Most of the scientific claims seem pretty uncontroversial to me. It's true NOx is bad for respiratory health. It's almost certainly true that gas cooking produces NOx, and higher levels of CO2 and probably some carbon monoxide as well. It comes on top of the VOCs from the cooking itself.
Public health is probably a sufficient reason to phase out gas for cooking wherever we can.
Citation needed please for the health effects being bogus. NOx emissions from gas stoves seem to be consistently reported as quite high indeed. For example:
One extra thing about both NO and NO2 that the narrative on this really discounts (but you touched on) is that they are both fairly reactive, so they tend not to linger in the air. This makes them damaging to whatever environment the end up in, but a lot less likely to build up to toxic levels than stable molecules like CO and CO2. The dose makes the poison, and these ones are hard to get in high dosages.
And yeah, the cheap residential gas ovens really suck, and likely put out a lot more of the bad stuff (both CH4 and CO, but also probably the NOx compounds too) than stovetops. Mixed fuel is now the hot thing in ranges: gas burners and electric ovens.
While I agree that gas stoves put out more VOCs than most people would imagine, the fact that humans have been cooking inside on either wood or gas stoves for many hundreds of years, gives testament to the idea that it can’t really be /that/ detrimental to human health. Sure it would be better without them, but I’d imagine that the health gains would be marginal at best.
As an aside, it's important to keep in mind that while stopping nat gas cooking will remove NOx and benzene from our air, we'll all still benefit from ventilation to remove the particulates and VOCs that are inherent to heating food.
What about the last four decades of studies that have indicated people who grow up around gas cooking have a far greater likelihood of severe respiratory ailments?
Cooking of any kind will cause all sorts of pollutants to spike, including PM2.5 and finer particles.
Does elevated NO2 from gas stoves warrant banning them from buildings? They are great for certain methods of cooking, and can be used sparingly.
In a modern building in a modern city, where just baseline NO2 routinely exceeds 30+ ppb (with CO2, PM2.5, formaldehydes, etc. also reaching unsafe levels), an activated carbon air filter alongside a HEPA filter is necessary to compensate for pollutants out- and indoors anyway—and AFAIK a good air filter setup also lowers nitrogen dioxide levels.
I don't have studies to back this claim up directly and I think this is one of those areas that are hard to study because I am assuming it would require recording participants through their lifetime. I do think this will be something that seems obvious once we do look back at it. Here is my line of thinking, apologies it is not well put together and is only a stream of thoughts.
1. We now accept that cooking with wood causes lung disease/cancer. There are studies that show an increased rate of lung issues with women in developing countries due to inhalation of smoke.
2. We are increasingly seeing studies that show inhaling any pollutants is not safe/healthy. I am not fear mongering about it but I do try to be more aware because of this.
3. When I cook in my kitchen I see pm2 and voc measurments spike almost instantly even on measurement devices in a bedroom across the house. This is without having central air on at the time. Our home is 20ish years old and not modern air tight. I once burned some bread in the oven slightly, just the smallest bit of visible smoke came out of the oven, readings spiked and stayed that way for 2hours even with two medium size hepa filters on.
4. I originally came to my conclusion prior to the more recent studies showing indoor natural gas combustion can be an issue. Originall I was more concerned with pollutants that come from the cooking process as it is very hard to ventilate inside a house. When I originally read some of these studies and it appeared that the main issue was burners that were combusting improperly.
So its mostly my own extrapolation based on what has been seen in populations that are exposed to pollutants on a regular basis. I could be overthinking it but it makes sense to me that its best to reduce exposure where possible. I cook outside and it keeps both the smells and the pollutants out of the home. And I also just make my original statement with the functionality of chinese style apartment kitchens. The kitchen is almost like a wetroom in a sense but for smells. It closes off from the rest of the unit and is open to the outside so you can do whatever you want cooking wise and not impact the rest of the unit.
"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."
