As houses become increasingly more energy efficient, the cost of providing conditioned air only increases. Venting that air willy nilly to the outside has a real financial and climate cost.
All rangehoods in new construction should be mandated come with sensors that auto adjust the power based on detected particulate levels. With the old school dumb rangehoods, most people never bother constantly touching a bunch of oil smeared buttons to adjust the speed and just have it on full blast the entire time. You save a couple of hundred dollars going with the non-sensor version but its a false economy as it silently increases your HVAC bill and ERV filter replacement costs over time.
i read about environmental regulations that forbid venting because it would be bad for the environment. so there is a tradeof to be made.
the pollution needs to be trapped.
personally i am also bothered by the noise. noise pollution is a problem too.
as much as i prefer cooking with gas myself, burning anything creates pollution with is bad for the environment and for our health. i don't see a way to keep using gas if i want to create a better future
> cheaply mediated by adding building codes requiring venting range hoods.
Do you know how much it costs to add ventilation to a building that wasn't required to have it? It is anything but cheap. A $1000+ induction range is peanuts in comparison.
> It typically costs between $400 and $1,500 to install a range hood, with the average being $750. Installing a ductless range or a replacement range hood with existing ductwork falls on the lower end. Installing a ducted range hood with new ductwork comes in near the high end.
An induction cooker may be more efficient, but if you're burning gas (or coal) to generate electricity to then operate an electric stove, it's more efficient to burn the gas directly in the stove.
Literally, with no context, externalities, and in a lab setting, you are correct.
With the broader societal goal of "never burn fossil fuels when an alternative exists" and "never have to build new infrastructure for residential gas again", it becomes clear we should move away from residential fossil fuel consumption. We must work to cutover individual tools from fossil to electric, and in parallel work to cutover electric generations from fossil to renewable.
The same principle applies to vehicles. I don't care that the electricity for a Tesla comes from coal today - it soon won't.
I hear the rebuttal "ICE engines are very inefficient but a gas burner is different". Yes, but the replacement need is the same, and on the timeframe that people buy large appliances, it would be best if people moved to electric ASAP.
---
That all said, from an air quality concern perspective, I agree the focus should be on proper venting. It is disgusting to me that so few houses and almost no apartments have true external venting for bathrooms and kitchens - why this was done in houses 50 years ago but not today should be an embarrassment to every homebuilder outfit.
Burning gas on a stovetop burner is nowhere near as capable of extracting energy from the resulting heat as a gas turbine power plant or even a modern furnace.
That's simply not true, because you aren't accounting for the large losses in energy between the flames and the food. Induction is significant more efficient at getting the heat to the food.
Doesn't that depend on the delivery mechanism? City gas would be fine but LPG tubes would probably use up more fuel in transport vs existing power lines.
I didn't read the mathematical analysis terribly closely, but this additional point is at least as important. It is also much easier to understand.
> The results are very wrong, but there’s something even worse about this paper: an undeclared conflict of interest. The first two authors, Talor Gruenwald and Brady A. Seals are employees of RMI, Carbon-Free Buildings, which is, according to their website, “a non-partisan, non-profit organization that works to transform global energy systems across the real economy.” Their organization’s aims are to “Raise public awareness of health and climate costs of fossil fuels in buildings.”, “Design and advocate for carbon-free buildings policies in 20 key US states that represent 70% of direct gas use.”, “Retrofit large numbers of existing buildings to be all-electric, grid-interactive, and efficient.”, “Create buildings industry platforms to support dissemination of technology, supply chain development, and business-led interventions.”, “Leverage US successes to influence global supply chains and scale to China, India, Southeast Asia, and Africa.”.
Yeah, it had "this comes from industry lobbyists" written all over it.
The link to "climate" is so obviously strained. We're talking about a minor energy user, and we're not seriously addressing the source of the electricity. We should be talking about electricity generation first. And if we're going to be talking about homes, we should be talking about HVAC, starting with insulation.
I know there's the "we can do both!" argument, and the "this will get us ready for when the grid finally switches to renewables" argument (like electric cars). So maybe this makes sense for new construction?
But in a world with little nuclear and precious few renewables, it just seems premature, and like a lot of noise directed at the wrong things. Our impulse when we want to "save the environment" should not be to run out, buy a bunch of new shit, and send perfectly good appliances to the landfill.
