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Posted by Doriell 1 day ago

Switching to electric stoves can dramatically cut indoor air pollution (2025)(news.stanford.edu)
66 points | 116 commentspage 2
stevenkkim 21 hours ago|
I feel like it should seem obvious gas stoves create unhealthy pollution in an indoor environment.

What is less obvious and what I would personally like to know is how much pollution remains if you have a hood above your gas stove that exhausts outdoors that is operating while cooking.

micromacrofoot 21 hours ago|
some definitely does linger and most consumer kitchen hoods are not strong enough, you can get a pm2.5 meter and find out yourself... in my experience a couple hours

the craziest thing is no hood at all, if you cook once a day that stuff lingers all day unless you open a bunch of windows

gpm 21 hours ago||
Along the same lines - replacing gas stoves with electric ones is effective for treating asthma:

Article: https://theconversation.com/replacing-gas-stoves-with-electr...

Underling Study: https://www.jaci-inpractice.org/article/S2213-2198(26)00537-...

its-summertime 21 hours ago||
The paper: https://doi.org/10.1093/pnasnexus/pgaf341

The numbers:

[...]

We estimate average total residential long-term NO2 exposure across the United States to be ∼10 ppbv for people who own a gas stove (∼18 ppbv or more for households in the top 5% of gas burned while cooking) and ∼8 ppbv from total outdoor exposure for those with electric stoves, which cause no additional NO2 exposure.

[...]

Stratifying exposure by gas stove use intensity (i.e. by amount of gas burned while cooking, [...]), we find that people in households burning the 5th, 50th, and 95th percentiles of fuel nationally on average are exposed to 0.03 (95% CI: 0.01–0.07) ppbv, 1.7 (95% CI: 0.8–3.5) ppbv, and 10.3 (95% CI: 4.8–21.7) ppbv, respectively, of additional NO2 exposure from using their gas or propane stoves.

[...]

its-summertime 21 hours ago|
It seems they considered water boiling in their numbers, which makes this estimation very non-portable across countries (e.g. countries where gas hobs are used, but also electric kettles are used)
Spooky23 21 hours ago||
I’ll be frank - I don’t buy this stuff because there are well funded agendas behind it. We find ourselves in an era where electrical utilities have shifted from widow & orphan dividend stocks to growth companies… and shockingly the environmental people are fully mobilized with gas everywhere.

Asthma is clearly correlated to urban areas with exposure to various pollutants. We’d see those same clusters in suburban populations with gas stoves if these indoor pollutants were elevating risk.

I live in New York. The utility in my region successfully lobbied to hike delivery rates for electricity by 40%. My spring electric bill is $300/mo, as much as my peak August or January utility bill a decade ago. 3-5 years ago, various foundations were bussing hundreds of protestors to lobby for climate change legislation that is essentially outlawing new natural gas service. They also prevented construction of pipelines to serve NYC and New England with additional capacity. All new construction must be electric only.

rsynnott 3 minutes ago||
> I’ll be frank - I don’t buy this stuff because there are well funded agendas behind it.

... Hold on, you're worried about the vast economic/influence powers of the domestic appliance industry... but not the oil and gas industry?

foco_tubi 21 hours ago|||
Observational evidence is confounded by numerous variables, to say that “urban centers have clusters of asthma and rural centers don’t” ignores all of the extant factors of the urban environment. Studies have found that gas stoves could play a role in development of childhood asthma. It may not scale to the magnitude of that seen in urban cores, with the addition of other sources of air pollution, but it’s weird to discount the studies entirely as a propaganda campaign by Con Ed.
Forgeties79 19 hours ago||
There are well funded agendas behind literally any study that makes it in front of you. An agenda is not inherently bad or corrupt. Even if it works to their advantage, if the health information is accurate, then you need to take it seriously. Your lungs do not care who funded it.

I have an agenda to better my life. It’s important context, but it doesn’t make me inherently corrupt or untrustworthy, let alone wrong.

To really drive this home: You have an agenda to advance your career and better your life. I would never dismiss you outright simply because of that.

TL;DR: “It’s funded by a GROUP with an AGENDA” is a lame, invalid, hand wavy excuse to ignore substance. Context matters, but the substance is ultimately what should be assessed.