I've seen several articles recently highlighting problems with gas stoves. Some of these are environmental critiques--gas needs to be retired to deal with climate change. Another critique is around indoor air quality:
"On the air-quality front, at least, the evidence against gas stoves is damning. Although cooking food on any stove produces particulate pollutants, burning gas produces nitrogen dioxide, or NO2,, and sometimes also carbon monoxide, according to Brett Singer, a scientist at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory who studies indoor air quality. Brief exposures to air with high concentrations of NO2 can lead to coughing and wheezing for people with asthma or other respiratory issues, and prolonged exposure to the gas can contribute to the development of those conditions, according to the EPA. Homes with gas stoves can contain approximately 50 to 400 percent higher concentrations of NO2 than homes with electric stoves, often resulting in levels of indoor air pollution that would be illegal outdoors, according to a recent report by the Rocky Mountain Institute, a sustainability think tank. “NO2 is invisible and odorless, which is one of the reasons it’s gone so unnoticed,” Brady Seals, a lead author on the report, says."
Author also mentions pollution from the gas furnace though, so no cooking involved. But you're right: would be interesting to know amounts of NO2 released by frying though.
As someone who cooks with gas, I have a hard time believing that any dormant emissions from the stove when not in use are more significant than emissions from searing food itself… especially since natural gas has odors added to it to ensure we smell it.
The recent natural-gas stove panic is about NOx emissions, not carbon monoxide.
I have not seen any media saying stoves are problematic because they cause carbon monoxide buildup in the house.
There was a California report about benzene being in the natural gas and potentially making it into the home environment, but it didn't seem like there's much energy going into that angle.
Methane (at the volumes we're taking about) does not have significant health effects; the paper you link speaks mostly about its effect as a greenhouse gas.
And I'm measuring my NO2 and it's within safe levels. So should I believe you or my own lying eyes?
Granted, a lot of this may be due to other effects (e.g, ventilation) and I agree my next stovetop won't be gas.
But clearly some setups are less problematic than others and it's not the case that everyone is poisoning themselves unless they go buy an electric tomorrow.
>I wonder what are the particulate emissions of gas cooking? Is it entirely sootless?
Yes. It is entirely sootless[1]. There are no health concerns with gas cooking. There are certainly related concerns, like gas leaks leading to fires or CO poisoning - but of course this isn't the reason for the ban.
[1] Kind of ... all cooking (i.e. the act of applying heat to particles) results in some level of 'harmful' emissions either from the burning of fuel itself, or from the act of heating food particles. In the grand scheme of things, gas stove emissions are just not a big deal.
- "Environmental epidemiologist Josiah Kephart studies pollution from cooking. In this 2021 photo he measured nitrogen dioxide levels from cooking in his kitchen. At right: A nitrogen dioxide air monitor shows 0.159 parts per million, or 159 parts per billion. That's above the World Health Organization hourly guideline of 106 ppb. Kephart has since replaced the gas stove with an electric one."
That's *barely* above the 1-hour guideline, and as evident in that photo it's an (illegal?) stove with no hood or ventilation. This just reinforces my prior beliefs—that this is a complete non-issue for normal, code-compliant stoves.
(Was NPR unable to take a photo of a NOx meter next to a normal stove?)
Many of the comments here just don't care about the potential harmful effects called out in the article. But I think there are two important questions:
1."Should I be worried about Nitrogen Dioxide from my stove?"
2."In the absence of trustworthy, detailed research, how would I know to be worried about Nitrogen Dioxide?"
I feel the focus should be on the second question -- "big stove" seems to have prevented us from making an informed decision on the topic, and that should make us all concerned regardless of the particular dangers of Nitrogen Dioxide. Personally, I'd like to know whether it matters for my health. With the existing data, I can't tell.
I’m truly interested in data about the relative quantity of no2 produced by stovetop vs other sources. If that information is contained in the featured article I missed it.
My understanding, from something I’d read previously, was that no2 was not a big concern, and that amongst sources of no2, gas ranges were less of an issue than heaters and water heaters.
What I know is that no2 is higher outdoors. I just wonder if the danger isn’t being overstated, relative to other dangers.
For the record I favor a law requiring venting in rental units and new home construction. I wish that was what got passed because it seems like the health impacts of nonventilated cooktops of any sort, including electric, is a larger concern.
"In addition to the environmental concerns raised by such widespread use of natural gas, some health experts have also argued that using it in the home, especially when cooking, may pose a health risk to consumers."
Spending a day walking around NYC is probably worse for my health than years of gas stove usage. Every time I leave the city I feel like I need a shower from all the grime and who knows what I feel caked on me.
Public health is probably a sufficient reason to phase out gas for cooking wherever we can.
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