> I know there's the "we can do both!" argument, and the "this will get us ready for when the grid finally switches to renewables" argument
The problem with "do both" arguments is that it doesn't consider the costs and inconvenience of all those little changes on public support. That's particularly true banning gas stoves, because how people cook is deeply intertwined with culture and tradition. My Bangladeshi immigrant relatives think banning gas stoves is preposterous. You're telling them they need to get a high-end induction range to be able to brown meat as well as the cheap propane stoves they learned to cook on back home. (And somehow get their landlord to install a 240v line in the kitchen of their crappy Queens apartment.) They need to unlearn how their mom taught them to cook, and learn new techniques that don't involve lifting the pan off the induction range, new ways of using pressure cookers, etc. You're telling Mexicans they can't directly heat tortillas (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fybeV8uWCQI) or char peppers on the flame. You're telling Asians they can't use woks the way they're used to.
If you're going to step into a hornet's nest like that, the pay off had better be huge! Otherwise you're just setting the environmental movement's political capital on fire for little payoff.
> But in a world with little nuclear and precious few renewables, it just seems premature
Most people aren't talking about banning existing gas stoves in existing homes. But every easily avoidable greenhouse gas emission should be targeted, right now. And the entirety of the infrastructure to bring natural gas to so many homes involves lots of emissions, especially when considering leaks.
I really don't care about the "let's wait until x" arguments. All of these things need to be addressed now. Way too many people don't seem to understand the urgency here.
We are careening down the highway towards a brick wall, and people are saying "I don't want to take my foot off the gas pedal, because I want to keep making stir fry in my wok." Come on.
Not taking sides on this, but this is a great case-study on effective propaganda (n.b. propaganda in a neutral context) It's pretty amazing how this can dovetail with ideology to ride coat-tails so effectively. This is how the CCP and others can so effectively mobilize their population to change course on a dime.
A scientific article was recently published (within the last week IIRC), so it's natural to see a lot of coverage and discussion. The effect of gas stoves on health has been investigated for a long, long time, however.
True, but suddenly, after this new questionable paper appears, the current US administration is now considering a ban on gas stoves in all new construction.
People coordinate. It's, like, what makes us people. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JournoList for example. Or all the climate activists meet at conferences and things.
An acquaintenance in my network is a founder in the climate space. Two years ago he mentioned that for climate activists, eliminating gas stoves is the next target.
About a year later the trickle of bad news about gas stoves began. And it’s somehow all about the health risks of having a gas stove.
I’m not a conspiracy guy but it seems to me like climate activists are driving this message and they know full well you will never convince people to stop cooking over a flame, without resorting to “protect the children” nonsense.
"And now, ladies, one more reason to get out of the kitchen: Cooking may be hazardous to your health. Or so suggests controversial new research into the relationship between the use of gas stoves and respiratory problems in women. The major pollutant released by the combustion of gas is nitrogen dioxide, an odorless, reddish-brown compound that irritates the linings of the respiratory tract and causes shortness of breath."
30 years ago it was radon. Everyone was running out to get detectors lest the ground beneath their houses killed them in their sleep. And who can forget Alar on apples or fat=bad or a thousand others.
So far I have yet to read a comment addressing the actual analysis of the studies by the author of the article. It's all: "Everyone knows gas is bad; it's axiomatic and self-evident, and anyone who goes to the trouble of actually looking at the source data and run analysis on it is a moron."
What appears to have happened here is that a new CPSC commissioner --- the CPSC has 5 of them --- gave an interview to Bloomberg laying out his case against gas stoves. That's unsurprising: there has long been strong case against gas stoves! But the CPSC chair shot the whole thing down right away.
Bloomberg ran an article that made it seem as if CPSC might put a ban proposal forward by the end of this year:
Curiously... certain twitteratti and other influencers got right on that boat on cue to promulgate how bad gas ranges are. So one commish starts a snowball that grows into an avalanche...
So you're right, if it were only one commish in the forest no one hears... but apparently many heard his signal and hit the gas --and that sudden lurch alerted people not on that wavelength that something weird was going on. That's the hubbub, not that one commish has some opinion.
How big is the climate impact of gas stoves, anyway? Subjectively it seems like excess emissions from a stove would be a rounding error compared to things like automobiles and manufacturing.
Natural gas leaks are responsible for way more greenhouse gas effects than stove CO2. That is, it's not the stoves, it's the transmission infrastructure.
I don't know of anyone measuring it but the service lines and infrastructure providing gas leak GHG's in the process all over the place. The stoves themselves leak a little.