Edit: I’d also be curious to see sources for “New York can build electric only” and all these bussing claims (mind you bussing protestors is not a bad thing, it depends if they are actually involved or paid actors, which oil and gas companies have no problem using - https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2018/05/05/608785751...)

Spooky23 14 hours ago||
I don’t think that bussing protestors is a problem per se, but it’s useful as an assessment of how much cash is behind an issue. I used to be an officer of a union that did that regularly. It was very obvious what our agenda was and how it was paid for.

I don’t like environmental activists in general. They tend to attract well meaning people focused on a narrow aspect of an issue and pivot to a broader or specific policy goal.

I resent people in warm and cozy grandfathered in buildings in NYC making engineering decisions for me. Air side heat pumps are not ideal for upstate, and it’s making it impossible to build housing units.

Forgeties79 14 hours ago||
> but it’s useful as an assessment of how much cash is behind an issue

But is this inherently a problem?

You’re getting mad at a caricature. Unless you have some sources showing there is some larger issue with “bussing in protesters,” I’m sorry I just don’t think your argument holds any water. An organization mounting resources to organize people who are legitimately interested in their cause is not a bad thing, and as someone who’s worked with a union I’m a surprised at this take. I’m sure people said the same thing about MLK JR’s million man march. Do you think those people all just paid for a ticket and showed up?

Obama’s campaign did “souls to the polls,” which was so effective republicans banned voting on Sunday in several states lol. But ultimately, it was a completely fair play and helped people exercise their vote. People oppose these things because they don’t want certain people voting, plain and simple. Same goes for protesting. Somehow protestors are always “doing it wrong,” it just so happens critics also disagree with the causes by total coincidence.

6DM 21 hours ago||
I didn’t see it in the article, but I wonder if this is still the case if people who properly vent before turning on their gas stoves and continue to vent for a minute after cooking is finished.
Schiendelman 15 hours ago|
Almost no residential units have good venting. Even the better ones are good for the back burners, but the offgassing from the front ones is mostly uncaught.
warmedcookie 21 hours ago||
Interesting. I would like to know if central heating (gas) has similar effects.
alex43578 21 hours ago||
If it’s properly vented, no it wouldn’t. Huge difference between just running an open flame in the middle of your kitchen and HVAC applications.
fhdkweig 21 hours ago|||
Technology Connections did a video (because of course he did) on how gas furnaces work. The short of it is that the flame is contained inside of metal tubes and never mixes with indoor air. No exhaust gases can leak into the breathable air.

https://youtu.be/lBVvnDfW2Xo?t=266

rsynnott 4 hours ago||
Generally, a gas central heating boiler should never exhaust inside the home _at all_. If it's doing so, that's problem.
hagbard_c 12 hours ago||
I've used natural gas stoves, propane stoves, petrol stoves, kerosene stoves, naphta stoves, spirit-burning stoves, resistive electrical stoves, 'halogen' electric stoves, induction stoves, campfires and wood-burning stoves. I cook nearly every day for our family of 4 on... the wood-burning stove. It is the most powerful one of the lot, the most versatile and the most reliable. I can cook when the power has failed, I don't need infrastructure other than a way to gather wood of which we have plenty seeing how as we're living on a farm in the Swedish countryside, the thing heats the house while I'm cooking, in combination with a wok it is the clear winner to make anything stir-fried while it is just as useful to slow-cook rice pudding in winter time. The resistive electric stove next to the wood-burning one only sees use as a parking area for the stack of cast-iron pans I use. The induction plates sometimes see use when I'm cooking outside but otherwise I leave them be 'cause they're just not strong enough to my taste.

Wood. That's where it's at, at least for those living like we do. I understand that it won't work for those living in densely populated areas but for those who live in the sticks I'd say get yourself a wood-burning stove and learn how to use it. I suppose Stanford won't approve but that's their problem...

ascii0eks84 22 hours ago||
This should be clear as day to anyone - burning causes toxic fumes.
jMyles 21 hours ago||
I love my induction cooktop. I despise - in fact loathe - the touch interface, which becomes useless with the slightest spill of oil (and can thus be stuck on high until the interface is sufficiently wiped off and dried).

I have the Gasland IH77BFH. If someone has made a hack to modify this by adding physical dials, I'd be tickled.

Schiendelman 15 hours ago|
There are a ton with physical dials!
jMyles 15 hours ago||
Do you have one in particular you'd suggest? That matches the performance, cooling, and profile of mine?
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