Modern induction stoves are far superior anyway you would be doing yourself a favour upgrading. That gas is somehow "qualitatively better," is propaganda from the gas companies to keep people choosing gas. "Now you're cooking with gas," is from a gas propaganda short aired decades ago... to keep people choosing gas when people were starting to convert to electric.
There's no good reason I can think of to keep using gas stoves.
I believe new construction should not utilize natural gas at all.
Your argument is a bit disengenious though. The slogan came about in the 30s-40s and yes it was with competition of electric stoves but traditional electric stoves suck. Induction only became reliable in the past few years, before that the components were not as reliable, we had many issues with component failure in our kitchen across various brands.
I can think of a handful of reasons to use a NG/LP burner over induction, mostly around heavy searing and stir frying but certainly new residential builds should not include them, easier to have separate LP hob setup.
My main issue with electric (which I have) and induction ranges is a warped pan becomes an issue immediately; it'll wobble and not make proper contact with the surface. Gas is a lot more forgiving in this regard.
The Consumer Product Safety Commission tries to figure out which products have unnecessary risk for the consumer and apply regulation to the manufacturers. It’s very similar to what the NHTSA does for automobiles.
Not accusing parent comment of this, but there’s a flawed attitude that consumers can and will do full research before making a buying decision, and that the “free market” will sort itself out that way.
That expectation is unreasonable because forcing the individual citizen to undertake to avoid dangerous products both doesn’t work (because people don’t do that level of research for everything) and reduces individual freedom (because the requirement for work is being foisted onto the person).
I’m not really sure of the validity of this stove essay because it’s a wall of statistics, and I’m not arguing that all product regulations are good, but regulations do have a really important role in fostering a healthy and free society.
Yeah, on the one hand there is public good, on the other hand, this is like regulating cigarette smoke in your own home. I suppose they can regulate manufacturers but they cannot go and inspect your home for violations that would violate the 4th amendment to the American constitution.
That blog doesn't read well I'm afraid. First of all, in the title it's something about climate, to then switch to Asthma. (And ctrl-F there is no mention of climate in the original paper.) Then there is some ranting about "activists" to which I will come back in a moment.
Afterwards the post identifies flaws in several studies the meta-analysis did not use correctly. I would at that point expect some intuition what went wrong, instead of just namedropping some method without much further explanation. The style written here, including dropping some studies in the reanalysis smacks of cherry-picking. (Not saying that they did, I didn't do enough work. It is just I don't expect that doing that work is a wise use of my time.)
And finally ranting about "activism." In general the expectation of a asthma research as an activist is, that the activism is motivated (or at least not in conflict) with a deep understanding of asthma.
Ironically this reads as cherry picking. The author's criteria is explicit
> only touching on those sources that have to do with asthma and gas stoves
The tie in to climate happens at the end of the article -- where the authors have a conflict of interest (involvement with organizations seeking zero carbon buildings) and regulators near-immediately use this as a reason to move towards banning gas stoves for consumer safety.
Which is absurd -- if the causal relationship between gas ranges and asthma were around 11% this would be apparent.
The activism in this case is not about asthma, it's about weaponizing asthma.
Fun thing is that one of the authors of the MDPI piece doen't seem to realize that there's a problem if you add up a bunch of PAFs and get something over 100%.
How, exactly, does anything cause more asthma than actually exists without the stats being bogus?
The blog post clearly states what the link to climate activism is according to the blog author. The conflict of interest of the meta study authors and suspected opposition to gas stoves on climate grounds by the regulator is clearly stated.
Calling this "climate activism" cheapens the phrase; that's not what this is. This is industry lobbying from a bunch of people who want to sell electric appliances. They'll be perfectly happy if these things are powered with heaps of bituminous.
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It's just weird to me that people seem shocked, and weirder still that people reject the idea as preposterous. I mean, we live in a country which had lead in paint and gasoline making a notable dent in the population for decades. We lay pipes to deliver a flammable gas to houses to which a noxious smell has been added so that we might notice if we're being poisoned by it.
What about this does not seem outlandish?
I grew up with gas stoves off and on, but I don't have one now. When I want to cook with fire, I use the propane grill on the patio. I'll be the first to admit it's not as nice to warm up tortillas on a flat electric surface as it was on either a gas burner or even an electric coil, but that's a minor thing.
And no one is even talking about outdoor gas grills or natural gas heaters, because those are ventilated. CPSC is asking, why not natural gas stoves? Why don't we require these to be safe? This seems completely logical to me.
There's even people who are asking if the feds are going to take their gas stoves by way of natural gas ban. Like, no one has busted down my grandparents' house to confiscate their lead paint walls in their basement. I feel like I'm going crazy.
As the article makes clear, there is not evidence that they are unsafe.
> no one has busted down my grandparents' house to confiscate their lead paint walls in their basement.
Can you not see that it is much easier to seize a stove than to seize lead paint on walls?
Cities have already begun outlawing gas appliances in new construction. People who are concerned about the CPSC rumblings are justifiably worried. If you don't like a city's rules, you can move. But if the CPSC takes action, you can't just move to another city.
Now do electricity.
Most of the problems with indoor pollution can almost certainly be more cheaply mediated by adding building codes requiring venting range hoods.
The fact that (as far as I have understood, can't find the link) the vast majority of US homes do not have a hood that vents to the outside is crazy. This should be the default for all new construction.
I would guess that adding range hoods is more expensive than switching everyone to electric stoves. Existing structures often have no provisions for venting to the outside and would often require very expensive retrofits. It would require opening up the ceiling to add ductwork, potentially building soffits if there isn't enough room in the ceiling, placing a vent in the exterior, etc. Range hoods above a certain CFM also require provisions for make-up air. In new construction, obviously the costs are different, but the cost difference between a gas and electric stove is also minimal.
Venting hoods would solve a lot more problems, though. Cooking on an electric stove or in an electric oven still generates a lot of particulates that I'd rather not subject everyone in the house to. Not to mention making everything smell like whatever I'm cooking for the next day. Personally, I'd rather have induction and a venting range hood.
> The fact that (as far as I have understood, can't find the link) the vast majority of US homes do not have a hood that vents to the outside is crazy. This should be the default for all new construction.
I agree and I think we are starting to see some areas move in this direction. But even if it was mandated today, most people wouldn't have venting range hoods for decades to come because they live in older buildings. I think we need incentives to retrofit buildings with better ventilation.
Doesn't this depend critically on what percent of gas stove owners have hoods? If 75% do, then you'd have to "fix" 3x as many kitchens if your operation is replacing stoves versus adding ventilation. If only 20% have hoods, then it could make more sense to swap the stoves. But even this doesn't make sense if the article is correct and there is not evidence of gas being worse.
Now I have a large gas range and a large exhaust range hood which is always on whenever the gas is, and for some time after the gas is off. I keep a CO2 monitor next to the stovetop to help indicate general air quality. The air quality is often better than normal (~100ppm above outdoor levels) when I'm cooking (outdoor levels) because the range hood is so efficient.
It would certainly be more effective to not use gas at all, but gas powers a lot of utilities in my home and here it's much cheaper. I'd consider induction if I were on the market for a new range and oven but I'm not. I'd also have to get new cookware and figure out how to keep my coffee warm.
There exists counter top induction ranges, with for example one or two elements, that are very good and everyone should probably own.
I'm sure they're nice, but try telling that to a New Yorker. Counter space is at a premium.
With an external vent it’s also easy to put the fan on the roof or attic instead of in the hood, to reduce noise inside.
An indoor-only hood with a charcoal filter is the alternative but only reduces odor. I couldn’t imagine not having an external vent from the kitchen. Super cheap but massive quality of life improvement.
Sorry, thermodynamics would not agree with you. There are very few losses when converting natural gas to high entropy heat. Many losses when converting natural gas to high entropy heat, then to low entropy electricity, transmitting it and finally converting back to high entropy heat.
Of course the carbon footprint of an electric stove could be lower if powered by nuclear, wind or solar.
What complicates things somewhat is that the extra energy goes into heating your house (if it is not effectively removed by a venting range hood). In the winter you may not be concerned about that, but in the summer it means you would spend more on air conditioning.
[1] https://www.aceee.org/files/proceedings/2014/data/papers/9-7...
Deleted Comment
As houses become increasingly more energy efficient, the cost of providing conditioned air only increases. Venting that air willy nilly to the outside has a real financial and climate cost.
All rangehoods in new construction should be mandated come with sensors that auto adjust the power based on detected particulate levels. With the old school dumb rangehoods, most people never bother constantly touching a bunch of oil smeared buttons to adjust the speed and just have it on full blast the entire time. You save a couple of hundred dollars going with the non-sensor version but its a false economy as it silently increases your HVAC bill and ERV filter replacement costs over time.
personally i am also bothered by the noise. noise pollution is a problem too.
as much as i prefer cooking with gas myself, burning anything creates pollution with is bad for the environment and for our health. i don't see a way to keep using gas if i want to create a better future
Do you know how much it costs to add ventilation to a building that wasn't required to have it? It is anything but cheap. A $1000+ induction range is peanuts in comparison.
> It typically costs between $400 and $1,500 to install a range hood, with the average being $750. Installing a ductless range or a replacement range hood with existing ductwork falls on the lower end. Installing a ducted range hood with new ductwork comes in near the high end.
With the broader societal goal of "never burn fossil fuels when an alternative exists" and "never have to build new infrastructure for residential gas again", it becomes clear we should move away from residential fossil fuel consumption. We must work to cutover individual tools from fossil to electric, and in parallel work to cutover electric generations from fossil to renewable.
The same principle applies to vehicles. I don't care that the electricity for a Tesla comes from coal today - it soon won't.
I hear the rebuttal "ICE engines are very inefficient but a gas burner is different". Yes, but the replacement need is the same, and on the timeframe that people buy large appliances, it would be best if people moved to electric ASAP.
---
That all said, from an air quality concern perspective, I agree the focus should be on proper venting. It is disgusting to me that so few houses and almost no apartments have true external venting for bathrooms and kitchens - why this was done in houses 50 years ago but not today should be an embarrassment to every homebuilder outfit.
Couldn't you use that logic and say no one should be building cars with ICE, period?
> The results are very wrong, but there’s something even worse about this paper: an undeclared conflict of interest. The first two authors, Talor Gruenwald and Brady A. Seals are employees of RMI, Carbon-Free Buildings, which is, according to their website, “a non-partisan, non-profit organization that works to transform global energy systems across the real economy.” Their organization’s aims are to “Raise public awareness of health and climate costs of fossil fuels in buildings.”, “Design and advocate for carbon-free buildings policies in 20 key US states that represent 70% of direct gas use.”, “Retrofit large numbers of existing buildings to be all-electric, grid-interactive, and efficient.”, “Create buildings industry platforms to support dissemination of technology, supply chain development, and business-led interventions.”, “Leverage US successes to influence global supply chains and scale to China, India, Southeast Asia, and Africa.”.
> Carbon-Free Buildings
is just another push to remove alternative energy sources from the homes of individuals.
Part of the growing smart meter control movement currently exemplified by Nest thermostats.
It's so deeply deeply bizarre. Am I the only one wondering not about the topic but about how these topics occur?
The link to "climate" is so obviously strained. We're talking about a minor energy user, and we're not seriously addressing the source of the electricity. We should be talking about electricity generation first. And if we're going to be talking about homes, we should be talking about HVAC, starting with insulation.
I know there's the "we can do both!" argument, and the "this will get us ready for when the grid finally switches to renewables" argument (like electric cars). So maybe this makes sense for new construction?
But in a world with little nuclear and precious few renewables, it just seems premature, and like a lot of noise directed at the wrong things. Our impulse when we want to "save the environment" should not be to run out, buy a bunch of new shit, and send perfectly good appliances to the landfill.
The problem with "do both" arguments is that it doesn't consider the costs and inconvenience of all those little changes on public support. That's particularly true banning gas stoves, because how people cook is deeply intertwined with culture and tradition. My Bangladeshi immigrant relatives think banning gas stoves is preposterous. You're telling them they need to get a high-end induction range to be able to brown meat as well as the cheap propane stoves they learned to cook on back home. (And somehow get their landlord to install a 240v line in the kitchen of their crappy Queens apartment.) They need to unlearn how their mom taught them to cook, and learn new techniques that don't involve lifting the pan off the induction range, new ways of using pressure cookers, etc. You're telling Mexicans they can't directly heat tortillas (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fybeV8uWCQI) or char peppers on the flame. You're telling Asians they can't use woks the way they're used to.
If you're going to step into a hornet's nest like that, the pay off had better be huge! Otherwise you're just setting the environmental movement's political capital on fire for little payoff.
Most people aren't talking about banning existing gas stoves in existing homes. But every easily avoidable greenhouse gas emission should be targeted, right now. And the entirety of the infrastructure to bring natural gas to so many homes involves lots of emissions, especially when considering leaks.
I really don't care about the "let's wait until x" arguments. All of these things need to be addressed now. Way too many people don't seem to understand the urgency here.
We are careening down the highway towards a brick wall, and people are saying "I don't want to take my foot off the gas pedal, because I want to keep making stir fry in my wok." Come on.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/biden-is-coming-for-your-gas-st...
The Inflation Reduction Act, passed last year in the US, has rebates to pay for 50% or 100% of the cost to convert a gas stove to an electric one
That means that there are people who stand to make a lot of money by convincing you to go electric at no cost to you :)
About a year later the trickle of bad news about gas stoves began. And it’s somehow all about the health risks of having a gas stove.
I’m not a conspiracy guy but it seems to me like climate activists are driving this message and they know full well you will never convince people to stop cooking over a flame, without resorting to “protect the children” nonsense.
Nah. Here's an article from 1996. (The "now, ladies" dates it pretty well to sometime outside the last decade, heh.)
https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1996-04-02-ls-54048-...
"And now, ladies, one more reason to get out of the kitchen: Cooking may be hazardous to your health. Or so suggests controversial new research into the relationship between the use of gas stoves and respiratory problems in women. The major pollutant released by the combustion of gas is nitrogen dioxide, an odorless, reddish-brown compound that irritates the linings of the respiratory tract and causes shortness of breath."
So far I have yet to read a comment addressing the actual analysis of the studies by the author of the article. It's all: "Everyone knows gas is bad; it's axiomatic and self-evident, and anyone who goes to the trouble of actually looking at the source data and run analysis on it is a moron."
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Why is it a surprise that we switched to gas?
https://twitter.com/Ben_Geman/status/1613188324491137031
What appears to have happened here is that a new CPSC commissioner --- the CPSC has 5 of them --- gave an interview to Bloomberg laying out his case against gas stoves. That's unsurprising: there has long been strong case against gas stoves! But the CPSC chair shot the whole thing down right away.
Bloomberg ran an article that made it seem as if CPSC might put a ban proposal forward by the end of this year:
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-01-09/us-safety...
... but that is not happening.
So you're right, if it were only one commish in the forest no one hears... but apparently many heard his signal and hit the gas --and that sudden lurch alerted people not on that wavelength that something weird was going on. That's the hubbub, not that one commish has some opinion.
Modern induction stoves are far superior anyway you would be doing yourself a favour upgrading. That gas is somehow "qualitatively better," is propaganda from the gas companies to keep people choosing gas. "Now you're cooking with gas," is from a gas propaganda short aired decades ago... to keep people choosing gas when people were starting to convert to electric.
There's no good reason I can think of to keep using gas stoves.
Tortillas and marshmallows. Not enough of a reason to keep a gas stove really, but it's traditional to some people.
Your argument is a bit disengenious though. The slogan came about in the 30s-40s and yes it was with competition of electric stoves but traditional electric stoves suck. Induction only became reliable in the past few years, before that the components were not as reliable, we had many issues with component failure in our kitchen across various brands.
I can think of a handful of reasons to use a NG/LP burner over induction, mostly around heavy searing and stir frying but certainly new residential builds should not include them, easier to have separate LP hob setup.
Where does it end?
Will they inspect every home for mold next? Force you to install CO detectors? Connect them to a national monitoring system?
Not accusing parent comment of this, but there’s a flawed attitude that consumers can and will do full research before making a buying decision, and that the “free market” will sort itself out that way.
That expectation is unreasonable because forcing the individual citizen to undertake to avoid dangerous products both doesn’t work (because people don’t do that level of research for everything) and reduces individual freedom (because the requirement for work is being foisted onto the person).
I’m not really sure of the validity of this stove essay because it’s a wall of statistics, and I’m not arguing that all product regulations are good, but regulations do have a really important role in fostering a healthy and free society.
Similar with the exception that lead paint is actually bad for you.
Afterwards the post identifies flaws in several studies the meta-analysis did not use correctly. I would at that point expect some intuition what went wrong, instead of just namedropping some method without much further explanation. The style written here, including dropping some studies in the reanalysis smacks of cherry-picking. (Not saying that they did, I didn't do enough work. It is just I don't expect that doing that work is a wise use of my time.)
And finally ranting about "activism." In general the expectation of a asthma research as an activist is, that the activism is motivated (or at least not in conflict) with a deep understanding of asthma.
> only touching on those sources that have to do with asthma and gas stoves
The tie in to climate happens at the end of the article -- where the authors have a conflict of interest (involvement with organizations seeking zero carbon buildings) and regulators near-immediately use this as a reason to move towards banning gas stoves for consumer safety.
Which is absurd -- if the causal relationship between gas ranges and asthma were around 11% this would be apparent.
The activism in this case is not about asthma, it's about weaponizing asthma.
How, exactly, does anything cause more asthma than actually exists without the stats being bogus?
https://twitter.com/bradytoday/status/1610639235505336322